Got to read this book!

This is really long but Tim Challies from www.challies.com is reading through this book and giving a summary each week and this weeks is so good i'm going to have to order this book!

The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment (V) by Burroughs
"Having dedicated three chapters to "The Mystery of Contentment," Burroughs turns now to two chapters that explain "How Christ Teaches Contentment." I had taken this to be a look at Christ's modeling of contentment through his life and ministry, but this is not quite it. Instead, he shows how Christ teaches contentment through the Word and through the Spirit. In the first of these chapters he offers six ways Christ does this: The Lesson of Self-Denial. "Just as no-one can be a scholar unless he learns his ABC, so you must learn the lesson of self-denial or you can never become a scholar in Christ's school, and be learned in this mystery of contentment." He looks at ways that Christ teaches self-denial and how each brings about contentment. 1) Such a person learns to know that he is nothing. 2) I deserve nothing. 3) I can do nothing. 4) I am so vile that I cannot of myself receive any good. 5) We can make use of nothing when we have it, if God but withdraws himself. 6) We are worse than nothing. 7) If we perish we will be no loss. 8) Through self-denial the soul comes to rejoice and take satisfaction in all God's ways. (Has anyone else noticed that he has a bad habit of flipping between the first person singular and the first person plural? Where was his editor?)
Here is one of my favorite quotes from this section: "Christ teaches the soul this, so that, as in the presence of God on a real sight of itself, it can say: 'Lord, I am nothing, Lord, I deserve nothing, Lord, I can do nothing, I can receive nothing, and can make use of nothing, I am worse than nothing, and if I come to nothing and perish I will be no loss at all and therefore is it such a great thing for me to be cut short here?' A man who is little in his own eyes will account every affliction as little, and every mercy as great."
The Vanity of the Creature. Let me just quote Burroughs here as he uses one of his trademark illustrations: "Many men think that when they are troubled and have not got contentment it is because they have but a little in the world, and that if they had more then they should be content. That is just as if a man were hungry, and to satisfy his craving stomach he should gape and hold open his mouth to take in the wind, and then should think that the reason why he is not satisfied is because he has not got enough of the wind; no, the reason is because the thing is not suitable to a craving stomach. Yet there is really the same madness in the world: the wind which a man takes in by gaping will as soon satisfy a craving stomach ready to starve, as all the comforts in the world can satisfy a soul who knows what true happiness means. You would be happy, and you seek after such and such comforts in the creature."
To Know the One Thing Needful. Just as Jesus taught this lesson to Martha, he teaches it to us. "I see that it is not necessary for me to be rich, but it is necessary for me to make my peace with God; it s not necessary that I should live a pleasurable life in this world, but it is absolutely necessary that I should have pardon of my sin; it is not necessary that I should have honor and preferment, but it is necessary that I should have God as my portion, and have my part in Jesus Christ, it is necessary that my soul should be saved in the day of Jesus Christ."
To Know One's Relation to the World. Through the Spirit Christ teaches the Christian in what relation his soul is to the world. He teaches that the Christian is just a pilgrim, a sojourner, on this earth. His true home is in heaven. "Consider what your condition is, you are pilgrims and strangers; so do not think to satisfy yourselves here. When a man comes into an inn and sees there a fair cupboard of plate, he is not troubled that it is not his own.- Why? Because he is going away. So let us not be troubled when we see that other men have great wealth, but we have not.-Why? We are going away to another country; you are, as it were, only lodging here, for a night. If you were to live a hundred years, in comparison to eternity it is not as much as a night, it is as though you were travelling, and had come to an inn. And what madness is it for a man to be discontented because he has not got what he sees there, seeing he may be going away again within less than a quarter of an hour?"
Wherein the Good of the Creature Is. Christ teaches that the good of the creature consists in the enjoyment of God in anything, everything. "When a Christian, who has been in the school of Christ, and has been instructed in the art of contentment, has some wealth, he thinks, In that I have wealth above my brethren, I have an opportunity to serve God the better, and I enjoy a great deal of God's mercy conveyed to my soul through the creature, and hereby I am enabled to do a great deal of good: in this I reckon the good of my wealth. And now that God has taken this away from me, if he will be pleased to make up the enjoyment of himself some other way, will call me to honor him by suffering, and if I may do God as much service now by suffering, that is, by showing forth the grace of his Spirit in my sufferings as I did in prosperity, I have as much of God as I had before. So if I may be led to God in my low condition, as much as I was in my prosperous condition, I have as much comfort and contentment as I had before."
The Knowledge of One's Own Heart. According to Burroughs, "a Christian, next to the Book of God, is to look into the book of his own heart, and to read over that, and this will help you to contentment in three ways." The three ways are: 1) By studying your heart you will come soon to discover wherein your discontent lies. 2) This knowledge of our hearts will help us to contentment, because by it we shall come to know what best suits our condition. 3) By knowing their own hearts they know what they are able to manage, and by this means they come to be content. I particularly enjoyed this third point--that when we study our own hearts we will realize that some of what God takes from us, he takes because he knows we would not be able to manage it. He knows our limitations far better than we do. "We would not cry for some things if we knew that we were not able to manage them."

Reality Check!

This came in my inbox....Gotta love Spurgeon!

"If you make me an altar of stone, you shall not build it of hewn stones, for if you wield your tool on it you profane it.Exodus 20:25“God’s altar was to be built of unhewn stones, that no trace of human skill or labor might be seen on it. Human wisdom delights to trim and arrange the doctrines of the cross into a system more artificial and more congenial with the depraved tastes of fallen nature; however, instead of improving the gospel carnal wisdom pollutes it, until it becomes another gospel, and not the truth of God at all. All alterations and amendments of the Lord’s own Word are defilements and pollutions.The proud heart of man is very anxious to have a hand in the justification of the soul before God; preparations for Christ are dreamed of, humblings and repentings are trusted in, good works are cried up, natural ability is much vaunted, and by all means the attempt is made to lift up human tools upon the divine altar. It were well if sinners would remember that so far from perfecting the Saviour’s work, their carnal confidences only pollute and dishonor it. The Lord alone must be exalted in the work of atonement, and not a single mark of man’s chisel or hammer will be endured.There is an inherent blasphemy in seeking to add to what Christ Jesus in His dying moments declared to be finished, or to improve that in which the Lord Jehovah finds perfect satisfaction. Trembling sinner, away with your tools. Fall on your knees in humble supplication. Accept the Lord Jesus to be the altar of your atonement, and rest in Him alone.”- Charles Spurgeon, Morning by Morning (New Kensington, PA: Whitaker House, 2001), 204.

Friends

This is a lovely quote from a book called Friendship by Hugh Black. I really like this and find it oh so true.

"Friends should be chosen by a higher principle of selection than any worldly one, of pleasure, or usefulness, or by weak submission to the evil influences of our lot. They should be chosen for character, for goodness, for truth and trustworthiness, because they have sympathy with us in our best thoughts and holiest aspirations, because they have community of mind in the things of the soul. All other connections are fleeting and imperfect from the nature of the case."

To my friends I love you all! :)

Good stuff in my Inbox!

I subscribe to some awesome feeds and blogs. Here are two I got today that I thought I would share that are right on!
This one is from Tim Challies at www.challies.com titled "Reading Classics Together - The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment (IV)"
Today, in our effort to read together some of the Christian classics, we come to chapter four of Jeremiah Burroughs' The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment. This is the third and final chapter that has dealt with "The Mystery of Contentment."
I am not a very good reader. Though I read a lot, I have a lot of trouble with retention and lose far more than I remember. Maybe this is part of why I read so much--I'm seeking to replace quality with quantity. So I tend to set reasonable expectations; if I can take one or two points from each chapter and just a few major points from each book, I am pleased. That is what I have done here. This chapter offered me a couple of things that resounded in my mind. It was a short chapter so I figure that two things is enough! The first was the importance of being full of grace. Burroughs seeks to prove that a Christian finds contentment within, not from the natural man but from the Spirit who lives within. There is a mystery here, he says, so that only a Christian can understand it. Here is an illustration he provides:
As it is with a vessel that is full of liquor, if you strike it, it will make no great noise, but if it is empty then it makes a great noise; so it is with the heart, a heart that is full of grace and goodness within will bear a great many strokes, and never make any noise, but if an empty heart is struck it will make a noise. When some men and women are complaining so much, and always whining, it is a sign that there is an emptiness in their hearts. If their hearts were filled with grace they would not make such a noise. A man whose bones are filled with marrow, and his veins with good blood does not complain of the cold as others do. So a gracious heart, having the Spirit of God within him, and his heart filled with grace has that within him that makes him find contentment.In times of suffering, when we are faced with a lack of contentment, there will be the temptation to complain bitterly, to whine and fuss. Those who are full of grace, full of the Lord, will respond with grace in a way that honors the Lord. Those who are empty will sound like a gong, loudly complaining about all they deserve that they have not been given. Do you know people, who at the smallest whisper of trouble begin to cry loudly and bitterly? Do you know people who under the heaviest burden display the grace that only God can give? It is these people who have found the rare jewel of contentment.
The other thing that stood out to me was the importance of prayer in the pursuit of contentment.
Other men or women are discontented, but how do they help themselves? By abuse, by bad language. Someone crosses them, and they have no way to help themselves but by abuse and by bitter words, and so they relieve themselves in that way when they are angry. But when a godly man is crossed, how does he relieve himself? He is aware of his cross as well as you, but he goes to God in prayer, and there opens his heart to God and lets out his sorrows and fears, and then can come away with a joyful countenance. Do you find that you can come away from prayer and not look sad? It is said of Hannah, that when she had been at prayer her countenance was no more said (1 Samuel 1:18), she was comforted: this is the right way to contentment.It strikes me that prayer, then, is not only a means to greater contentment, but a mark of one who has found contentment. The fact that we should pray to God, not angrily in some kind of "imprecatory prayer," but humbly and contentedly, this is a sign that our hearts are content before him and that they will remain content before him.
Do you wish to be content? Then pray! Are you already content? Then you will pray all the more.

Then this one is from a feed i get called Of First Importance
“Imagine that your prayer is a poorly dressed beggar reeking of alcohol and body odor, stumbling toward the palace of the great king. You have become your prayer. As you shuffle toward the barred gate, the guards stiffen. Your smell has preceded you. You stammer out a message for the great king: ‘I want to see the king.’Your words are barely intelligible, but you whisper one final word, ‘Jesus, I come in the name of Jesus.’ At the name of Jesus, as if by magic, the palace comes alive. The guards snap to attention, bowing low in front of you. Lights come on, and the door flies open. You are ushered into the palace and down a long hallway into the throne room of the great king, who comes running to you and wraps you in his arms.The name of Jesus gives my prayers royal access. They get through. Jesus isn’t just the Savior of my soul. He’s also the Savior of my prayers. My prayers come before the throne of God as the prayers of Jesus. ‘Asking in Jesus’ name’ isn’t another thing I have to get right so my prayers are perfect. Is it one more gift of God because my prayers are so imperfect.”—Paul Miller, A Praying Life (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress 2009), 135

Hello! Does anyone read blogs anymore? I haven't posted in a long time!