master passions of your soul

"With an enthusiastic love for Jesus difficulties are surmounted, sacrifices become pleasures, sufferings are honours. But if religion is thus a consuming passion in the heart, then it follows that there are many persons who profess religion but have it not; for what they have will not bear this test.

Examine yourself on this point.
Aaron’s rod (Exodus 7:12) proved its heaven-given power.
Is your religion doing so?
If Christ be anything he must be everything.
O rest not till love and faith in Jesus be the master passions of your soul!"

from CH Spurgeon's Morning & Evening
28 June, evening

a prayer

Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace.

Where there is hatred, let me sow love;

Where there is injury, pardon;

Where there is doubt, faith;

Where there is despair, hope;

Where there is darkness, light;

Where there is sadness, joy;

O, Divine Master,

grant that I may not so much seek

to be consoled as to console;

To be understood as to understand;

To be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive.

It is in pardoning that we are pardoned.

It is in dying that we are born again,

to eternal life.

remain in me, and I will remain in you

"Remain in me, and I will remain in you," this is the sure promise of Jesus to us. This short passage was the one I read this morning during my quite time. It is taken from John 15: 4. It's true that the communion with Him is the cure of every ill, as how Spurgeon described it. Something which actually I couldn't understand before.

In every difficulties, in many tribulations in our life, where do you find your comfort? Where do we run to when we are faced with so much troubles in our life? Where to? Sometimes, perhaps, we found comforts by just talking with friends. Sometimes, perhaps, we found pleasures through playing games in which we can flood off our stress and emotions (such as those kind of "mass-killing"-games which I played: Grand Theft Auto :P). Sometimes, perhaps, we found peace by just sleeping or eating as much as we can. But they are all temporary, aren't they?

Jesus, is our surest source of comfort, and of hope, and of peace. In our distress, remain in Him, through prayers. Call Him, be honest in prayer, cast your burden upon Him, and He will grant you peace. From time to time, I have learnt that prayers is indeed powerful, something which perhaps I could hardly explain in words. When there's no one beside us, when sometimes we couldn't talk with friends or perhaps when we grew tired of them, God is there at your side, and His ear is always wide open..

There was a time when I found myself helpless, unable to help those people near to me. But one thing that I remember for sure, during this kind of time, that God is the only one who could help them. Prayer, yes, that's the key, for us to remain in Him.

to live is Christ

For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain --Philippians 1: 21

The believer did not always live for Christ. He began to do so when God the Holy Spirit convinced him of sin, and when by grace he was brought to see the dying Savior making a propitiation for his guilt. From the moment of the new and celestial birth, the believer begins to live for Christ. Jesus is to believers the "one pearl of great price" (Matt. 13:46), for whom we are willing to part with all that we have. He has so completely won our love that it beats alone for Him. To His glory we would live and in defense of His Gospel we would die. He is the pattern of our life and the model after which we would sculpture our character. Paul's words mean more than most men think. Many would say that Paul's words imply that the aim and end of his life was Christ, but rather, his life itself was Jesus! In the words of an ancient saint, he did "eat and drink and sleep eternal life." Jesus was his very breath, the soul of his soul, the heart of his heart, the life of his life. Can you say, as a professing Christian, that you live up to this ideal? Can you honestly say that for you "to live is Christ"? Are you doing your work for Christ, or are you working toward self-aggrandizement and for family advantage? Do you ask, "Is that a base reason?" For the Christian it is. He professes to live for Christ. How can he live for another purpose without comitting spiritual adultery? Many carry out this principle in some measure, but who would dare to say that he has lived wholly for Christ as the apostle did? Yet this alone is the true life of a Christian -- its source, its sustenance, its fashion, its end. It is all gathered up in one word:

Jesus. Lord, accept me. I present myself praying to live only in You and for You. Let me be as the bullock that stands between the plough and the altar. Let my motto be "Ready for work or for sacrifice." -- let this be our prayer