Tuesday, February 14, 2006

I will believe...

Yes...

Have you ever read something and thought to yourself, that's what I've been trying to say? Well, I've been trying to say this for the past five weeks.

"But imperfectly may the doubting Christian be aware what dishonour is done to Jesus...by every unbelieving fear he cherishes. It is a secret wounding of Jesus...it is a lowering, an undervaluing of Christ's obedience and death, that glorious work of salvation with which the Father has declared himself well pleased, that work with which Divine justice has confessed itself satisfied, that work on the basis of which every poor, convinced sinner is saved...that work, we say is dishonored, undervalued, and slighted by every doubt and fear secretly harbored, or openly expressed by a child of God.

The moment a believer looks at his unworthiness more than at the righteousness of Christ, supposes that there is not a sufficiency of merit in Jesus to supply the absence of all merit in himself before God, what is it but a setting up of his sinfulness and unworthiness above the infinite worth, fulness and sufficiency of Christ's atonement and righteousness?

There is much spurious humility among many of the dear saints of God. It is thought by some, that to be always doubting one's pardon and acceptance, is the evidence of a lowly spirit. It is, allow us ot say, the mark of the very opposite of a lowly and humble mind. That is true humility that credits the testimony of God, that believes it because He has spoken it, that rests in the blood and righteousness, and all sufficiency of Jesus because he has declared that whosoever believeth in him shall be saved. This is genuine lowliness- the blessed product of the Eternal Spirit. To go to Jesus just as I am, a poor, lost, helpless sinner - to go glorying in my weakness, infirmity and poverty, that the free grace and sovereign pleasure and infinite merit of Christ may be seen in my pardon, justification and eternal glory. There is more of unmortified pride, of self-righteousness, of that principle that would make God a debtor to the creature, in the refusal of a soul to fully accept Jesus, than is supsected. There is more realy, profound humility in a simple, believing venture upon Christ as a ruined sinner, taking him as all its righteousness, all its pardon, all its glory, than is possible for any mortal mind to fathom. Doubt is ever the offspring of pride: humility is the handmaid of faith."

Octavius Winslow

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