Personality

By Oswald Chambers


'That they may be one, even as we are one.'
John 17:22

Personality is that peculiar, incalculable thing that is meant when we speak of ourselves as distinct from everyone else. Our personality is always too big for us to grasp. An island in the sea may be but the top of a great mountain. Personality is like an island, we know nothing about the great depths underneath, consequently we cannot estimate ourselves. We begin by thinking that we can, but we come to realize that there is only one Being Who understands us, and that is our Creator.

Personality is the characteristic of the spiritual man as individuality is the characteristic of the natural man. Our Lord can never be defined in terms of individuality and independence, but only in terms of personality, "I and My Father are one." 

Personality merges, and you only reach your real identity when you are merged with an other person. When love, or the Spirit of God strikes a man, he is transformed, he no longer insists upon his separate individuality. Our Lord never spoke in terms of individuality, of a man's "elbows" or his isolated position, but in terms of personality - "that they may be one, even as We are one." If you give up your right to yourself to God, the real true nature of your personality answers to God straight away. 

Jesus Christ emancipates the personality, and the individuality is transfigured; the transfiguring element is love, personal devotion to Jesus. Love is the outpouring of one personality in fellowship with another personality.

Christianity

Christianity

By Soren Kierkegaard


When Christianity entered into the world, people were not Christians, and the difficulty was to become a Christian. Nowadays the difficulty in becoming a Christian is that one must cease to become a Christian. One best becomes a Christian without "Christianity." Not until a person has become so wretched that his only wish, his only consolation, is to die--not until then does Christianity truly begin.

Could you grasp the world like an orange

Could you grasp the world like an orange    (Edward Payson, 1783-1827) "You have made known to me the path of life; You  will fill me with joy in Your presence, with eternal  pleasures at Your right hand." Psalm 16:11 Could you grasp the world like an orange, and squeeze all the happiness it gives into a single cup, it would be as nothing compared to one drop of  God's eternal pleasures!

What is Your Hope? By J.C. Ryle

What is Your Hope?

By J.C. Ryle


Reader, what is your hope about your soul? Have you any, or have you none? Can you tell me in what way you expect to be accounted righteousness before God?:

Depend upon it, these are very serious questions. You and I are dying men. After death comes the judgment. What is your hope of acquittal in that solemn day? What are we going to plead on our behalf before God?

Shall we say that we have done our duty to God? Shall we say that we have done our duty to our neighbor? Shall we bring forward our prayers, our good works, our morality, our church going, our amendments? Shall we ask to be accepted by God for any of these things?

Which of these things will stand God's eye? Which of them will actually justify you and me? Which of them will carry us clear through judgment, and land us safe in glory?

Absolutely none! Take any commandment of the ten, and let us examine ourselves by it. We have broken it repeatedly. We cannot answer God. Take any of us, and look narrowly into our ways--and we are nothing but sinners. There is but one verdict. We are all guilty--we all ought to die--we all deserve hell. How then can we come before God?

We must come in the Name of Jesus, standing on no other ground, pleading no other plea than this, "Christ died on the cross for the ungodly--and I trust in Him."

Oh, believe me, Christ must be all the hope of everyone who would be justified and saved. You must be content to go to heaven as a beggar--saved by free grace alone--simply as a believer in Jesus--or you will never be saved at all. "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith--and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God-- not by works, so that no one can boast!" Ephesians 2:8-9

THE HUMBLE PLACE

By A.W. Tozer

I have met two classes of Christians; the proud who imagine they are humble, and the humble who are afraid they are proud! There should be another class: the self-forgetful men and women who leave the whole thing in the hands of Christ and refuse to waste any time trying to make themselves good. They will reach the goal far ahead of the rest. The truly humble person does not expect to find virtue in himself, and when he finds none he is not disappointed. He knows that any good deed he may do is the result of God's working within him. 

When this belief becomes so much a part of any man or woman that it operates as a kind of unconscious reflex, he or she is released from the burden of trying to live up to the opinion they hold of themselves. They can relax and count upon the Holy Spirit to fulfill the moral law within them. Let us never forget that the promises of God are made to the humble: the proud man by his pride forfeits every blessing promised to the lowly heart, and from the hand of God he need expect only justice!

Exposition of Psalm 119 By Charles Bridges

Exposition of Psalm 119

By Charles Bridges

Table of Contents

› Preface - A considerable portion of the Sacred Volume (as the Book of Psalms and Canticles in the Old Testament, and a large part of the several Epistles in the ...read

› Verses 1 - 15 - Verse 1. Blessed are the undefiled in the way, who walk in the law of the Lord. This most interesting and instructive Psalm, like the Psalter its ...read

› Verses 16 - 30 - Verse 16. I will delight myself in Your statutes: I will not forget Your word. As delight quickens to meditation, so does the practical habit of ...read

› Verses 31 - 45 - Verse 31. I have stuck to Your testimonies; O Lord, put me not to shame. We have just seen the choice of the man of God, and the rule by which he ...read

› Verses 45 - 60 - Verse 46. I will speak of Your testimonies also before kings, and will not be ashamed. "Liberty in walking" in the Lord's ways will naturally pro ...read

› Verses 61 - 75 - Verse 61. The bands of the wicked have robbed me; but I have not forgotten Your law. Are we not too apt to cull out the easy work of the Gospel, ...read

› Verses 76 - 90 - Verse 76. Let, I pray You, Your merciful kindness be for my comfort: according to Your word unto Your servant. What! does the Psalmist then seek ...read

› Verses 91 - 105 - Verse 91. They continue this day according to Your ordinances, for all are Your servants. The Christian extends his survey far beyond the limits ...read

› Verses 106 - 120 - Verse 106. I have sworn, and I will perform it, that I will keep Your righteous judgments. The blessing of the guidance of the Lord's word natura ...read

› Verses 121 - 135 - Verse 121. I have done judgment and justice: leave me not to my oppressors. Verse 122. Be surety for Your servant for good: let not the proud o ...read

› Verses 136 - 150 - Verse 136. Rivers of waters run down my eyes, because they keep not Your law. (Comp. Jer. 9:1; 14:17; Lam. 2:18) If the Lord teaches us the privi ...read

› Verses 151 - 165 - Verse 151. You are near, O Lord: and all Your commandments are truth. The imminent danger in which David was living quickened his cries to his Go ...read

› Verses 166 - 176 - Verse 166. Lord, I have hoped for Your salvation, and done Your commandments. The great peace connected with the love of God's law, is at once th ...read

Have nothing to do with them.

Have nothing to do with them. (J. C. Philpot, "New Years' Addresses") "They mingled among the pagans and adopted  their evil customs. They worshiped their idols,  and this led to their downfall." Ps. 106:35-36 The 'carnal professors' of the day see nothing wrong, nothing amiss, nothing inconsistent in their conduct or spirit, though they are sunk in . . .   worldliness,   carnality, or   covetousness. But where there is divine life, where the blessed Spirit moves upon the heart with His sacred operations and secret influences, there will be light to see, and a conscience to feel, what is . . .   wrong,   sinful,   inconsistent,   and improper. It its but too evident that we cannot be mixed up with the professors of the day without drinking, in some measure, into their spirit and being more or less influenced by their example. We can scarcely escape the influence of those with whom we come much and frequently into contact. If they are dead, they will often benumb us with their corpse-like coldness. If they are light and trifling, they will often entangle us in their carnal levity. If they are worldly and covetous, they may afford us a shelter and an excuse for our own worldliness and covetousness. Abhor that loose profession, that ready compliance with everything which feeds the . . .   pride,   worldliness,   covetousness,   and lusts of our depraved nature, which so stamps the present day with some of its most perilous and dreadful characters. "Having a form of godliness but denying its power.  Have nothing to do with them." 2 Timothy 3:5