I can admire the solemn and stately language of worship that recognizes the greatness of God, but it will not warm my heart or express my soul until it has also blended therewith the joyful nearness of that perfect love that casts out fear and ventures to speak with our Father in heaven as a child speaks with its father on earth. My brother, no veil remains.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the importance of a personal and loving relationship with God, beyond formal worship.
Charles Spurgeon expresses that while the formal language of worship acknowledges God's greatness, it lacks the warmth and personal connection necessary to truly resonate with the heart. He highlights that true love for God allows for a fearless and intimate conversation with Him, akin to the relationship between a child and a parent, emphasizing that there are no barriers in this divine connection.
In practice
This quote can be used in a sermon to inspire a more personal relationship with God.
Amusement should be used to do us good “like a medicine”: it must never be used as the food of the man...Many have had all holy thoughts and gracious resolutions stamped out by perpetual trifling. Pleasure so called is the murderer of thought. This is the age of excessive amusement: everybody craves for it, like a babe for its rattle.
When you see no present advantage, walk by faith and not by sight. Do God the honor to trust Him when it comes to matters of loss for the sake of principle.
It is far easier to fight with sin in public than to pray against it in private.
You will never glory in God till first of all God has killed your glorying in yourself.
After faith comes repentance, or, rather, repentance is faith's twin brother and is born at the same time.
["All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth unto such as keep his covenant."] The original Hebrew word that has been translated "paths" means "well-worn roads' or "wheel tracks," such ruts as wagons make when they go down our green roads in wet weather and sink in up to the axles. God's ways are at times like heavy wagon tracks that cut deep into our souls, yet all of them are merciful.
When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love them.
It's possible to love a human being if you don't know them too well.
The proper aim of giving is to put the recipient in a state where he no longer needs our gifts...Thus a heavy task is laid upon Gift-love. It must work toward its own abdication. We must aim at making ourselves superfluous. The hour when we can say 'They need me no longer' should be our reward. But the instinct, simply in its own nature, has no power to fulfill this law.
I never had that thing about being black. If the whole world was like that, maybe there would be more harmony and love.
I am worth loving. I do not have to earn love. I am lovable because I exist. Others reflect the love I have for myself.
And as we stray further from love, we multiply the words. Had we remained together we could have become a silence.
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