Author: Charles Spurgeon

Pray with Spurgeon: God, give me childlike faith in you

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DAILY PRAYER (BY SPURGEON)

Lord, maintain the faith you have created; strengthen it, let it be more and more simple. Deliver us from any sort of reliance upon ourselves, whatever shape that reliance might take, and let our faith in you become more childlike every day that we live; for, O dear Savior, there is room for the greatest faith to be exercised upon your blessed person and work. O God, the Most High and All-sufficient, there is room for the greatest confidence in you. O Divine helper, the Holy Spirit, there is now sufficient room for the fullest faith in your operations. Grant us this faith.

Oh, work it in us now, while, at the same time, we do confess that if we have it not, it is our shame and sin. We make no excuse for unbelief, but confess it with detestation of it, that we should ever have doubted the truthful, the mighty, the faithful God. Yet, Lord, we shall fall into the like sin again, unless the grace that makes us know it to be sin shall help us to avoid it.

Amen.

VERSE OF THE DAY (COMMENTARY BY SPURGEON)

“My son, keep your father’s command, and don’t reject your mother’s teaching.” (Proverbs 6:20)

True religion comes to many of us recommended by parental example. Unhappily, it is not so with all of you. There are some who had an evil example in their childhood, and who never learned anything that was good from their parents. You, dear friends, have special cause for thankfulness, that your children shall not be subjected to the same disadvantages as you yourselves suffered. Since the Lord has looked in love upon you, let your households be holiness to the Lord, and so bring up your children that they shall have every advantage that religious training can give, and every opportunity to serve the living God.

Editor’s Note: Parents, teach your children God’s Word by reading the Bible to them every day. Get all the resources you need at my new website, GodCenteredFamily.org.
Download a free family devotional at GodCenteredFamily.org.

RECOMMENDED RESOURCE

Grow in godliness. Let Spurgeon be your guide.*

Today, we prayed that God would increase our faith. And we know that this our only hope. Our faith comes from God himself.

Through all of life’s twists and turns, our great God is helping you, holding you, inviting you to know him.

That’s the topic of Spurgeon’s book, The Saint and His Saviour. He wrote this book to help you know God and find more joy in him.

This book is an incredibly practical guide to pursuing God and fighting sin.

I promise you, if you read this book, you will grow in godliness, you willenjoy God more.

It will be well worth your time to read.

I’m incredibly thankful for a new audiobook edition of The Saint and His Saviour, out now from Goodwill Audiobook Classics Library. This audiobook is a great production — it’s one of the best ways to start reading The Saint and His Saviour today.

This audiobook is an incredible resource — I hope you’ll grab this new audiobook and be blessed by it.

Buy The Saint and His Saviour Audiobook Now.
(It’s also available in paperback and Kindle formats.)

Pray with Spurgeon: God, help me confess my sin

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DAILY PRAYER (BY SPURGEON)

Help us to make an acceptable confession of sin, with much mourning, with much deep regret, with much self-loathing, and with the absence of anything like a pretense to merit or to excuse. Here we stand, Lord, a company of tax-collectors and sinners, with whom Jesus deigns to sit down.

Heal us, Emanuel! Here we are, needing that healing. Good Physician, here is scope for you; come and manifest your healing power! There are many of us who have looked unto Jesus and are lightened, but we do confess that our faith was the gift of God. We had never looked with these bleary eyes of ours to that dear cross, unless first the heavenly light had shone, and the heavenly finger had taken the thick scales away. We trace therefore our faith to that same God who gave us life, and we ask now that we may have more of it.

Amen.

VERSE OF THE DAY (COMMENTARY BY SPURGEON)

“Completely wash away my guilt and cleanse me from my sin.” (Psalm 51:2)

A hypocrite is satisfied with the washing of his garments, but the true repentant sinner cries, “Wash me. ‘Wash me throughly from mine iniquity.’ It is almost the only thing that I can really call my own, and it is most sadly mine, O Lord, wash mine iniquity right away!”

You notice that David’s prayer is not concerning the punishment of his sin, but concerning the sin itself. That is the one thing which is eating into his heart; see how many words he uses to describe it: “My sin; mine iniquity; my transgressions.” He cries to God to help him to get rid of that which is the source of all his sorrow. The thief dreads the gallows, but the repentant sinner fears not the punishment of his sin, it is the sin itself that terrifies him.

RECOMMENDED RESOURCE

We are shaped by our habits — so cultivate good, godly habits in your home.

Parents, have any of your children ever learned anything important the first time you said it? Of course not. Our children won’t learn the most important things (like knowing the Bible, loving God, and trusting Christ) by being told once — they need to be told these things over and over again.

Teaching our children anything requires a lot of repetition, so let’s cultivate daily rhythms of reading and discussing God’s Word with our families.

That’s the goal of GodCenteredFamily.org — making family Bible time a daily habit in your household, so that God is at the center of your family’s life.

If you want to have a daily family devotional, you don’t have to do it alone. I want to help you along the way. When you subscribe to GodCenteredFamily.org, you’ll receive everything you need for a daily family devotional, so that having a daily family Bible time is a joy instead of a burden.

I hope you’ll try out these family devotionals today and start to make God’s Word a daily, joy-filled habit in your home.

Download a free one-week family devotional at GodCenteredFamily.org.

Pray with Spurgeon: We are hopeless sinners (unless God’s grace rescues us!)

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DAILY PRAYER (BY SPURGEON)

Now, Lord, we acknowledge that all good must come from you, through Jesus Christ by your Spirit, if ever we are to receive it. And we come humbly, first of all acknowledging our many sins. How many they are we cannot calculate, how black they are, how deep their ill-desert; yet we do confess that we have sinned ourselves into hopeless misery, unless your free undeserved grace rescues us from it.

Lord, we thank you for any signs of repentance—give us more of it. Lay us low before you under a consciousness of our undeserving state. Let us feel and mourn the atrocity of our guilt. O God, we know a tender heart must come from you. By nature our hearts are stony, and we are proud and self-righteous.

Amen.

VERSE OF THE DAY (COMMENTARY BY SPURGEON)

“For you are saved by grace through faith, and this is not from yourselves; it is God’s gift…” (Ephesians 2:8)

We are saved “through faith,” but salvation is “by grace.” Sound forth those words as with the archangel’s trumpet: “By grace you are saved.” What glad tidings for the undeserving!

See then, dear friend, that the weakness of your faith will not destroy you. A trembling hand may receive a golden gift. The Lord’s salvation can come to us though we have only faith as a grain of mustard seed. The power lies in the grace of God, and not in our faith. Great messages can be sent along slender wires, and the peace-giving witness of the Holy Spirit can reach the heart by means of a thread-like faith which seems almost unable to sustain its own weight. Think more of him to whom you look than of the look itself. You must look away even from your own looking, and see nothing but Jesus, and the grace of God revealed in him.

RECOMMENDED RESOURCE

Read the whole Bible (every chapter!) to your kids (and help them stay engaged)

We know and believe that God’s Word is powerful. God, through his Word, has brought us to salvation and taught us to fight sin in every form. If you want God to do that kind of work in your children, start by regularly exposing them to the wonderful Word of God.

To help you along the way, I’ve created a new resource, GodCenteredFamily.org. Subscribers receive everything they need for a daily family Bible time, including…

  • Daily Scripture readings (read and discuss the whole Bible every three years)
  • Discussion questions (lead your kids to understand and apply the Bible)
  • Interactive worksheets for each child (help kids stay engaged)
  • Prayer guides and suggested songs (respond to the reading together)
  • Hands-on activities and object lessons (encourage active learning)
  • Bonus resources for parents (become a more faithful parent)

I believe that God is going to do amazing things in your family’s life. And he’s going to do it through his Word. I know that if you subscribe to God Centered Family and make family Bible time a daily habit, you and your kids will know the Bible better, foster a deeper family connection, and love God more.

Download a free one-week family devotional at GodCenteredFamily.org.

Pray with Spurgeon: We are hopeless without God

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DAILY PRAYER (BY SPURGEON)

We know that we are especially dependent upon you when we come to deal with spiritual things. O God, we are less than nothing in the spiritual world. We do feel this growingly, and yet even to feel this is beyond our power. Your grace must give us even to know our need of grace. We are not willing to confess our own sinfulness until you show it to us. Though it stares us in the face, our pride denies it, and our own inability is unperceived by us. We steal your power and call it our own until you compel us to say that we have no strength in ourselves.

Amen.

VERSE OF THE DAY (COMMENTARY BY SPURGEON)

“But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is perfected in weakness.’ Therefore, I will most gladly boast all the more about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may reside in me.” (2 Corinthians 12:9)

A primary qualification for serving God with any amount of success, and for doing God’s work well and triumphantly, is a sense of our own weakness. When God’s warrior marches forth to battle, strong in his own might, when he boasts, “I know that I shall conquer, my own right arm and my conquering sword shall get unto me the victory,” defeat is not far distant. God will not go forth with that man who marches in his own strength. He who reckons on victory thus has reckoned wrongly, for “it is not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord of hosts.”

RECOMMENDED RESOURCE

How God’s grace helps you grow

Today we prayed, acknowledging that we will never grow spiritually without God’s help. We ask God to help us grow in holiness, because we know that God’s grace doesn’t just save us from sin, it also gives us the power that we need to slay sin. The work of growing in godliness is a work of cooperation between us and God’s grace.

One of my all-time favorite books is The Discipline of Grace by Jerry Bridges. This book explains how God’s grace empowers Christians to slay sin and grow in godliness. It is one of the helpful, practical, and encouraging books that I have ever read! If you want to grow in godliness, start with The Discipline of Grace.

If you’ve read this newsletter for a while, you know that I recommend this book all the time, because it’s one of my all-time favorites and completely changed my life.

Reading The Discipline of Grace will definitely help you grow in holiness. I hope you’ll grab a copy today.

Buy The Discipline of Grace:

Pray with Spurgeon: We owe all our happiness to God alone

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DAILY PRAYER (BY SPURGEON)

O Lord God, the great I AM, we do confess and cheerfully acknowledge that all comes from you. You have made us and not we ourselves, and the breath in our nostrils is kept there by your continued power.

We owe our sustenance, our happiness, our advancement, our ripening, our very existence entirely to you. We would bless you for all the mercies with which you surround us, for all things which our eyes see that are pleasant, which our ears hear that are agreeable, and for everything that makes existence to be life.

Amen.

VERSE OF THE DAY (COMMENTARY BY SPURGEON)

“Let everything that breathes praise the LORD. Hallelujah!” (Psalm 150:6)

He gave them breath, let them breathe his praise. Join all living things in the eternal song. If you are the least or greatest, do not withhold your praises. What a day will it be when all things in all places unite to glorify the one only living and true God! This will be the final triumph of the church of God.

RECOMMENDED RESOURCE

Preach the gospel to yourself (here’s how)

One of the ways we work to strengthen our faith is preaching the gospel to ourselves. We must constantly remind ourselves of the work that Christ has done to suffer, die, and rise again for sinners — for me. Spurgeon called those reminders “preaching the gospel to yourself.” This is an important discipline that we have to cultivate to stay rooted in God’s grace.

One tool to help you preach the gospel to yourself is Note to Self by Joe Thorn. This book contains 48 short devotions that are formatted as simple notes written for your own heart. Read them to yourself, preach them to yourself, knowing that you need these truths to live.

Note to Self is a great tool for remembering that your only hope is Christ, not your own works. I know these short devotions will encourage you and increase your love for him.

Buy Note to Self:

Pray with Spurgeon: God’s love draws sinners

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DAILY PRAYER (BY SPURGEON)

There are many we know who are strangers to the gospel. May the new note strike them. From the silver cornet of the gospel may there come to them a sound unknown before, which shall reach their very soul; and may they answer to it. Bid them come to Christ and live today. O divine love, sweetly draw them. Cast the bands of love about them, and the cords of a man, and draw them to Thyself. Young men and young women, ay, and old men and old women—draw them to yourself, most divine Lord; and may there be many trophies to the power of the gospel today. All our prayer is now before you. We wish everybody to be saved. The Lord grant it, for Christ’s sake.

Amen.

VERSE OF THE DAY (COMMENTARY BY SPURGEON)

“Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her.” (Ephesians 5:25)

The love of Jesus—what a theme it is! The apostle said it passes knowledge; and if it passes knowledge, much more does it excel any description that can be given of it. This love of Christ is the most amazing thing under heaven, if not in heaven itself. Love between mortal and mortal is natural and comprehensible, but love between the infinite God and us poor sinful finite creatures, though conceivable in one sense, is utterly inconceivable in another. Who can grasp such an idea? Who can fully understand it? This is the miracle of miracles.

RECOMMENDED RESOURCE

Happy Valentine’s Day — Here’s a New Resource for Husbands

Today is a great day to celebrate love and (for those of us who are married) to evaluate our own marriage in light of God’s call on our lives. Husbands, we are called to lay down our lives in service for our wives — how can we grow to be the sacrificial leader that God has called us to be?

I’ve created a new resource, The God Centered Husband Bible Study Workbook to help husbands understand God’s call on their lives and equip them to follow it.

This is a simple, hands-on Bible study workbook for married guys. It will walk you through six passages of Scripture about being a husband and challenge you to serve your wife sacrificially, lead her consistently, and show her the character of God.

Every man lives for something. This Bible study will challenge you to stop living for yourself, your wife, or your career, and live for God more faithfully.

Perfect for individual, small group, or one-on-one Bible study, my prayer is that this Bible study will help you become the husband that God has called you to be.

If you’re a husband, grab a copy for yourself (Committing to become a more godly husband is a great Valentine’s Day gift for your wife).

If you’re a wife, grab a copy for your husband (helping your husband grow is a great Valentine’s Day gift as well!)

Buy The God Centered Husband Bible Study Workbook on Amazon.

Pray with Spurgeon: We pray for many, many sinners to be saved

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DAILY PRAYER (BY SPURGEON)

Now, Lord, bless your people. Let those that fear your name be happy in you. May those who are truly yours, have a joyous and happy season. May they rejoice in the great love of God, and feel their souls overflow with delight at their remembrance of it.

But, oh, we ask you especially save souls. May many, many, many be brought out of darkness into marvelous light, and delivered from the prison-house into the liberty of Christ. Lord, there are some people we know who have heard us many times, and yet you have not spoken to their hearts effectually. Oh, speak to them. Take them in hand, great Lord. They shall be made willing in the day of your power. Oh, that this might be the day of your power!

Amen.

VERSE OF THE DAY (COMMENTARY BY SPURGEON)

“Then I will teach the rebellious your ways, and sinners will return to you.” (Psalm 51:13)

Do you not see, brothers and sisters, that we must be in a right state of heart if we are to serve God well? We cannot teach transgressors his way, with a confident hope that they will be converted unto him, unless we ourselves possess the joy of God’s salvation, and are upheld by his good Spirit. If we go to God’s work out of order, we shall make a mess of it, and accomplish nothing that is really worth doing; but when God gives us his comforting grace within, and his upholdings on every hand, then shall we teach with power, and sinners shall learn to profit.

RECOMMENDED RESOURCE

Followers of Christ speak about Christ

Today we prayed that our evangelistic conversations this week would be fruitful. Are you ready to be the answer to this prayer? To share the Word boldly and clearly with non-believers you know?

Maybe the reason so many Christians don’t do the work of evangelism is because they don’t understand it. Evangelism isn’t meant to be an unnatural, guilt-motivated task that Christians carry out with dread and fear — it’s meant to be a natural overflow of our life in Christ.

Marks of the Messenger by Mack Stiles is a short book on evangelism that has the power to transform your life. In the book, Stiles shows that evangelism isn’t motivated by fear, guilt, or pragmatism, it’s simply to be motivated by who Christ is and our faith in him.

This summer, as many places and events re-open after a season of quarantine, will be full of opportunities for evangelism. God wants to do a work through you this summer — get prepared and motivated by reading Marks of the Messenger.

Buy Marks of the Messenger:

Pray with Spurgeon: We have peace because God forgives sins

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DAILY PRAYER (BY SPURGEON)

We trusted in the great atonement, and we found a peace. Oh, what shall we say of this peace? Our soul sings at the remembrance of the peace which has never been taken from us. Many days have passed since first we knew it, and many changes we have seen, but we have never lost our hold on Christ; nor has he ever lost his hold of us; and here we are still, to weep to the praise of the mercy that we have found, and to tell to others, as we have breath to speak, that the Lord is a great sin-pardoning God.

There is none like him, passing by transgression, iniquity, and sin; and, for Jesus’ sake, receiving the vilest of the vile to his heart, and casting out none that come unto him; taking up even the blasphemer and the drunkard, yes, the very worst, and washing even these from their crimson sins, and making them whiter than newly-fallen snow. O Lord, we sometimes wish that we could sing like cherubim and seraphim. Then would we praise you better. But as it is, human voices are all we have, but they shall be used to the praise of “free grace and dying love,” to which we owe all that we have, and all we ever hope to have.

Amen.

VERSE OF THE DAY (COMMENTARY BY SPURGEON)

“Now to him who is able to protect you from stumbling and to make you stand in the presence of his glory, without blemish and with great joy,” (Jude 24)

Christ is able to guard us from stumbling; much more is he able to preserve us from falling away, from utterly departing from the faith. But we would do that if it were not for his guardian care. There is nothing that the worst of men have done that the best of men could not do if they were left by the grace of God. Do not think so much of yourself as to imagine yourself incapable of even the greatest crime. That very thought proves that you are capable of committing any crime.

Remember the power that bestows this privilege. To be guarded from stumbling throughout a long life is not of ourselves. It is not to be found in our own experience; not even in the means of grace alone. That same power that made the heavens and the earth, and keeps the earth and heavens in their places, is needed to make a Christian and to keep him standing before the sons of men.

RECOMMENDED RESOURCE

God has called you to not fall away; and he is holding onto you.

Today’s prayer praised God for his grace at the beginning of our salvation and today’s verse and commentary praised God for his grace to preserve our salvation. You were saved by grace, you are being kept by grace, and one day, you will be brought home by grace.

And yet, the Bible is full of warnings to not fall away and commands to hold on. Why are we commanded to do what God has promised to do for us? What is the relationship between our persevering and his preserving?

A great book for answering questions like that is Run to Win the Prize: Perseverance in the New Testament by Tom Schreiner. This is an incredible book that will fill you with the hope of Christ and encourage you to stay faithful to him until the very end.

If you are ever worried about losing your salvation, this book will comfort you.
If you are tempted to sin, this book will challenge you.

I know this short, practical, faithful book will encourage you, so I hope you’ll grab a copy today.

Buy Run to Win the Prize:

Pray with Spurgeon: How could God be a forgiving savior AND a fair judge?

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DAILY PRAYER (BY SPURGEON)

Lord, understanding your gospel caused us much pain, for we found in our hearts an enmity to you, a natural alienation; and we found that we had grieved you, that we had vexed your spirit by sin. We admire you all the more for this, for we would not care for a God who did not hate sin. Oh, with what reverence we fell at your feet, even when we heard you speak in tones of thunder, and say, “The person who sins is the one who will die” (Ezekiel 18:20).

When your grace had really made us to know you, your justice, terrible as it was, had our submissive reverence. We felt that, if our souls were sent to hell, righteousness and justice would approve it well. O God, we remember how we lay at your feet. Our thoughts were as a case of knives cutting our hearts; and then you came to us, and you made your love known. O blessed day in which you revealed yourself dressed in the silken robes of love! When we saw, that Jesus died that we might live, that the cross was the best proof of divine affection, then we looked to Jesus suffering in our stead. We trusted in the great atonement, and we found a peace.

Amen.

VERSE OF THE DAY (COMMENTARY BY SPURGEON)

“For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 6:23)

when we read of anything being a wage, what does it mean? It means that it is a reward for labour. Death is sin’s due reward, and it must be paid. A master employs a man, and it is due to that man that he should receive his wages. If his master did not pay him his wages, it would be an act of gross injustice. Now, if sin did not bring upon man death and misery, it would be an injustice. It is necessary for the very standing of one universe that sin should be punished. It must be so. They that sow must reap. The sin which hires you must pay you. Wrong cannot produce right. Iniquity, transgression and sin must, in the nature of things, become darkness, sorrow, misery, death. Every transgression and disobedience must receive its just recompense of reward. There is no use in attempting to alter it so long as God and justice reign: those who do sin’s work must receive sin’s wage, and “the wages of sin is death.”

RECOMMENDED RESOURCE

How could God be a forgiving savior AND a fair judge?

Today’s prayer and Scripture reading celebrated the wonderful good news that our just God is also a gracious Savior. How can God fulfill these two (seemingly contradictory) offices? How can he be “just and the justifier” (Romans 1:16)? Because his justice has been completely satisfied on the cross of Christ.

Christ took our sin onto himself — a doctrine often called, “The Great Exchange,” which is also the title of an incredible book, The Great Exchange: My Sin for His Righteousness by Jerry Bridges and Bob Bevington.

(Any book written by Jerry Bridges is worth having — he’s also clear and understandable, while being robustly biblical and incredibly practical)

This book is a rich, biblical explanation of the logic of our salvation (Christ paid for our sins!). It is also a very practical guide to show how this doctrine can change your life and fill you with hope today.

I know The Great Exchange will be a blessing to you, so I hope you’ll grab a copy today.

Buy The Great Exchange:

Pray with Spurgeon: Jesus opens the eyes of the blind

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DAILY PRAYER (BY SPURGEON)

Glorious God, there are many of us who can bless you that we know you. There was a time when we lived in your world, but had never known the Creator. We were partakers of your providence, but we did not know the Provider. We went up and down in the sunlight, but we were blind. There were voices all around us, but we were deaf to all things spiritual. And some of us lived in this way for years.

Some people we know are like that today: they know not God: neither do they desire the knowledge of your ways. They can see and understand many things, but they do not desire to know him in whom they live and move and have their being. It was a happy day for us when, in the infinite sovereignty of your love, you did look upon us and call us by your grace. Then did the dead heart begin to beat. Then did light enter the darkened eye, and then we turned to you. It was the best discovery we had ever made, when we found that there was, after all, a God, ready to hear us, willing to listen to our cries.

Amen.

VERSE OF THE DAY (COMMENTARY BY SPURGEON)

“Moved with compassion, Jesus touched their eyes. Immediately they could see, and they followed him.” (Matthew 20:34)

Oh, that the reader, if he be spiritually blind, may ask for the touch of Jesus, and receive it at once, for immediately he will receive sight! An inward light will in an instant shine forth upon the soul, and the spiritual world will become apparent to the enlightened mind. The Son of David still lives, and still opens the eyes of the blind. He still hears the humble prayer of those who know their blindness and their poverty. If the reader fears that he, too, is spiritually blind, let him cry unto the Lord at this very instant, and he will see what he shall see, and he will for ever bless the hand which gave sight to the eyes of his soul.

RECOMMENDED RESOURCE

Discover freedom from guilt and deeper joy in Christ

Today we prayed, lamenting our former life and celebrating the new life we have in Christ. As we think about who we were before we knew Christ, it can be easy for many of us to feel a constant sense of guilt from our past sins. And while it’s good to feel remorse over our sin, God has called us to live in freedom and joy with a clear conscience.

A great (and very short!) book to help you understand your conscience, repentance, and freedom from guilt and shame is The Art of Turning by Kevin DeYoung. This short book unpacks the “conscience” and encourages you to turn from Christ sin every day.

This book is so incredibly life-giving. If you read it, you will find freedom from guilt and increased desire to know Christ. I hope you’ll pick up a copy today.

Buy The Art of Turning:

*This book is just $0.99 on ChristianBook.com! Grab a copy for yourself and one to share with a friend.