Closer to Christ
To those who love the Lord Jesus and believe in Him, and yet desire to love Him better, suffer this word of exhortation, and apply it to your heart. Keep before your mind, an ever-present truth, that the Lord Jesus is an actual living person, and deal with Him as such. I fear the personality of our Lord is sadly lost sight of by many Christians in the present day. Their talk is more about salvation than about the Savior; more about redemption than about the Redeemer; more about justification than about Jesus; more about Christ's work than about Christ's person. This is a great fault, and one that fully accounts for the dry and sapless character of the faith of many Christians. If you would grow in grace, and have joy and peace in believing, then beware of falling into this error. Cease to regard the gospel as a mere collection of dry doctrines. Look at it rather as the revelation of a mighty living Being in whose sight you are daily to live. Cease to regard it as a mere set of abstract propositions and principles and rules. Look at it as the introduction to a glorious Friend. This is the kind of gospel that the apostles preached. They did not go about the world telling men of love and mercy and pardon in the abstract. The leading subject of all their sermons was the loving heart of an actual living Christ. Nothing surely is so likely to prepare us for that heaven where Christ's personal presence will be all, and that glory where we shall meet Christ face to face, as to realize communion with Christ as an actual living Person here on earth. Oh, there is all the difference in the world between an idea and a person. - J.C. Ryle
Here let us examine ourselves with great anxiety, for on many points we may come short. As for instance, we may fail in reference to the Object of our faith. A man may say, “I have faith,” but another question arises, “What have you faith in?” “Well, I have faith in what I have felt.” Then get rid of it! What you have felt is not an object of faith, nor to be trusted in at all. “I have faith,” says another, “in the doctrines which I have been taught.” I am glad you believe them, but remember, doctrines are not the Savior. A man may believe all the doctrines of the Truth of God and yet he may be lost. A creed cannot save, neither can a dogma redeem. What is the object of faith, then? It is a Person. It is a living, Divine, Person. And who is that Person? He is none other than Jesus, the Son of God, God over all, blessed forever, born into this world for our sakes! No faith will save a man which does not rest upon Jesus Christ. To rely upon Christ in part is deadly—our faith must be altogether unmixed. If I depend in part upon the righteousness of Christ, and in part upon anything else, I am lost forever! Jesus will be a whole Savior or no Savior. I must throw my whole weight upon Him and cling to Him, alone, for no other can save me from destruction. - C. H. Spurgeon
