Morning and Evening: Daily Readings
by C. H. Spurgeon
Sunday Morning, November 21
Grieve not the Holy Spirit.
Ephesians 4:30
All that the believer has must come from Christ, but it comes solely through the channel of the Spirit of grace. Moreover, as all blessings thus flow to you through the Holy Spirit, so also no good thing can come out of you in holy thought, devout worship, or gracious act, apart from the sanctifying operation of the same Spirit. Even if the good seed be sown in you, yet it lies dormant except he worketh in you to will and to do of his own good pleasure. Do you desire to speak for Jesus--how can you unless the Holy Ghost touch your tongue? Do you desire to pray? Alas! what dull work it is unless the Spirit maketh intercession for you! Do you desire to subdue sin? Would you be holy? Would you imitate your Master? Do you desire to rise to superlative heights of spirituality? Are you wanting to be made like the angels of God, full of zeal and ardour for the Master's cause? You cannot without the Spirit--Without me ye can do nothing. O branch of the vine, thou canst have no fruit without the sap! O child of God, thou hast no life within thee apart from the life which God gives thee through his Spirit! Then let us not grieve him or provoke him to anger by our sin. Let us not quench him in one of his faintest motions in our soul; let us foster every suggestion, and be ready to obey every prompting. If the Holy Spirit be indeed so mighty, let us attempt nothing without him; let us begin no project, and carry on no enterprise, and conclude no transaction, without imploring his blessing. Let us do him the due homage of feeling our entire weakness apart from him, and then depending alone upon him, having this for our prayer, Open thou my heart and my whole being to thine incoming, and uphold me with thy free Spirit when I shall have received that Spirit in my inward parts.
Evening, November 21
Lazarus was one of them that sat at the table with him.
John 12:2
He is to be envied. It was well to be Martha and serve, but better to be Lazarus and commune. There are times for each purpose, and each is comely in its season, but none of the trees of the garden yield such clusters as the vine of fellowship. To sit with Jesus, to hear his words, to mark his acts, and receive his smiles, was such a favour as must have made Lazarus as happy as the angels. When it has been our happy lot to feast with our Beloved in his banqueting-hall, we would not have given half a sigh for all the kingdoms of the world, if so much breath could have bought them.
He is to be imitated. It would have been a strange thing if Lazarus had not been at the table where Jesus was, for he had been dead, and Jesus had raised him. For the risen one to be absent when the Lord who gave him life was at his house, would have been ungrateful indeed. We too were once dead, yea, and like Lazarus stinking in the grave of sin; Jesus raised us, and by his life we live--can we be content to live at a distance from him? Do we omit to remember him at his table, where he deigns to feast with his brethren? Oh, this is cruel! It behoves us to repent, and do as he has bidden us, for his least wish should be law to us. To have lived without constant intercourse with one of whom the Jews said, Behold how he loved him, would have been disgraceful to Lazarus, is it excusable in us whom Jesus has loved with an everlasting love? To have been cold to him who wept over his lifeless corpse, would have argued great brutishness in Lazarus. What does it argue in us over whom the Saviour has not only wept, but bled? Come, brethren, who read this portion, let us return unto our heavenly Bridegroom, and ask for his Spirit that we may be on terms of closer intimacy with him, and henceforth sit at the table with him.
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10: Celebrate the Breadth of God's Work
This post is taken from C.J.'s chapter in the new book For the Fame of God's Name: Essays in Honor of John Piper. C.J.'s chapter is titled "The Pastor and the Trinity," and we've posted it in 11 parts.
As we examine what Scripture teaches us about the Holy Spirit, we see that his work in the church is multifaceted. As is evident in Paul's letters to the Corinthians, the Spirit's work is diverse and broad. I think Gordon Fee got it right in his summary of Paul's understanding of the person and work of the Spirit. He writes, "In Paul, power is not to be thought of merely in terms of the miraculous, the extraordinary. . . . Paul understood the Spirit's power in the broadest possible way."[1]
This is a perspective on the spiritual gifts that the Corinthians failed to grasp. It appears they exaggerated the importance of the gift of tongues and saw all the other gifts as secondary. For them, the gift of tongues was exciting, spectacular, the mark of true spirituality. The other gifts were good, but not truly spectacular.
So Paul sought to expand their understanding. To illustrate the diversity of the Spirit's work, Paul gave the Corinthians two lists of gifts, neither of them exhaustive (1 Corinthians 12:4–11, 27–31). In each list, Paul intentionally placed tongues last, not because tongues were the least of the gifts, but because the Corinthians exaggerated the importance of this gift. In a few brilliant chapters Paul adjusted their perspective, broadened their understanding, and taught them to perceive the breadth of the Spirit's work.
Like the Corinthians, we are sometimes inclined to see the Holy Spirit's work only in gifts or events that appear spectacular. Like them, we sometimes emphasize only one gift of the Spirit, or only one kind of gift. Make no mistake: I am convinced that the Holy Spirit does give spectacular gifts, including prophecy, healing, and miracles. I thank God for the spectacular, wherever and whenever it genuinely occurs. But Scripture teaches us that God is at work in countless ways, whether it appears spectacular to us or not.
So let us understand the Spirit's work in the broadest possible way. Let us cultivate our appreciation for, and celebration of, the diverse work of the Spirit as defined in Scripture. If you understand the multifaceted work of the Holy Spirit, your eyes will be opened to discover his work. He is at work all around you. Do not confine his work to what appears to be spectacular. And do not dismiss his work because of your particular views on the spiritual gifts.
In fact, Scripture gives us two very easy ways to identify the Holy Spirit's work in our churches. Here's your "starter kit" for recognizing his work: study the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22–23) and the gifts of the Spirit (1 Corinthians 12:4–11, 27–31; Ephesians 4:11–16; 1 Peter 4:10–11). Read these lists carefully. Then look up, and look at your church. You will see the Holy Spirit at work everywhere you look. I'd recommend you teach your church to do the same.
The Spirit is at work in you, and in the lives of those you care for. It may be easy to recognize his work when you witness the spectacular (and let's be clear: it doesn't get any more spectacular than the miracle of regeneration[2]). But it requires a different kind of discernment to recognize his work in daily life. When the elderly lady serves consistently and faithfully in your church year after year; when parents endure the loss of a child and continue to trust in God; when a single man gives away his time and energy to serve in a small group; when the businessman's portfolio takes a hit but he keeps giving joyfully and generously—there is only one explanation for these. It is the presence and the work of the Holy Spirit that brings the fruit and the gifts of the Spirit in your church. And that is truly spectacular.
This blog post is part of an 11-part series, The Pastor and the Trinity, a reprint of C.J. Mahaney's chapter "The Pastor and the Trinity" in For the Fame of God's Name: Essays in Honor of John Piper, edited by Sam Storms and Justin Taylor, ©2010. Used by permission of Crossway. For other posts in this series, see the index here.
[1] Fee, God's Empowering Presence, 8.
[2] See John Piper, Finally Alive: What Happens When We Are Born Again (Fearn, Ross-shire: Christian Focus, 2009).
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