A couple weeks ago I read this wonderful writing of Charles Spurgeon (below). I was eagerly anticipating that our family would soon be celebrating Thanksgiving by the ocean, and longing to climb one of our favorite mountains. I had written before about our family’s journey up this mountain, and applied it to our personal Spiritual journey we are on, persevering in faith through all trials, seasons, circumstances.
Well, we made it again to this place! Celebrating so much victory Jesus has done in our lives, and continues to do, ridding us of our flesh and drawing us nearer to Him. I am thankful that in spite of 2020 being a very strange year, and the strangest in the world I have ever witnessed, that with JESUS, there is ALWAYS so much work He is up to, and I can count a zillion amazing things he has done in 2020 in our lives to draw us nearer to Him.
We passed by many hikers this day, but one couple caught my attention as they proclaimed “freeeeeedom!” I know why they were saying this. The ability to breathe in fresh air, unrestricted, out in God’s creation, and just GO! As we cheered one another on. How relatable this is to the Christian life. We all long for true freedom. This has been accomplished in the Believer’s soul, through faith and obedience, in trust in Jesus Christ. True everlasting freedom will eventually come to all who call upon Him in genuine faith as their Lord and Savior.
I just wanted to share this beautiful writing from Charles Spurgeon written back in the late 1800’s: I hope you enjoy. And I hope you know the true everlasting freedom in Jesus. Though the journey may be difficult, the truth will lead us on. Where the Spirit of the Lord is there is FREEDOM! 2 Cor. 3:17
Jesus said: “I am the way, the Truth and the Life, no one comes to the Father, except through Me” Jn. 14:6
NEARER to GOD – Charles Spurgeon
“Each believer should be thirsting for God, for the living God, and longing to climb the hill of the Lord and see Him face to face. We should not rest content in the mists of the valley when the summit of the mountain beckons us. My soul thirsts to drink deeply of the cup that is reserved for those who reach the mountain’s peak and bathe their brows in heaven. How pure are the dews of the hills; how fresh is the mountain air; how abundant is the provision of the dwellers aloft, whose windows look into the New Jerusalem!
(Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.) Matthew 5:6
Many saints are content to live like men in coal mines, who do not see the sun; they eat dust like the serpent when they might taste the food of angels; they are content to wear the miner’s garb when they might put on king’s robes; tears disfigure their faces when they might anoint them with celestial oil. I am convinced that many a believer pines in a dungeon when he might walk on the palace roof and view the goodly land. Rouse yourself, believer, from your low condition! Discard your laziness, your lethargy, your coldness, or whatever interferes with your sincere and pure love for Christ, your soul’s Husband. Make Him the source, the center, and the circumference of your soul’s whole range of delight.
Why do you remain in a pit? When upward you may go? Do not live in the lowlands of bondage now that mountain liberty is conferred upon you. Do not be satisfied any longer with your tiny attainments, but press forward to things more sublime and heavenly. Aspire to a higher, a nobler, a fuller life.”
From the Word of God:
“Not that I have already attained,[or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” Phil. 3:12-14
Upward to heaven! Nearer to God!
“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the temple of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways, so that we may walk in his paths.” Isaiah 2:3
