Scripture at Sunrise 12.19.2023

“So shall we ever be with the Lord.” -1 Thessalonians 4:17

While we are here the Lord is with us, and when we are called away we are with Him. There is no dividing the saint from His Savior. They are one, and they always must be one: Jesus cannot be without His own people, for He would be a Head without a body. Whether caught up into the air, or resting in paradise, or sojourning here, we are with Jesus; and who shall separate us from Him?

What a joy is this! Our supreme honor, rest, comfort, delight, is to be with the Lord. We cannot conceive of anything which can surpass or even equal this divine society. By holy fellowship we must be with Him in His humiliation, rejection, and travail, and then we shall be with Him in His glory. Before long we shall be with Him in His rest and in His royalty, in His expectation and in His manifestation. We shall fare as He fares and triumph as He triumphs.

O my Lord, if I am to be forever with Thee, I have a destiny incomparable. I will not envy an archangel. To be forever with the Lord is my idea of heaven at its best. Not the harps of gold, nor the crowns unfading, nor the light unclouded is glory to me; but Jesus, Jesus Himself, and myself forever with Him in nearest and dearest fellowship.

[from Faith’s Checkbook by Charles H. Spurgeon]

Scripture at Sunrise 03.14.2023

“As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you.” -Isaiah 66:13

A mother’s comfort! Ah, this is tenderness itself. How she enters into her child’s grief! How she presses him to her bosom and tries to take all his sorrow into her own heart! He can tell her all, and she will sympathize as nobody else can. Of all comforters the child loves best his mother, and even full-grown men have found it so.

Does Jehovah condescend to act the mother’s part? This is goodness indeed. We readily perceive how He is a father; but will He be as a mother also? Does not this invite us to holy familiarity, to unreserved confidence, to sacred rest? When God Himself becomes “the Comforter,” no anguish can long abide. Let us tell out our trouble, even though sobs and sighs should become our readiest utterance. He will not despise us for our tears; our mother did not. He will consider our weakness as she did, and He will put away our faults, only in a surer, safer way than our mother could do. We will not try to bear our grief alone; that would be unkind to one so gentle and so kind. Let us begin the day with our loving God, and wherefore should we not finish it in the same company, since mothers weary not of their children?

[from Faith’s Checkbook by Charles H. Spurgeon]

Scripture at Sunrise 2.4.2020

“I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.” -John 14:18

He left us, and yet we are not left orphans. He is our comfort, and He is gone; but we are not comfortless. Our comfort is that He will come to us, and this is consolation enough to sustain us through His prolonged absence. Jesus is already on His way: He says, “I come quickly”: He rides posthaste toward us. He says, “I will come”: and none can prevent His coming, or put it back for a quarter of an hour. He specially says, “I will come to you”; and so He will. His coming is specially to and for His own people. This is meant to be their present comfort while they mourn that the Bridegroom doth not yet appear.

When we lose the joyful sense of His presence we mourn, but we may not sorrow as if there were no hope. Our Lord in a little wrath has hid Himself from us for a moment, but He will return in full favor. He leaves us in a sense, but only in a sense. When He withdraws, He leaves a pledge behind that He will return. O Lord, come quickly! There is no life in this earthly existence if Thou be gone. We sigh for the return of Thy sweet smile. When wilt Thou come unto us? We are sure Thou wilt appear; but be Thou like a roe, or a young hart. Make no tarrying, O our God!

[from Morning & Evening by Charles H. Spurgeon]

Scripture after Sunrise 1.20.2020

“For I have derived much joy and comfort from your love, my brother, because the hearts of the saints have been refreshed through you.” -Philemon 7

Do people sense the goodness and greatness and presence of God when you come around? Does your life bring joy and comfort to other people’s lives? Does it bring consolation (rest) to others? Only through Christ can this happen.

-Steve Wainright (excerpts from Sunday morning sermon from Philemon 4-7 — “A Christian Refresher“)

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Recent SERMON AUDIO

• • Sunday Morning 1/19 – Philemon 4-7
    A Christian Refresher
  • Sunday Evening 1/19 – 1 Corinthians 11
    The Lord’s Supper
  • Wednesday Evening 1/15 – John 21:1-23
    3 Resolutions for Restoration from Jesus

Scripture at Sunrise 2.21.2019

“For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too.” -2 Corinthians 1:5

God blessing you with the grace of His comfort should not be confused with him making your life comfortable. The God of all Comfort will lead you into what is uncomfortable in pursuit of what is best. -Paul Tripp via Twitter

Scripture at Sunrise 2.5.2019

“When I see the blood, I will pass over you.” -Exodus 12:13

My own sight of the precious blood is for my comfort; but it is the Lord’s sight of it which secures my safety. Even when I am unable to behold it, the Lord looks at it and passes over me because of it. If I am not so much at ease as I ought to be, because my faith is dim, yet I am equally safe because the Lord’s eye is not dim, and He sees the blood of the great Sacrifice with steady gaze. What a joy is this!

The Lord sees the deep inner meaning, the infinite fullness of all that is meant by the death of His dear Son. He sees it with restful memory of justice satisfied and all His matchless attributes glorified. He beheld creation in its progress and said, “It is very good”; but what does He say of redemption in its completeness? What does He say of the obedience even unto death of His well-beloved Son? None can tell His delight in Jesus, His rest in the sweet savor which Jesus presented when He offered Himself without spot unto God.

Now rest we in calm security. We have God’s sacrifice and God’s Word to create in us a sense of perfect security. He will, He must, pass over us, because He spared not our glorious Substitute. Justice joins hands with love to provide everlasting salvation for all the blood-besprinkled.

[from Faith’s Checkbook by Charles H. Spurgeon]

Scripture at Sunrise 9.6.2018

“For those whom He foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son…” -Romans 8:29

God daily uses the brokenness of the world around you as a tool of His transforming grace. Your present comfort is not His primary focus, your progressive transformation is. -Paul Tripp via Twitter

Scripture at Sunrise 6.27.2018

“I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? My help comes from the LORD, who made heaven and earth.” -Psalm 121:1-2

Aren’t you thankful that God often moves you from situations in which you are comfortable to situations in which you are not, from situations in which you are secured to that in which you are not, so that God’s will and the cross may be central in your life? -excerpt from Sugrim Ramesar’s 6/24 Sunday Evening Sermon

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SERMON AUDIO
Sunday Morning 6/24 – Mark 5:1-20
Overwhelmed by God’s Grace
Sunday Evening 6/24 – Mark 6:30-52
The Storm
Wednesday Evening 6/20 – 2 Kings 24:1-20
The Last Three Kings of Israel

Scripture at Sunrise 1.4.2017

“After the two days He departed for Galilee. (For Jesus Himself had testified that a prophet has no honor in his own hometown.” -John 4:43-44

“Our spiritual ministry decisions should be based on needs, not ease.” -Anthony Vance, Sunday Evening Sermon on John 4:43-45

Scripture at Sunrise 12.20.2016

“I, I am He who comforts you;  who are you that you are afraid of man who dies, of the son of man who is made like grass,
and have forgotten the LORD, your Maker, who stretched out the heavens and laid the foundations of the earth, and you fear continually all the day because of the wrath of the oppressor, when he sets himself to destroy? And where is the wrath of the oppressor?” -Isaiah 51:12-13

Let the text itself be taken as the portion for today. There is no need to enlarge upon it. Trembling one, read it, believe it, feed on it, and plead it before the Lord. He whom you fear is only a man after all; while He who promises to comfort you is God, your Maker, and the creator of heaven and earth. Infinite comfort more than covers a very limited danger.

“Where is the fury of the oppressor?” It is in the Lord’s hand. It is only the fury of a dying creature; fury which will end as soon as the breath is gone from the nostril. Why, then, should we stand in awe of one who is as frail as ourselves? Let us not dishonor our God by making a god of puny man. We can make an idol of a man by rendering to him excessive fear as well as by paying him inordinate love. Let us treat men as men, and God as God; and then we shall go calmly on in the path of duty, fearing the Lord and fearing nobody else.

[from Faith’s Checkbook by Charles H. Spurgeon]