Daily Thoughts: Wisdom from John Newton

How unspeakably wonderful is it to know that all our concerns are held in the hands that bled for us!

Our sea may sometimes be stormy, but we have an infallible Pilot, and thus we shall infallibly gain our port.

Our work is great, our time is short, and the consequences of our labors are infinite.

My grand point in preaching is to break the hard heart and to heal the broken heart.

I am persuaded that love and humility are the highest attainments in the school of Christ, and the brightest evidences that He is indeed our Master.

A deep sense of indwelling sin is essential to humble living.

Self-righteousness can feed upon doctrines—as well as upon works!

I am still in the land of the dying; I shall be in the land of the living soon. (his last words)

This is faith– a renouncing of everything we call our own and relying wholly upon the blood, righteousness, and intercession of Jesus.

We can easily manage if we will only take for each day the burden appointed to it. But the load will be too heavy for us if we carry yesterday’s burden over again today, and then add the burden of tomorrow before we are required to bear it.

God sometimes does His work with gentle drizzle, not storms.

If we seem to get no good by attempting to draw near to Him, we may be sure we will get none by keeping away from Him.

Whoever is truly humbled will not be easily angry, nor harsh or critical of others. He will be compassionate and tender to the infirmities of his fellow-sinners, knowing that if there is a difference, it is grace alone which has made it! He knows that he has the seeds of every evil in his own heart. And under all trials and afflictions, he will look to the hand of the Lord, and lay his mouth in the dust, acknowledging that he suffers much less than his iniquities have deserved.

Once you love Christ, you will study to please Him.

It is a great thing to die; and, when flesh and a heart fail, to have God as the strength of our hearts, and our portion forever. I know whom I have believed, and he is able to keep that which I have committed against that great day. Hence forth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me that day.

Afflictions quicken us to prayer. It is a pity it should be so; but experience testifies, that a long course of ease and prosperity, without painful changes, has an unhappy tendency to make us cold and formal in our secret worship. But troubles rouse our spirits, and constrain us to call upon the Lord in good earnest when we feel a need of that help which we only can have from his almighty arm. Afflictions are useful, and in a degree necessary, to keep alive in us a conviction of the vanity and unsatisfying nature of the present world, and all its enjoyments; to remind us that this world is not our rest, and to call our thoughts upwards where our true treasure is, and where our heart ought to be. When things go on much to our , our ease and comfort, our hearts are too prone to say, “It is good to be here!”

You have liberty to cast all your cares upon him who cares for you. By one hour’s intimate access to the throne of grace, where the Lord causes his glory to pass before the soul that seeks him, you may acquire more true spiritual knowledge and comfort than by a day or a week’s converse with the best of men, or the most studious reading of many books.

– John Newton

Posted in Daily Thoughts, Denton church.