I Am Not What I Ought To

My Grand Point In Preaching Is To Break The Hard Heart, And To Heal The Broken One.

I Compare The Troubles Which We Have To Undergo In The Course Of The Year To A Great Bundle Of Sticks, Far Too Large For Us To Lift. But God Does Not Require Us To Carry The Whole At Once. He Mercifully Unties The Bundle, And Gives Us First One Stick, Which We Are To Carry Today, And Then Another, Which We Are To Carry Tomorrow, And So On. This We Might Easily Manage, If We Would Only Take The Burden Appointed For Us Each Day; But We Choose To Increase Our Troubles By Carrying Yesterday's Stick Over Again Today, And Adding Tomorrow's Burden To Our Load, Before We Are Required To Bear It.

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.

Christ Has Taken Our Nature Into Heaven To Represent Us; And Has Left Us On Earth, With His Nature, To Represent Him.

Assurance Grows By Repeated Conflict, By Our Repeated Experimental Proof Of The Lord's Power And Goodness To Save; When We Have Been Brought Very Low And Helped, Sorely Wounded And Healed, Cast Down And Raised Again, Have Given Up All Hope, And Been Suddenly Snatched From Danger, And Placed In Safety; And When These Things Have Been Repeated To Us And In Us A Thousand Times Over, We Begin To Learn To Trust Simply To The Word And Power Of God, Beyond And Against Appearances: And This Trust, When Habitual And Strong, Bears The Name Of Assurance; For Even Assurance Has Degrees.