God Does Nothing in Vain

"I will trust Him. Whatever, wherever I am, I can never be thrown away. If I am in sickness, my sickness may serve Him; in perplexity, my perplexity may serve Him; if I am in sorrow, my sorrow may serve Him. My sickness, or perplexity, or sorrow may be necessary causes of some great end, which is quite beyond us. He does nothing in vain." John Henry Newman

Fishers Follow Him

And Jesus said unto them, Come ye after me, and I will make you to become fishers of men. (Mark 1:17)

Only by coming after Jesus can we obtain our heart's desire and be really useful to our fellow men. Oh, how we long to be successful fishers for Jesus! We would sacrifice our lives to win souls. But we are tempted to try methods which Jesus would never have tried. Shall we yield to this suggestion of the enemy? If so, we may splash the water, but we shall never take the fish. We must follow after Jesus if we would succeed. Sensational methods, entertainment, and so forth -- are these coming after Jesus? Can we imagine the Lord Jesus drawing a congregation by such means as are now commonly used? What is the result of such expedients? The result is nothing which Jesus will count up at the last great day.

We must keep to our preaching as our Master did, for by this means souls are saved. We must preach our Lord's doctrine and proclaim a full and free gospel, for this is the net in which souls are taken, We must preach with His gentleness, boldness, and love, for this is the secret of success with human hearts. We must work under divine anointing, depending upon the sacred Spirit. Thus, coming after Jesus, and not running before Him, not aside from Him, we shall be fishers of men.

From Charles Spurgeon's "Faith's Checkbook"

A Pardon is an Act of Grace

In 1826, two men named were sentenced to hang for robbing the US Postal Service. One man, Porter, was hanged in July 1830. Three weeks later, President Andrew Jackson pardoned the second perpetrator, named Wilson—his death sentence was lifted. But in a bizarre twist, Wilson refused the pardon. It sent the court system into confusion and took three years to resolve. Finally, in the Supreme Court, the Chief Justice passed a historic decision regarding the acceptance or rejection of a pardon:

“A pardon is an act of grace . . . which exempts the individual on whom it is bestowed from the punishment the law inflicts for a crime he has committed . . . A pardon is a deed to the validity of which delivery is essential, and delivery is not complete without acceptance. It may then be rejected by the person to whom it is tendered, and if it be rejected, we have discovered no power in a court to force it on him.”

The Abundance of God's Pardon

“God’s pardon is abundant because it wells up from an infinitely deep fountain. Our sins may pile as high as the tallest mountains, but Jesus’ blood, like Noah’s flood, drowns them all.” -- Charles Spurgeon