MONDAY ANS SPURGEON

TRUST YOU ALL HAD A GREAT LORD'S DAY. IT WAS WILD HERE. THERE IS MORE AND MORE SNOW EVERYDAY. SO MUCH THAT EVEN IT IS HARD FOR THIS PLACE TO KEEP UP. MOST THEY'VE HAD IN A DOZEN YEARS. WOKE UP TO MORE TODAY. I'VE NEVER SEEN SO MUCH IN ALL MY DAYS IN RUSSIA. THE AIRPORT IS EVEN CLOSED HERE TODAY. INCREDIBLE. IT MEANS I CAN ONLY LEAVE TOMORROW. HOPEFULLY. IT IS -20c(-4f) HERE TODAY. I HAVE BEEN COLD FOR AN ENTIRE WEEK. CAN'T GET WARM.

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I WANT TO THANK GOD FOR A WARM OASIS HE HAS LEAD ME TO. I AM REDISCOVERING CHARLES SPURGEON. IN THE EARLY YEARS OF MY WALK WITH CHRIST, NO ONE WRITER MOVED ME ANY MORE THAN SPURGEON. OVER THE YEARS, HE HAS STAYED A FRIEND, BUT WE HAVE MADE CONTACT SPORADICALLY. I AM RESOLVING FOR THIS YEAR TO VISIT HIM MORE OFTEN, IF NOT DAILY, NO LESS THAN WEEKLY. GOD GAVE SPURGEON UNUSUAL GIFTS FOR AN UNUSUAL TIME IN HISTORY AND HIS WORK CONTINUES TO INSPIRE OVER 100 YEARS LATER.

I HIGHLY RECOMMEND HIM TO YOU FOR AT LEAST A WEEKLY VISIT. YOU CAN FIND HIM ALL OVER THE NET IF YOU ARE INTERESTED. JUST GOOGLE CHARLES SPURGEON.

I READ THIS PORTION HE WROTE ABOUT THE JOY AND PEACE OF THE BELIEVER:

...Understand, that you must not look upon the possession of joy and peace as being the absolutely necessary consequence of your being saved. A man may be in thelife-boat, but that life-boat may be so tossed about that he may still feel himself exceedingly ill, and think himself to be still in peril. It is not his sense of safety that makes him safe; he is safe because he is in the lifeboat, whether he is sensible of this or not. Understand then that joy and peace are not infallible or indispensable evidences of safety, and that they certainly are not unchanging evidences. The brightest Christians lose their joy, and some of those that stand well in the things ofGod, and concerning whom you would entertain no doubt, entertain a great many suspicions, however, about themselves. Joy and peace are the element of aChristian, but he is sometimes out of his element: joy and peace are his usual states, but there are times when, with fightings within and wars without, his joy departs, and his peace is broken. The leaves on the tree prove that the tree is alive, but the absence of leaves will not prove that the tree is dead. True joy and peace may be very satisfactory evidences, but the absence of joy and peace, during certain seasons, can often be accounted for on some other hypothesis than that of there being no faith within....

HE COULD SAY MORE IN A SENTENCE THAN MOST CAN SAY IN AN ENTIRE SERMON. ALMOST EVERY TIME I READ HIM, I FIND A JEWEL. AGAIN, I RECOMMEND HIM. IF NOT SPURGEON, THEN I URGE YOU TO FIND SOMEONE WHO IS OR HAS BEEN IN TOUCH WITH GOD, WHO HE CAN USE TO HELP FEED AND NURSE OUR SOULS.

HEY THANKS FOR EVERY NOTE!

LOVE YA'LL. YA'LL LOVE EACH OTHER.