The Circumcision Of The Heart - Part 1

There is no middle ground.

Every part of our lives, not some only, must either be a sacrifice to God, or to ourselves.

Even giving all our lives to God will profit us nothing.

Unless we give our hearts, all our hearts to Him, it is as if we had done nothing.

“The circumcision of the heart… is that habitual disposition of soul which, in the sacred writings is termed ‘holiness’; and which directly implies, the being cleansed from sin ‘from all filthiness both of flesh and spirit’; and, by consequence the being endued with those virtues which were in Christ Jesus the being so ‘renewed in the image of our mind’, as to be ‘perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect’.”

John Wesley

The simplicity of intention and purity of affection are the wings of the soul.

To give everything we speak or do and let Him to rule our tempers is how we can ascend to the mount of God.

It is absolutely impossible to be half a Christian.

Where to find the only standard of truth?

And the only model of pure religion?

“… I began not only to read, but to study, the Bible, as the one, the only standard of truth, and the only model of pure religion.”

John Wesley

It is necessary to have the mind of which is in Christ.

And to walk as Christ also walked.

And not only in many or in most respects, but in all things.

The Christianity is a uniform following of Christ, and entire inward and outward conformity to our Master.

How to find the way of least disconformity to our grand Exemplar?

“’Love is the fulfilling of the law, the end of the commandment’. It is not only ‘the first and great’ command, but all the commandments in one. ‘Whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, if there be any virtue, if there be any praise’, they are all comprised in this one word, love.

In this is perfection, and glory and happiness: The royal law of heaven and earth is this, ‘Thou shall love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength’. The one perfect good shall be your one ultimate end. One thing ye shall desire for its own sake, -- the fruition of Him who is all in all.

 One happiness shall ye propose to your souls, even an union with Him that made them, the having ‘fellowship with the Father and the Son’, the being ‘joined to the Lord in one spirit’. One design ye are to pursue to the end of time, – the enjoyment of God in time and in eternity. Desire other things so far as they tend to this; love the creature, as it leads to the Creator. But in every step you take, be this glorious point that terminates the view.

Let every affection, and thought and word, and action, be subordinate to this. Whatever ye desire or fear, whatever ye seek or shun, whatever ye think or speak, or do, be it in order to your happiness in God, the sole end, as well as source, of your being.”

John Wesley

To be continued... 

This post is part of the Thursday Devotionals series.

He Grew Downward In The Pain Of Contrition And He Grew Upward In The Joy Of Adoration - Thursday Devotionals

When Charles Simeon was old and could look on much success, he wrote to a friend on the fiftieth anniversary of his work:

“But I love the valley of humiliation. I there feel that I am in my proper place.”

Charles Simeon

In the last month of his life he wrote:

“In truth, I love to see the creature annihilated in the apprehension, and swallowed up in God; I am then safe, happy, triumphant.”

Charles Simeon

Why is this evangelical humiliation a place of happiness to Simeon?

“By constant meditating the goodness of God and on our great deliverance from that punishment which our sins have deserved, we are brought to feel our vileness and utter unworthiness; and while we continue in this spirit of self-degradation, everything else will go on easily.

We shall find ourselves advancing in our course; we all feel the presence of God: we shall experience His love; we shall live in the enjoyment of His favour and in the hope of His glory…

You often feel that your prayers scarcely reach the ceiling; but, oh, get into this humble spirit by considering how good the Lord is, and how evil you are, and then prayer will mount on wings of faith to heaven.

The sigh, the groan of a broken heart, will soon go through the ceiling up to heaven, aye, into the very bosom of God.”

Charles Simeon

The secret of Charles Simeon’s perseverance was that he never threw overboard the heavy ballast of his own humiliation for sin and that this helped keep his mast erect and his sails full of the spirit of adoration.

“I love simplicity; I love contrition… I love the religion of heaven; to fall on our faces while we adore the Lamb is the kind of religion which my soul affects.”

Charles Simeon

As Simeon lay dying on October of 1836, a friend sat by his bed and asked what he was thinking of just then.

“I don’t think now; I am enjoying.” Charles Simeon’s answer on his deathbed.

He grew downward in the pain of contrition and he grew upward in the joy of adoration.

The weaving together of these two experiences into one is the achievement of the cross of Christ and the deepest secret of Charles Simeon’s great perseverance.

This post is part of Thursday Devotionals series. Right now it is going through the life, work and faith of Charles Simeon.

Would you like to read the first part, Are You Ready To Suffer For Christ?

You might also enjoy the second part of the series, Growing Downward.

I also recommend the thrird part for the children of this generation called, All Consuming Interest.

The fourth part is called, Peace Flowed In Rich Abundance.

If you have not yet read the fifth part  This Sweet Hope.

Take some time to read the sixth part also, Blessed Are The Peacemakers.

Hope you will enjoy reading the seventh part, A Double Blessing To Your Ministry.

Are you willing for, A Little Suffering For Christ's Sake.

The part before this was about Growing Upward In Adoration Of Christ

How to attain, a Broken And Contrite Spirit?

Broken And Contrite Spirit - Thursday Devotionals

Have we thrown the ballast overboard?

Was Charles Simeon right?

And is this why contemporary Christians are emotionally capsized so easily – so vulnerable to winds of criticism or opposition?

Is it that in the name of forgiveness and grace, we have thrown the ballast of our own sinfulness overboard?

Simeon’s boat drew a lot of water.

But it was steady and on course and the mastheads were higher and the sails bigger and more full of the Spirit than most people’s today who talk continuously about self-esteem.

For Simeon, adoration of God grew best in the plowed soil of his own contrition.

In 1794 his friend Marsden found Simeon “so absorbed in the contemplation of the Son of God, and so overpowered with a display of His mercy to his soul, that he was incapable of pronouncing a single word, till at length, he exclaimed, “Glory, glory.”

Few days later, another friend called Thomason found Simeon at the hour of the private lecture on Sunday scarcely able to speak, “from a deep humiliation and contrition”.

According to  H.C.G. Moule these two experiences are not the alternating excesses of an ill-balanced mind.

Rather, according to Moule, they are “two poles of a sphere of profound experience”.

Simeon had no fear of turning up every sin in his life and looking upon with great grief and hatred, because he had such a vision of Christ’s sufficiency that this would always result in deeper cleansing and adoration.

“I would have the whole of my experience one continued sense – first, of my nothingness, and dependency on God; second, of my guiltiness and desert before Him; third, of my obligations to redeeming love, as utterly overwhelming me with its incomprehensible extend and grandeur. Now I do not see why any of these should swallow up another.”

Charles Simeon

Simeon was convinced that Biblical doctrines at once most abase and most gladden the soul.

“I have deep and abundant cause for humiliation, I have never ceased to wash in that fountain that was opened for sin and uncleanness, or to cast myself upon the tender mercy of my reconciled God.”

Charles Simeon

He actually fled for refuge to the place which we today try so hard to escape.

“Repentance is in every view so desirable, so necessary, so suited to honor God, that I seek that above all. The tender heart, the broken and contrite spirit, are to me far above all the joys that I could ever hope for in this vale of tears. I long to be in my proper place, my hand on my mouth, and my mouth in the dust… I feel this to be safe ground. Here I cannot err… I am sure that whatever God may despise… He will not despise the broken and contrite heart.”

Charles Simeon

This post is part of Thursday Devotionals series. Right now it is going through the life, work and faith of Charles Simeon.

Would you like to read the first part, Are You Ready To Suffer For Christ?

You might also enjoy the second part of the series, Growing Downward.

I also recommend the thrird part for the children of this generation called, All Consuming Interest.

The fourth part is called, Peace Flowed In Rich Abundance.

If you have not yet read the fifth part  This Sweet Hope.

Take some time to read the sixth part also, Blessed Are The Peacemakers.

Hope you will enjoy reading the seventh part, A Double Blessing To Your Ministry.

Are you willing for, A Little Suffering For Christ's Sake.

The part before this was about Growing Upward In Adoration Of Christ

Growing Upward In Adoration Of Christ - Thursday Devotionals

Charles Simeon grew downward in humiliation before God, and he grew upward in his adoration of Christ.

“Before honor is humility and he had been growing downwards year by year under the stern discipline of difficulty met in the right way, the way of close and adoring communion with God.”

H.C.G. Moule about Charles Simeon

The two things were the heartbeat of Simeon’s inner life: growing downwards in humility and growing upward in adoring communion with God.

“Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.”

Romans 12:12

The remarkable thing about humiliation and adoration in the heart of Charles Simeon is that they were inseparable.

Unlike most of us today who think we should get rid once and for all of feelings of vileness and unworthiness as soon as we can, for Simeon, adoration only grew in the freshly plowed soil of humiliation for sin.

Simeon actually labored to know his true sinfulness and his remaining corruption as a Christian.

“Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.”

Philippians 4:6

Do you seek your heart to find the sin in it or do rather hide from it and from the humiliation?

“I have continually had such a sense of my sinfulness as would sink me into utter despair, if I had not an assured view of the sufficiency and willingness of Christ to save me to the uttermost. And at the same time I had such a sense of my acceptance through Christ as would overset my little bark, if I had not ballast at the bottom sufficient to sink a vessel of no ordinary size.”

Charles Simeon

Simeon never lost sight of the need for the heavy ballast of his own humiliation.

After he had been a Christian forty years he wrote,

“With this sweet hope of ultimate acceptance of God, I have always enjoyed much cheerfulness before men; but I have at the same time labored incessantly to cultivate the deepest humiliation before God. I have never thought that the circumstance of God’s having forgiven me was any reason why I should forgive myself; on the contrary, I have always judged it better to loathe myself the more, in proportion as I was assured that God was pacified towards me…

There are but two objects that I have ever desired for these forty years to behold; the one is my own vileness; and the other is the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ; and I have always thought that they should be viewed together; just as Aaron confessed all the sins of Israel whilst he put them on the head of the scapegoat.

 The disease did not keep him from applying the remedy, nor did the remedy keep him from feeling the disease. By this I seek to be, not only humbled and thankful, but humbled in thankfulness, before my God and Saviour continually.”

Charles Simeon

“Then, when I make atonement for you for all you have done, you will remember and be ashamed and never again open your mouth because of your humiliation, declares the Sovereign Lord.”

Ezekiel 16:63

This post is part of Thursday Devotionals series. Right now it is going through the life, work and faith of Charles Simeon.

Would you like to read the first part, Are You Ready To Suffer For Christ?

You might also enjoy the second part of the series, Growing Downward.

I also recommend the thrird part for the children of this generation called, All Consuming Interest.

The fourth part is called, Peace Flowed In Rich Abundance.

If you have not yet read the fifth part , This Sweet Hope.

Take some time to read the sixth part also, Blessed Are The Peacemakers.

Hope you will enjoy reading the seventh part, A Double Blessing To Your Ministry.

Are you willing for, A Little Suffering For Christ's Sake.

A Little Suffering For Christ's Sake - Thursday Devotionals

Charles Simeon saw his suffering as a wonderful privilege of bearing the cross with Christ.

One striking witness to this was during a time when the Cambridge University was especially cold and hostile to him.

He reflected on his own name “Simeon” which is the same as Simon who was compelled to bear the cross for Jesus.

“As they were going out, they met a man from Cyrene, named Simon, and they forced him to carry the cross.”

Matthew 27:32

He exclaimed about that text:

“What a word of instruction was here--- what a blessed hint for my encouragement! To have the cross laid upon me, that I might bear it after Jesus—what a privilege! It was enough. Now I could leap and sing for joy as one whom Jesus was honoring with a participation in His sufferings.”

Charles Simeon

After being persecuted for 49 years for his faith, he was asked how he had surmounted it, he said:

“We must not mind a little suffering for Christ’s sake.”

Charles Simeon

Simeon strengthened himself with massive doses of meditation and prayer.

A friend of Simeon named Housman lived with him for few months and talked about his discipline.

“Simeon invariably arose every morning, though it was the winter season, at four o’clock; and, after lighting his fire, he devoted the first four hours of the day to private prayer and the devotional study of the Scriptures… Here was the secret of his great grace and spiritual strength. Deriving instruction from such source, and seeking it with such diligence, he was comforted in all his trials and prepared for every duty.”

H.C.G. Moule about Charles Simeon

How many of us take such time to talk with God every day?

Do you take any time during the day to meditate and pray?

Is it enough or could it be more?

How much time is enough?

“Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful.”

Colossians 4:2

This post is part of Thursday Devotionals series. Right now it is going through the life, work and faith of Charles Simeon.

Would you like to read the first part, Are You Ready To Suffer For Christ?

You might also enjoy the second part of the series, Growing Downward.

I also recommend the thrird part for the children of this generation called, All Consuming Interest.

The fourth part is called, Peace Flowed In Rich Abundance.

If you have not yet read the fifth part , This Sweet Hope.

Take some time to read the sixth part also, Blessed Are The Peacemakers.

Hope you will enjoy reading the seventh part, A Double Blessing To Your Ministry.

Are you willing for, A Little Suffering For Christ's Sake.