Cross-Centered Quotes

“Act your faith on Christ as yours, your Jesus, He that died for you, He that sweated great drops of blood for you in the garden, wrestling and grappling with His Father’s wrath for you in your name and stead there, and upon the cross.  Consider, that this your dearest Jesus, now in glory, knows your souls in adversity; He seeth all the trouble of your hearts.  He sympathizeth wtih you in your afflictions.  His heart, now in heaven, ‘is touched with the feeling of your infirmities’ on earth. Heb. 4:15  He hath human nature still, though glorified.  He feels our losses, crosses, griefs, pains and sorrows.  His heart, His most tender heart, is affected.  Oh that we could but believe this!  and thus consider with ourselves.  Here I sit solitary as a widow, or a widower, or childless, or fatherless, or motherless, or friendless; my family is broken; I feel pains and sickness; I am deprived of my liberty, my sweet relations and comfortable friends are laid in the dust; I have none about me to counsel or comfort me; I am brought low in the world; my estate is diminished, my honor and reputation lost, my pleasure gone, my flesh faileth me, my strength faileth, lovers and friends fail me, etc.  Such complaints we are apt enough to make, and it may be worse than these.  My God hath forsaken me, He hides His face from me; I am compassed about with temptations, and dejecting and distracting thoughts.  I am persecuted, banished from house and home, all my outward and inward comforts fail me.  These have been the cases and conditions of God’s dearest servants, as Job, David, Heman, and others; but yet let not your hearts be troubled for all this.  ‘Ye believe in God,’ act your faith on God, yea, and act it on Christ also:  believe in Jesus, look up by faith unto Jesus your dear Lord.  Whatsoever, whomsoever you have lost you have not lost your Jesus, your best Friend, your heavenly Husband.  You have His eye, His tender watchful provident eye upon you still.  You have His ear, open to your cries still.  Yea, you have His everlasting arms underneath you to sustain you still, for else you would sink.  Oh then, act faith upon the sweet nature of Christ as your Head and Husband.  ‘Can a mother forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb?’ Isa. 49:15 Possibly she may.  But can Jesus forget those whom He died for, and travailed for? No, no, He will not hide His face forever.  He will never forget His people.  Your maker is your Husband; and He is the Father of Mercies.”

John Bunyan (Heart’s Ease in Heart Trouble)