{"id":5868,"date":"2020-11-17T10:26:50","date_gmt":"2020-11-17T10:26:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/?p=5868"},"modified":"2020-11-17T10:26:50","modified_gmt":"2020-11-17T10:26:50","slug":"who-makes-you-different-from-anyone-else%ef%bb%bf","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/?p=5868","title":{"rendered":"Who makes you different from anyone else?\ufeff"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Who makes you different from anyone else?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Charles Spurgeon)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWho maketh thee to differ from another?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 What hast thou, that thou did\u2019t not receive?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 And if thou dids\u2019t receive it, why dost thou boast as if thou hads\u2019t not received it?\u201d 1 Corinthians 4:7<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is grace\u2014free sovereign grace, which has made you to differ!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Should any here, supposing themselves to be the children of God, imagine that there is some reason \u201cin them\u201d why they should have been chosen\u2014let them know that as yet they are in the dark concerning the first principles of grace, and have not yet learned the gospel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If ever they had known the gospel, they would, on the other hand, confess that they were . . .<\/p>\n\n\n\n

  the off-scouring of all things,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

  undeserving,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

  ill-deserving,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

  and Hell-deserving!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They would ascribe it all to distinguishing grace, which has made them to differ; and to discriminating love, which has chosen them out from the rest of the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Great Christian, you would have been a heinous sinner\u2014if God had not made you to differ!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

O! you who are valiant for truth, you would have been as valiant for the devil\u2014if sovereign grace had not laid hold of you!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A seat in Heaven shall one day be yours, but a chain in Hell would have been yours\u2014if grace had not changed you!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can now sing His love; but a licentious song would have been on your lips\u2014if grace had not washed you in the blood of Jesus!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You are now sanctified, you are quickened, you are justified; but what would you have been today\u2014if it had not been for the interposition of the divine hand?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is not a crime you might not have committed\u2014there is not a folly into which you might not have run.  Even murder itself you might have committed\u2014if grace had not preserved you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You shall be like the angels; but you would have been like the devil\u2014if you had not been changed by grace!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Therefore never be proud, though you now have a wide domain of grace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once you had not a single thing to call your own\u2014except your sin and misery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You are now wrapped up in the golden righteousness of the Savior, and accepted in the garments of the Beloved! But you would have been buried under the black mountain of sin, and clothed with the filthy rags of unrighteousness, if He had not changed you!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And are you proud?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do you exalt yourself?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

O! strange mystery, that you who have nothing but sin and misery, should exalt yourself!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That you, a poor dependent pensioner upon the bounty of your Savior, should be proud!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Go, hang your pride upon the gallows as high as Haman! Hang it there to rot, and execrate it to all eternity!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Surely of all things most to be despised\u2014is the pride of a Christian. He, of all men, has ten thousand times more reason than any other to be humble, and walk lowly with his God, and kindly and meekly toward his fellow-creatures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBy the grace of God I am what I am!\u201d 1 Corinthians 15:10<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Who makes you different from anyone else? (Charles Spurgeon) \u201cWho maketh thee to differ from another?  What hast thou, that thou did\u2019t not receive?  And if thou dids\u2019t receive it, why dost thou boast as if thou hads\u2019t not received it?\u201d 1 Corinthians 4:7 It is grace\u2014free sovereign grace, which has made you to differ! […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,112,67,37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5868","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-c-h-spurgeon","category-gospel-separation","category-taught-of-god","category-the-called"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5868","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5868"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5868\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5869,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5868\/revisions\/5869"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5868"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5868"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5868"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}