Growing in Christ
Octavius Winslow
God is Love with Octavius Winslow
01 year ago
This morning my soul was in distress and frustrated. So I turned to my faithful friend and pastor Octavius Winslow in his book, Our God, for some help. The book itself discusses the various attributes of God. The thing I always appreciate about Octavius is that he’s easy to read, and he always aims at the heart. You feel what he talks about. You cannot read Octavius and not gain a greater sense of God and a delight in grace. You always love Jesus more after just a few lines of anything Octavius writes. Here were some deeply edifying remarks he made about the Love of God.
Love was the moving, controlling attribute in God’s great expedient of saving sinners. Justice may have demanded it, holiness may have required it, wisdom may have planned it, and power may have executed it, but love originated the whole, and was the moving cause in the heart of God; so that the salvation of the sinner is not so much a manifestation of the justice, or holiness, or wisdom, or power of God, as it is a display of His love.
Love is not so much an attribute of God as it is His very essence. It is not so much a moral perfection of His being as it is His being itself. He would not be God were He not love. To deny that He is love would be to deny that He is God. To unrobe Him of this essential quality of His nature would be tantamount to the unrobing Him of His essential Godhead. He would not be God were He not love!
omnipotence is the power of love; omniscience is the eye of love; omnipresence is the atmosphere of love; holiness is the purity of love; justice is the fire of love;
In the words, “God is love,” we have a perfect portrait of the eternal and incomprehensible Jehovah, drawn by His own unerring hand. “The mode of expression here adopted differs materially from that usually employed by the inspired writers in speaking of the Divine perfections. They say, God is merciful, God is just, God is holy; but never do they say, God is mercy, God is justice, God is holiness. In this instance, on the contrary, the apostle, instead of saying, God is loving, or good, or kind, says ‘God is love,’ love itself. By this expression, we must understand that God is all pure, unmixed love, and that the other moral perfections are so many modifications of this love. Thus, His justice, His mercy, His truth, His faithfulness, are but so many different names of His love or goodness. As the light which proceeds from the sun may easily be separated into many different colors, so the holy love of God, which is the light and glory of His nature, may be separated into a variety of moral attributes and perfections. But, though separated, they are still love. His whole nature and essence is love. His will, His works, His words, are love; He is nothing, and can do nothing but love.” (Payson)
And were not God’s perfections thus modified and softened by love- were they not led on by this commanding perfection of His nature, each one, and all combined, would be terribly against us. His wisdom would baffle, His power would crush us, His holiness would terrify us, His justice would condemn us, and His truth would stand by, pledged to the stern and utmost fulfillment of their terrible and righteous display.
Now, God is essential love. He is not only loving, but He is love; is not only good, but goodness. All others are loving and good, not of themselves, but by derivation. The essence of all creatures is good, because God made them so, and so pronounced everything which He made; but they are not essentially good, else they could not change their nature and become bad.
Every creature must necessarily derive its love, and its capacity of loving, from God. But God derives His love, and His power of loving, from no other being but Himself.
In proportion as the Holy Spirit leads us to see the depths of our sinfulness, poverty, and nothingness, we shall learn that nothing less than a God of infinite love, grace, and sufficiency could meet our case.
You deal with a God whose love is infinite, and can infinitely more than reach the farthest extent of your need. Come with your great and your minor sins; come with your deep and your shallow needs; come to His infinite ocean of love, in which the elephant may swim, and which the lamb may wade.
Nothing else to add here. I simply love reading Octavius for two reasons: 1) How many people have such an awesome name as Octavius? and 2) He’s always encouraging. If you want to pick up more stuff by Octavius, check out some of his books here.
No Lesser Fountain!
02 years ago
Just a quick quote:
God has so constituted man, implanting in him such a capacity for happiness, and such boundless and immortal desires for its possession, as can find their full enjoyment only in infinity itself. He never designed that the intelligent and immortal creature should sip its bliss at a lower fountain than himself. ~ Octavius Winslow, Personal Declension and Revival of Religion in the Soul, p. 41-42
Jesus, Not Faith, Is Our Saviour
03 years ago
In my devotion time this morning, I was deeply struck by this quote below from Octavius Winslow. It has been the Lord’s gracious hand on my lately to see how means of grace are not the person of grace. In the quote bellow Winslow serves us well to show us how Jesus Christ, not faith in Jesus Christ, is our Saviour. I’ll step aside here and let him speak to you. I pray the Spirit meets you through this quote to see Jesus Christ more clearly as he has done for me today.
Be careful of not making a Saviour of faith. There is a danger – and it cannot be too vigilantly guarded against – of substituting the work of the Spirit for the work of Christ; this mistake it is that leads so many of God’s saints to look within, instead of without, themselves for the evidences of their calling and acceptance; and thus, too, so many are kept all their spiritual course walking in a state of bondage and fear, the great question never fully and fairly settled, or, in other words, never quite sure of their sonship. The work of Christ is a great and finished work; it is so glorious that it can admit of no comparison, so complete that it can allow of no addition, and so essential that it can give place to no substitution. Precious as is the work of the Holy Ghost in the heart, and essential as it is to the salvation of the soul, yet he who places it where the work of Jesus ought only to be, deranges the order of the covenant, closes up the legitimate source of evidence, and will assuredly bring distress and uncertainty into his soul. ” Righteousness, peace, and joy,” are the fruit of a full belief in the Lord Jesus Christ; and he who looks for them away from the cross, will meet with disappointment: but they are found in Jesus. He who looks away from himself, from his vileness, guiltiness, emptiness, and poverty, fully and believingly unto Jesus, shall know what the forgiveness of sin is, and shall experience the love of God shed abroad in his heart.
If, then, your faith is feeble and tried, be not cast down; faith does not save you. Though it be an instrument of salvation, and as such, is of vast importance, it is but the instrument; the finished work of Immanuel is the ground of your salvation, yea, it is your salvation itself. Then make not a Saviour of your faith; despise it not if it is feeble, exult not in it if it is strong, trample not on it if it is small, deify it not if it is great; such are the extremes to which every believer is exposed. If your faith is feeble and sharply tried, it is no evidence that you are not a believer; but the evidence of your acceptance in the Beloved, is to arise from Jesus alone; then let your constant motto be, “looking unto Jesus”; looking to him just as you are; looking unto him when faith is feeble; looking unto him when faith is tried; looking unto him when faith is declining, yea, looking unto him when you fear you have no faith. Look up, tried and tempted soul! Jesus is the Author, the Sustainer, and he will become the Finisher of thy faith. All thou wantest is in him. One glimpse, dim though it be, of his cross, – one touch, trembling though it be, of his garment, – will lift thee from thy lowest depths, lighten thy heaviest burthen, gild thy darkest prospect, and when thou arrivest at Jordan’s brink, will bear thee safely through its swellings, and land thee on the sunny and verdant shores of Canaan. Let this be your prayer, urged unceasingly at the throne of grace until it is answered – “Lord, increase my faith “; and then, with holy Paul, you too shall be enabled with humble assurance to exclaim, ” I know in whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day!”
~ Octavius Winslow, Personal Declension and the Revival of Religion in the Soul, p. 88-89.
Need for Prayer and Word
03 years ago
The Lord has recently been doing a large amount of illumination in my heart recently. I have seen how little my life is disciplined by prayer, and thus how little my life is disciplined by an enjoyment and resting on Scripture. I talked recently about the Bible reading plan that I’m now doing, and I’ve been at it for just over 2 weeks or so. It’s taken a bit to get on track with it – partly due to traveling and kidney stones – but I am finding it particularly exposing in my heart. In my reading this morning, I read the following:
If your law had not been my delight,
I would have perished in my affliction
~ Psalm 119:92
Through this Psalm, David will occasionally make references to his afflictions and how God’s law sustained him in those times from destruction. And in meditating upon my own heart, the Spirit illuminated how I know Scripture, but don’t necessarily take a stance of leaning, depending, or clinging to it. How often do I let the Scriptures sift my heart? How often to I let the Scriptures be to me my rope of rescue? If by faith we are initiated into the covenant people of God, then as a member of God’s covenant people, I look and cling to God through his covenant word. God speaks the Bible mainly for his people – and that includes me. I’m one of those. I wasn’t left to my own law of heart and inclination, but called to joyfully embrace and submit to God’s law.
The discipline of prayer has been the same issue for me. Winslow observes, “the declension (moral decay) of prayer in its spirit, exercise, and enjoyment, is strongly indicative of the decay of real grace in a child of God” (90). And as I meditated upon those words, I found to my shame my own soul being diagnosed! How often is my posture towards God that of prayer? Do I bow my head out of duty, or delight? If I were honest, I’d say it’s 95% duty, and 5% delight – if that. I do not think the spirit of prayer in my life is completely decrepit, but man it sure doesn’t have much blood flowing through it either. If God is truly my delight – the one upon whom my soul leans, the one whom I long for, the one whom I enjoy the more – then why is my drive and delight in prayer so weak? Oh but for grace I would be here consumed!
So this past weekend was an evaluation and re-visioning weekend for Michelle and I. And I believe the Lord has me in a season where I am learning common, grace filled disciplines. I am at a point where the Lord is teaching me to act upon my knowledge in a way that is consistent with the power of the truths I’ve learned. The Spirit is good, and always working to bring me to God.
Little Inclination For Communion with God – Winslow
03 years ago
Again here I’m posting from Personal Declension by Octavius Winslow. He’s discussing the symptoms of what a lack of love for God can look like in the heart of a believer. This is a great paragraph from his discussion that I found very helpful. I particularly find it horrifying that a heart may get so cold towards God that it would sooner be stirred by a revival of soul than by the Lord leaving it.
When there is but little inclination for communion with God, and the throne of grace is sought as a duty rather than a privilege, and, consequently, but little fellowship is experienced, a stronger evidence we need not of a declension of love in the soul. The more any object is to us a source of sweet delight and contemplation, the more strongly do we desire its presence, and the more restless are we in its absence. The friend we love we want constantly at our side; the spirit goes out in longings for communion with him, – his presence sweetens, his absence embitters, every other joy. Precisely true is this of God. He who knows God, who, with faith’s eye, has discovered some of his glory, and by the power of the Spirit has felt something of his love, will not be at a loss to distinguish between God’s sensible presence and absence in the soul. Some professing people walk so much without communion, without fellowship, without daily filial and close communion with God; they are so immersed in the cares, and so lost in the fogs and mists of the world; the fine edge of their spiritual affection is so blunted, and their love so frozen by contact with worldly influences and occupations, – and no less so, with cold, formal professors, – that the Sun of righteousness may cease to shine upon their soul, and they not know it! God may cease to visit them, and his absence not be felt! He may cease to speak, and the stillness of his voice not awaken an emotion of alarm! Yes, a more strange thing would happen to them, if the Lord were suddenly to break in upon their soul, with a visit of love, than were he to leave them for weeks and months without any token of his presence. Reader, are you a professing child of God? Content not yourself to live thus; it is a poor, lifeless existence, unworthy of your profession, unworthy of Him whose name you do bear, and unworthy of the glorious destiny towards which you are looking. Thus may a believer test the character of his love: he, in whose heart Divine affection deepens, increases, and expands, finds God an object of increasing delight and desire, and communion with him the most costly privilege on earth: he cannot live in the neglect of constant, secret, and close fellowship with his God, his best and most faithful Friend.
Spiritual Evaluation with Octavius Winslow
03 years ago
I started reading Personal Declension and Revival of Religion in the Soul by Octavius Winslow yesterday. I originally was made aware of Winslow through a blog post one of my pastors did recommending his works (here). So I picked up this book from Westminster Bookstore for $5.60, or you can read it for free here. To say the least, this book has deeply affected me, and I’m only 20 pages in! So, I’ve simply quoted a section from him below that stirred my heart to evaluation. I’ll bold the major part in case you would rather not read the whole thing, though I’d encourage you to read it if you have the time.
And yet, without changing its nature, divine grace may decline to an alarming extent in its power and exercise. It may be sickly, drooping, and ready to die; it may become so enfeebled through its decay, as to present an ineffectual resistance to the inroads of strong corruption; so low, that the enemy may ride rough-shod over it at his will; so inoperative and yielding, that sloth, worldliness, pride, carnality, and their kindred vices, may obtain an easy and unresisted conquest.
This decay of grace may be advancing, too, without any marked decline in the spiritual perception of the judgment, as to the beauty and fitness of spiritual truth. The loss of spiritual enjoyment, not of a spiritual perception of the loveliness and harmony of the truth, shall be the symptom that betrays the true condition of the soul. The judgment shall lose none of its light, but the heart much of its fervor; the truths of revelation, especially the doctrines of grace, shall occupy the same prominent position as to their value and beauty, and yet the influence of these truths may be scarcely felt. The Word of God shall be assented to; but as the instrument of sanctification, of abasement, of nourishment, the believer may be an almost utter stranger to it; yes, he must necessarily be so, while this process of secret declension is going forward in his soul.
This incipient state of declension may not involve any lowering of the standard of holiness; and yet there shall be no ascending of the heart, no reaching forth of the mind towards a practical conformity to that standard. The judgment shall acknowledge the divine law, as embodied in the life of Christ, to be the rule of the believer’s walk; and yet to so low and feeble a state may vital godliness have declined in the soul, there shall be no panting after conformity to Christ, no breathing after holiness, no “resistance unto blood, striving against sin.” Oh, it is an alarming condition for a Christian man, when the heart contradicts the judgment, and the life belies the profession! – when there is more knowledge of the truth than experience of its power, – more light in the understanding than grace in the affections, – more pretension in the profession than holiness and spirituality in the walk! And yet to this sad and melancholy state it is possible for a Christian professor to be reduced. How should it lead the man of empty notions, of mere creeds, of lofty pretension, of cold and lifeless orthodoxy, to pause, search his heart, examine his conscience, and ascertain the true state of his soul before God!
These words have had an impact, and one I’ve desired, upon this cold, orthodox heart of mine. Lord help me to delight in, not merely see, your glory and truth as it is!
