Why I love the Psalms

20130223-001524.jpgSince I have become a Christian I have found great comfort & encouragement in the book of Psalms, just as many other saints have over the centuries. Often I have felt like the psalmists have articulated in words what I’ve felt when facing adversity. There are many prayers I’ve used that have seemed to be just right for me in my circumstance. The book of Psalms has helped teach me how to praise & worship God, by magnifying who God is and what He does, which has been fuel to my passion for worshipping God. Not only have the psalms taught me to worship God in the difficult times but they have taught me to trust God always. David was a mighty warrior who fought & won many battles in hand to hand combat but he also fought the fight of faith, trusting God when it was hard to see past his trials. This what he said kept him going “I would have lost heart, unless I had believed That I would see the goodness of the Lord In the land of the living. (Psalm 27:13,NKJV). Great expressions of trust in God are saturated throughout the pages of the Psalms & I have been greatly helped in my fight of faith by the influence of the Psalms. I have also been taught a great deal about repentance & how fight sin in my own life. Psalm 51 & 32 God has used in my life to teach me how to repent when I have found myself with a guilty conscience. The book of Psalms is the most quoted Old Testament book in the New Testament. For some reason the Holy Spirit chose use the psalms more than any other Old Testament book to communicate His message. Certainly the Holy Spirit still uses these previous passages of Scripture to strengthen faith of the saints, comfort them in their trials & lead them into sweet communion with the Father.

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Charles H. Spurgeon’s Conversion Story

20130222-133510.jpgTaken from Charles H. Spurgeon: His Faith and Works, H.L. Wayland, 1892.

I was miserable, I could do scarcely anything.Myheart was broken to pieces. Six months did I pray, prayed agonizingly with all my heart, and never had an answer. I resolved that in the town where I lived I would visit every place of worship, in order to find the way of salvation. I felt I was willing to do anything if God would only forgive me. I set off determined to visit all the chapels, and though I deeply venerate the men who occupy those pulpits now, and did so then, I am bound to say, that I never heard them once fully preach the gospel. … At last, one snowy day, I found rather an obscure street and turned down a court, and there was a little chapel. I wanted to go somewhere, but I did not know this street. It was the Primitive Methodists’ chapel. I had heard of this people from many, and how they sang so loudly that they made people’s heads ache; but that did not matter. I wanted to know how I might be saved, and if they made my head ache ever so much, I did not care. So sitting down, the service went on, but no minister came. At last a very thin-looking man came into the pulpit. He opened the Bible and read these words: “Look unto me and be ye saved, all ye ends of the earth.” Just setting his eyes upon me, as if he knew me all by heart, he said: “Young man, you are in trouble!” Well, I was, sure enough. Says he: “You will never get out of it unless you look to Christ.” Then, lifting his eyes, he cried, as only a Primitive Methodist could do, “Look, look, look!” I saw at once the way of salvation. O, how I did leap for joy at that moment! I know not what else he said, I was so possessed with that one thought. … I looked until I could almost have looked my eyes away, and in heaven I will look on still, in my joy unspeakable.