Faith, Personal – Charles Spurgeon

HAVE you never found it to be wonderfully easy to believe for other people? I know when I was seeking the Savior, I had no doubt about his receiving any other penitent. I felt certain that if the vilest sinner out of Hell had come to him, he was able to save him; and though I had no faith in him on my own account, had I met with another distressed soul in a similar condition to myself, I believe I should have encouraged him to put his trust in Jesus, though I was afraid to do so myself. To believe for others is an easy matter, but when it comes to your own case, to believe that sins like yours can be blotted out, that you, who have so badly played the prodigal, may be received by your loving Father, that your spiritual diseases can be cured, and that the devil can be cast out of you;—here is the labor, here is the difficulty. But, beloved, we must believe this or else we have not saving faith. O my Savior, shall I trifle in faith by believing or pretending to believe that you can heal a case parallel to mine, and yet cannot heal mine? Shall I draw a line and limit you, you Holy One of Israel, and say, “You can save up to me, but not so far as I have gone”? Shall I dream that your precious blood has some power, but not power enough to blot out my sins? Shall I dare, in the arrogance of my despair, to set a boundary to the merits of your plea, and to the virtue of your atoning sacrifice? God forbid. Jesus is able to save to the uttermost them that come unto God by him—he is able to save me. Him that comes unto him he will in no wise cast out; I come to him, and he will not, cannot cast me out. Have you a personal faith, a faith about yourself, about your own sins, and your own condition before God? Do you believe that Christ can save you? Sink or swim, do you cast yourself upon him, your own proper self? He, his own self, bore our sins in his own body on the tree; and we, our own selves, must cast ourselves upon him. If we have so done, then we, like the man in the narrative, have the real faith, the faith of God’s elect.