Dear Friends,

If you have trusted in Christ, why did you do so? Is it because you are better, smarter, more holy than those who have not believed? I hope you recoil in horror from any such suggestion and instead of patting yourself on the back because you have believed, lift your heart to heaven in praise to Him who so worked in your heart that you trusted the Savior He provided and determine to love Him as never before. God bless you.

Because of Calvary,

John Janney

Acts 2:8-9

“To meet the deep depravity of our nature, and its settled unbelief, he who gave the gospel to be believed, also gives the faith that believes the gospel. This is a wonder of grace; but then in the realm of grace everything is wonderful. We are so set on mischief, so proud, so vainglorious, so unbelieving, that we never do come to receive the gospel, except through the operation of the grace of God upon our consciences and wills. The faith which comes to God first came from God. I remember, when I believed in Christ, and took him to be my trust, and was saved: I believed, and thus I entered into life and peace. It was not till some time after that I saw the reason why I had believed. I said to myself, ‘How is it that I have believed in Christ, while others who have attended the same gospel ministry, and have enjoyed the same advantages, have not believed in him?’ The enquiry was not, ‘Why did they refuse to believe?’ I saw at once that their unbelief was their own fault and folly, and that the blame must be laid at their door, for they willfully refused the Savior; but this was not the question: I was not judging them, but I was examining myself, and enquiring why I had believed in the Lord Jesus. I saw that if I had believed, it was not to be set down to my personal credit. I could not take to myself any honor because of it. My believing, when they did not believe, did not spring from any betterness of nature on my part. God forbid that I should dream such a thing! It did not spring from any natural excellence of my will. There was a submissive will in me; but a something from above made that will submissive, and that something lay at the back of everything. Then I understood that it was God’s grace that had made me to differ; and I gave to God, there and then, the glory of my faith, and the credit of my choice of Christ. I have never met with any Christian man, whatever his doctrinal views, but he has been willing to give to God the glory of his conversion. He has ascribed it to the working of the Holy Spirit, and not to himself; and he has joined with me in praising God for it. Though the brother may cavil at the doctrine of distinguishing grace in the cross, yet, in his own case in particular, he has been willing to confess that not only did grace give him a gospel to believe, but grace gave him to believe the gospel. We come; but God draws. We come to God because he draws us. We came to believe in Christ because his Spirit enlightened and persuaded us, and brought us into the happy state of salvation by faith in Christ.” [Charles Haddon Spurgeon, The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit XXXVI, (London: Passmore and Alabaster, 1890), p. 195-196]