Auntie's Full Shelf Challenge 21

Book: Morning By Morning.

Author: Charles Spurgeon

Info: Copyright 2000: Nashville:  Thomas Nelson Inc.

Where acquired: Thrift store find.

Rating (on a scale of 1-4 hashtags): # # # #

What it's about:  Written in the 1860's, Spurgeon, a Baptist minister, shares daily devotions and meditations on scripture. 

Favorite Quotes: 

"A part of the host will this year tarry on earth, to do service for their Lord. If this should fall to our lot, there is no reason why the New Year’s text should not still be true. "We who have believed do enter into rest." The Holy Spirit is the earnest of our inheritance; he gives us "glory begun below." In heaven they are secure, and so are we preserved in Christ Jesus;  there they triumph over their enemies, and we have victories too. Celestial spirits enjoy communion with their Lord, and this is not denied to us; they rest in his love, and we have perfect peace in him: they hymn his praise, and it is our privilege to bless him too. We will this year gather celestial fruits on earthly ground, where faith and hope have made the desert like the garden of the Lord. Man did eat angels’ food of old, and why not now? O for grace to feed on Jesus, and so to eat of the fruit of the land of Canaan this year!" pp. 1-2

"Tell me where you lost the company of Christ, and I will tell you the most likely place to find him. Have you lost Christ in the closet by restraining prayer? Then it is there you must seek and find him. Did you lose Christ by sin? You will find Christ in no other way but by the giving up of the sin, and seeking by the Holy Spirit to mortify the member in which the lust doth dwell. Did you lose Christ by neglecting the Scriptures? You must find Christ in the Scriptures. It is a true proverb, "Look for a thing where you dropped it, it is there." So look for Christ where you lost him, for he has not gone away." p. 17

"Bad nursing in their spiritual infancy often causes converts to fall into a despondency from which they never recover and sin in other cases brings broken bones." - pp. 138-139

"Earth should be a temple filled with the songs of grateful saints and every day should be a censor smoking with the sweet incense of thanksgiving."  p. 300.

What I Liked:

• Spurgeon's wording is poetic at times, rebuking at other times, and the section on Song of Solomon where he describes the relationship between Christ and His church were downright sexy.  Sexy?  Yes.  Not sexy as in dirty, but sexy as in the purest form of intimacy between a beautiful unsullied bride, and the groom who is crazy and tenderly in love with her.
• These reflections were full of faith.  They made me hungry for the Word.
• It was hard to read just one entry per day, yet they were so full that I couldn't absorb their entire message in a 24 hour period.

What I didn’t like: 

• There are quoted passages with no references. 
• The scripture passages quoted at the beginning of each entry is in a scripted font that makes the chapter and verse numbers hard to read.

To sum up:  I'd heard quotes from Spurgeon, but I'd never read any of his books.  Morning by Morning was an absolute delight to read.  I've already ordered the companion book Evening by Evening for next year's devotional time.