Many of the following Charles Spurgeon quotes on anxiety come from Gospel Hope for Anxious Hearts: Trading Fear and Worry for the Peace of God.
Anxiety does not empty tomorrow of its sorrows, but only empties today of its strength.
Joy in the Lord is one of the best preparations for the trials of this life. The cure for care is joy in the Lord.
Cares are manifold; therefore, let your prayers be as manifold. Turn into a prayer everything that is a care. Let your cares be the raw material of your prayers, and, as the alchemists hoped to turn dross into gold, so do you, by a holy alchemy, actually turn what naturally would have been a care into spiritual treasure in the form of prayer. Baptize every anxiety into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, and so make it into a blessing.
Let your cares drive you to God. I shall not mind if you have many of them if each one leads you to prayer. If every fret makes you lean more on the Beloved, it will be a benefit.
Happiness lies more in the mind than it does the circumstances in which any individual is found. And the man within has far more to do with his own joy and sorrow than anything outside of him has.
Pride begets anxiety; true humility gives birth to patience.
The very essence of anxious care is the imagining that we are wiser than God, and the thrusting of ourselves into His place, to do for Him that which we dream He either cannot or will not do!
The man who is full of care, is ripe for any sin, but he who has cast his care on God stands securely, neither shall the evil one be able to touch him!
Cares have brought many to the poisoned cup, the halter, and the knife, and hundreds to the madhouse.
Away, then, with dark suspicions and anxieties! Is it care about past sin? “The blood of Jesus Christ, God’s dear Son, cleanses us from all sin.” Is it present temptation? “There has no temptation happened to you but such as is common to men: but God who is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above what you are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that you may be able to bear it.” Is it future peril? O, leave that with Him, for neither “things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the Love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Never let anxieties about Sanctification destroy your confidence of Justification.
Happiness lies more in the mind than it does in the circumstances in which any individual is found, and the man within has far more to do with his own joy or sorrow than anything outside of him has. There have been some who have been perfectly free in a prison, while others have been in absolute bondage with wide estates to roam over.
Have that little bird in your bosom that sings sweetly of the love of God; wear the flower called heart’s-ease in your button-hole; and you may go merrily through a perfect wilderness of trouble and a desert of care. A hurricane of afflictions may beat about you, yet you shall be a blessed man, for all the elements of blessedness are within your own heart. God has given them to you, and the devil himself cannot take them away.
It is good for a man to have a holy care and to pay due attention to every item of his life, but, alas, it is very easy to make it into an unholy care and to try to wrest from the hand of God that office of Providence which belongs to Him and not to ourselves.
Cares are numerous and, therefore, let your prayers be as numerous. Turn everything that is a care into a prayer.
Leave off, then, this damaging habit of worry and take to this enriching habit of prayer! See how you will thus make a double gain—first, by avoiding a loss, and secondly, by getting that which will really benefit you and others, too!
Sometimes, when you have gone on praying for what God does not give you, it may be that there will steal over your mind the conviction that you are not on the right track and that result of your prayer will, in itself, do you good, and be a blessing to you.
Prayer that brings freedom from care is communion with God.
Doctrines are clusters, but you have never trodden them in the wine vat, you have never quaffed the flowing juice of their grapes if you have not peacefully considered divine truth in the quiet of your heart.
He has the power to breathe peace into the heart, to create peace in the soul, and lull the spirit into that sweet sleep of the beloved which is the peculiar gift of heaven. “I will give you rest,” said he, and he can and will do it.
He is our peace; he came to bring it, and he left it behind him as he went away.
O friends, Christ has peace enough and to spare. He is himself, personally, the deep well-spring of an endless peace, and therefore we can understand why we always find peace in him.
So let us consider that every battle-field to which God calls us is only another opportunity of victory, and, Christ being with us, another certainty of victory. Onward, then, ye Christian soldiers!
Come, child of God, you know that He loves you! The proofs and pledges of that love rise up before your memory, so you cannot think that He will suffer you to be cast away!
Will He allow your present troubles to destroy you when so many others have not been able to hurt even a hair of your head? Trust in His love and dismiss your fears!
You have often heard, I daresay, that pretty little story which I cannot help telling again because it drops in so appropriately here, of the woman, on board ship, who was much disturbed in a storm, while her husband, the captain, was calm and restful. She asked him why he was so placid when she was so distressed. He did not answer in words, but he took down his sword and held it to her breast. She smiled. He said, “Why are you not afraid? This is a sharp sword, with which I could slay you in a minute.” “Ah,” she replied, “but I am not afraid of a sword when it is my husband who wields it.” “So,” said he, “neither am I afraid of a storm when it is my Father who sends it and who manages it.” Now, since all the trials and troubles of this mortal life are as much in the hand of the great God as that sword was in the hand of the good woman’s husband, we need not be afraid of them, for they are all in His power! When He rides aloft in His chariot, and the skies tremble at the sound, why should you tremble, even you timid ones?
you who thus condemn yourself, should see that your very condemnation of yourself gives you hope of salvation! Why, the devil himself, I should think, would hardly dispute with some of you the fact that you are sinners. On the contrary, he has often been to you, and said, “See what a great sinner you are!” For once, he spoke the truth, though he did even that with an evil intention. If he says that to you, say to him, “Yes, Satan, you have proved that I am a sinner, but that is ‘my hope of salvation, for it is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.’” He who condemns himself, God absolves. He who is shut up in the prison of the Law, so that he cannot escape. He who writes his own death warrant, signs it and feels that he deserves to die—he is the man for whom the Lord Jesus Christ sets open the door of mercy and says, “Come unto Me, for I have absolved you. You are a free man. Be of good comfort. I died to redeem just such souls as you are.”
If you are never afraid about the condition of your soul, I am afraid for you!
It is but right that a trembling should come over the soul and that we should fall down in the presence of God humbled before Him!
May you, if you have fear, also have faith with your fear, and then afterwards have your faith without any fear! When faith gets strong enough, fears are expelled!
Hang all your weight upon the lover of souls now! Do not wait till you get rid of your fears and then go to Him—go now!
It is a “Come” which means not “Come to-morrow or next year,” but “Now, at once.” Advance, ye slaves, flee from your taskmaster now! Weary ones, recline on the promise now, and take your rest! Come now! By an act of instantaneous faith which will bring instantaneous peace, come and rely upon Jesus, and he will now give you rest. Rest shall at once follow the exercise of your faith. Perform that act of faith now. O may the eternal Spirit lead some labouring heavy laden soul to come to Jesus, and to come at this precise moment!
The rest of the Christian is found not in cowardice but in courage; it lies not in providing for ease but in the brave endurance of suffering for the truth.
My brother, if you cannot rest in poverty, neither would you in riches; if you cannot rest in the midst of persecution, neither would you in the midst of honour. It is the spirit within that gives the rest, that rest has little to do with anything without.
There is a further rest for us who believe, and a very sweet one; it is, in the love of God.
The old Puritan was right when he said, “Sinning will make thee leave off communing, or else communing will make thee leave off sinning;” for the indulgence of any known sin is not compatible with a close walk with God.
To miss even five minutes’ communion with Christ, is to lack an incalculable blessing.
Never be happy unless you are truly resting in Jesus.
Now available in paperback and Kindle formats: Gospel Hope for Anxious Hearts: Trading Fear and Worry for the Peace of God by Charles Spurgeon.
You may also be interested in Encouraged to Pray: Classic Sermons on Prayer by Charles Spurgeon.
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