C.H. Spurgeon emphasizes the profound acceptance we have in Christ, illustrating that our highs and lows do not affect our standing before God, who is eternally pleased with Jesus. He explains that true acceptance comes from being united with Christ, and that our actions are only pleasing to God when we are first accepted as His children. Spurgeon encourages believers to embrace their afflictions as part of their spiritual growth and to focus on the eternal rather than the temporal, reminding them that true happiness is found in God’s acceptance and love. He also warns against the dangers of distractions and the importance of maintaining a heart set on heavenly treasures.

If they could but see that all their high joys do not exalt them, and all their low despondencies do not really depress them in their Father’s sight, but that they stand accepted in one who never alters, in one who is always the beloved of God, always perfect, always without spot or wrinkle, or any such thing, how much happier they would be, and how much more they would honour the Saviour! ME534 God is so boundlessly pleased with Jesus that in him he is altogether well pleased with us. 1731.398 The criminal is now a child, the enemy is now a friend, the condemned one is now justified. Mark, it is not said that we are “acceptable,” though that were a very great thing, but we are actually accepted; it has become not a thing possible that God might accept us, but he has accepted us in Christ. 1731.398 If I accept a man, I cannot quarrel with his little finger; if I accept a man, I accept his whole body: and so, since the Father accepts Christ, he accepts every member of his mystical body. 1731.403 The way of acceptance described in Scripture is, first, the man is accepted, and then what that man does is accepted. It is written: “And he shall purify the sons of Levi, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness.” First, God is pleased with the person, and then with the gift, or the work. The unaccepted person offers of necessity an unacceptable sacrifice. If a man be your enemy, you will not value a present which he sends you. 2100.447 Do much, very much, all you can do, and a little more. “How is that?” says one. I do not think a man is doing all he can do if he is not attempting more than he will complete. 1111.273 But, young friend, there is a difference, and more than a slight one, between intentions and accomplishments. We do not always perform what we think we shall, nor do we always reach where we hope to arrive. Failures are as numerous as successes, and even the most successful have failures to mourn over. Good intentions are not so rare that you may begin to crow about them; there is a road which is paved with them, but I would not have you travel it. 1193.519 The way to do a great deal, is to keep on doing a little. The way to do nothing at all, is to be continually resolving that you will do everything. 2549.618 There is nothing in the law of God that will rob you of happiness; it only denies you that which would cost you sorrow. 2419.305 It is that which thou art most loath to hear that thou hast most need to hear; instead of being angry with him who points it out to thee, thou shouldst be willing to pay him for doing it. 2432.462 He who has tasted a sour apple will have the more relish for a sweet one; your present want will make future prosperity all the sweeter. PT166 The dog in the kennel barks at the fleas; the hunting dog does not even know they are there. PT166 If there are no adversaries, you may fear that there will be no success. 1781.279 In any labour to which we set our hand, if we take too much notice of the difficulties, we shall be hindered in it. 2264.325 Well, brother, well, sister, remember that where your treasure is your heart will go, and if that treasure be taken away your heart must ache. 1210.10 The more objects you set your heart upon, the more thorns there are to tear your peace of mind to shreds. 1692.668 Those things which we allow to take the chief place in our bosoms have the most power to give us grief. 2728.241 We cannot too often turn our thoughts heavenward, for this is one of the great cures for worldliness. The way to liberate our souls from the bonds that tie us to earth is to strengthen the cords that bind us to heaven. You will think less of this poor little globe when you think more of the world to come. 3499.72 They who dive in the sea of affliction bring up rare pearls. 619.145 Affliction hardens those whom it does not soften. 1129.484 Some of you people of God, when you get bitter waters, want to throw them away. Do not throw a drop of it away, for that is the water you have yet to drink. Accept your afflictions. They are a part of your education. 2301.150 All afflictions are not chastisements for sin; there are some afflictions that have quite another end and object. 2309.241 It is a crime to permit our fires to burn low while experience yields us more and more abundant fuel. AM191 From the altar of age the flashes of the fire of youth are gone, but the more real flame of earnest feeling remains. ME556 As we grow older, it is wise to concentrate more and more our energies upon the one thing, the only thing worth living for—the praise of God. 998.368 As Barzillai in his old age prayed David to accept the personal service of his son Chimham, so would we, when our own strength declines, present our offspring to the Lord, that they may supply our lack of service. 1148.712 O you of forty, fifty, or sixty, what a world of mischief there is in you that will have to come out. 1248.455 Many of God’s aged servants who have been spared to advanced years, have come to look out for the setting of earth’s sun without a fear of darkness. While they have seemed to have one foot in the grave, they have really had one foot in heaven. 1922.537 Well, dear friend, if you want to get old, the surest way is to get old. I mean this. Think that you cannot do what you used to do, and give up your religious engagements because you are getting old; give up preaching because you are so old; give up the Sunday-school because you are so old; and you will be old fast enough: that is the sure way to make yourself old. 2303.173 Old men sometimes arrive at a second childhood. Do not be afraid, brother, if that is your case; you have gone through one period already that was more infantile than your second one can be, you will not be weaker then than you were at first. 2457.137 In the case of some old people, who have been professors of religion for years, but who have done next to nothing for Christ, I find it very difficult ever to stir them up at all. 2618.183 People are continually warning young men of their danger. No doubt we are in danger; but let me remind you that there is not an instance in Sacred Scripture of a young man disgracing his profession; but there are instances in Scripture of men of middle age and of grey hairs doing so. 2700.532 I always find that the older saints become more Calvinistic as they ripen in age; that is to say, they get to believe more and more that salvation is all of grace; and whereas, at first, they might have had some rather loose ideas concerning free-will, and the power of the creature, the lapse of years and fuller experience gradually blow all that kind of chaff away. 2991.287 When somebody said to a Christian minister, “I suppose you are on the wrong side of fifty?” “No,” he said, “thank God, I am on the right side of fifty, for I am sixty, and am therefore nearer heaven.” Old age should never be looked upon with dismay by us; it should be our joy. 3183.72 Though with the teaching of the Holy Spirit every year’s experience will make the Christian riper, yet without that teaching it is possible that each year may make a man, not more ripe, but more rotten. 3283.1 Temptation, instead of getting weaker with our age, gets stronger; the passions which we thought would expire when the heat of youth had evaporated, become more fierce as we grow more infirm, till some lusts are more rampant in those who have the least power to gratify them. 3462.273 The best way to make a man sober is to bring him to the foot of the cross. AM108 Those beer-shops are the curse of this country—no good ever can come of them, and the evil they do no tongue can tell; the publics were bad enough, but the beer-shops are a pest; I wish the man who made the law to open them had to keep all the families that they have brought to ruin. PT91 The drunkard goes lower than the sow, for no sow would habitually intoxicate itself: few animals would even touch the defiling concoction. 1279.100 That which goes under the name of wine is not true wine, but a fiery, brandied concoction of which I feel sure that Jesus would not have tasted a drop. 1556.493 When Bacchus rolls the wine-cask against the door it is hard to force an entrance, even though we demand it in the name of King Jesus. Men are in an ill state for hearing when the barrel and the bottle are their idols. It is not at all marvellous that the gospel should be neglected by men who have put an enemy into their mouths to steal away their brains. 1593.205 There is the “pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb,” and there is the fire-water, which has its origin among the flames of hell; and yet, when the choice is left to men, many of them prefer the fiery liquor to that water which would be in them “a well of water springing up into everlasting life.” 3111.459 It is the devil’s backdoor to hell, and everything that is hellish; for he that once gives away his brains to drink is ready to be caught by Satan for anything. 3233.30