“It feels so right – so spiritual – to live with regrets. It means you feel bad for the wrong things you have done or think you have done, and that sounds like a good thing. If you forget those wrongs, you are acting like they were no big deal.” Ed Welch
“In math, if you divide an infinite number by any number, no matter how large, you still have an infinite quotient. So Jesus’ love, being infinite, even though it is divided up for every person on earth, is still infinitely poured out on each one of us!” – C.H. Spurgeon
The Bridge Builder
“An old man, going a lone highway,
Came, at the evening, cold and gray,
To a chasm, vast, and deep, and wide,
…Through which was flowing a sullen tide.
The old man crossed in the twilight dim;
The sullen stream had no fears for him;
But he turned, when safe on the other side,
And built a bridge to span the tide.
“Old man,” said a fellow pilgrim, near,
“You are wasting strength with building here;
Your journey will end with the ending day;
You never again must pass this way;
You have crossed the chasm, deep and wide-
Why build you a bridge at the eventide?”
The builder lifted his old gray head:
“Good friend, in the path I have come,” he said,
“There followeth after me today,
A youth, whose feet must pass this way.
This chasm, that has been naught to me,
To that fair-haired youth may a pitfall be.
He, too, must cross in the twilight dim;
Good friend, I am building the bridge for him.”
-Will Allen Dromgoole
“The chief impression that a study of the atonement leaves with us is that of the many-sidedness of Christ’s work for men. When he died for us on the cross, he did something so infinitely wonderful that it is impossible to comprehend it in its fulness. However man’s need be understood, that need is fully and abundantly met in Christ. The New Testament writers are like men who ransack their vocabulary to find words which will bring out some small fraction of the mighty thing that God has done for us. And yet, though it is so complex and so difficult, it may be put very simply: ‘the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me’ (Gal. 2:20).” Leon Morris, The Cross in the New Testament (Grand Rapids, 1965), page 419.
“I am not what I ought to be.
Ah! how imperfect and deficient.
Not what I might be,
considering my privileges and opportunities.
Not what I wish to be.
God, who knows my heart, knows I wish to be like him.
I am not what I hope to be;
ere long to drop this clay tabernacle, to be like him and see him as He is.
Not what I once was,
a child of sin, and slave of the devil.
Thought not all these,
not what I ought to be,
not what I might be,
not what I wish or hope to be, and
not what once was,
I think I can truly say with the apostle,
“By the grace of God I am what I am.”
—Cited in Letters of John Newton, p. 400.
“To preach salvation by good works is to flatter people and so avoid opposition…This may seem to some to pose the alternative too starkly. But I do not think so. All Christian preachers have to face this issue…Either we preach that human beings are rebels against God, under his just judgment and (if left to themselves) lost, and that Christ crucified who bore their sin and curse is the only available Savior….Or we emphasize human potential and human ability, with Christ brought in only to boost them, and with no necessity for the cross except to exhibit God’s love and so inspire us to greater endeavor….The former is the way to be faithful, the latter the way to be popular….It is not possible to be faithful and popular simultaneously. We need to hear again the warning of Jesus: ‘Woe to you when all men speak well of you’ (Lk. 6:26). By contrast, if we preach the cross, we may find that we are ourselves hounded to the cross.” John Stott, The Cross of Christ (Downers Grove, IL, IVP, 1986), pp. 347-348
“Until religious teachers inculcate clearly, fully, and practically, the grace of God as manifested in the Gospel, we shall have no vigorous growth of piety among professing Christians.” Archibald Alexander, Thoughts On Religious Experience (1844), pages 165–166
“Unbelief says: Some other time, but not now; some other place, but not here; some other people, but not us. Faith says: Anything He did anywhere else He will do here; anything He did any other time He is willing to do now; anything He ever did for other people He is willing to do for us! With our feet on the ground, and our head cool, but with our heart ablaze with the love of God, we walk out in this fullness of the Spirit, if we will yield and obey. God wants to work through you!” A. W. Tozer, The Counselor (Camp Hill, 1993), page 116.
“The essence of sin is man substituting himself for God, while the essence of salvation is God substituting himself for man. Man asserts himself against God and puts himself where only God deserves to be; God sacrifices himself for man and puts himself where only man deserves to be.” John Stott
“The blindness of unbelievers in no way detracts from the clarity of the gospel; the sun is no less bright because blind men do not perceive its light”. —John Calvin
“God justifies the believer – not because of the worthiness of his belief, but because of Christ’s worthiness who is believed.” Richard Hooker (late 16th Century)
No Divine Wrath, No Divine grace: “Unless we give a real content to the wrath of God, unless we hold that men really deserve to have God visit upon them the painful consequences of their wrongdoing, we empty God’s forgiveness of its meaning. For if there is no ill desert, God ought to overlook sin….We can think of forgiveness as something real only when we hold that sin has betrayed us into a situation where we deserve to have God inflict upon us the most serious consequences, and that is upon such a situation that God’s grace supervenes. When the logic of the situation demands that He should take action against the sinner, and He yet takes action for him, then and then alone can we speak of grace. But there is no room for grace if there is no suggestion of dire consequences merited by sin.” Leon Morris
“It is our care for the helpless, our practice of lovingkindness, that brands us in the eyes of many of our opponents. ‘Only look,’ they say, ‘look how they love one another’ (they themselves being given over to mutual hatred). ‘Look how they are prepared to die for one another’ (they themselves being readier to kill each other). Thus had this saying become a fact, ‘Hereby shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.’” Tertullian, quoted in Michael Green, Evangelism in the Early Church (Grand Rapids, 1970), page 308, footnote 55.
“A man who loves his wife will love her letters and her photographs because they speak to him of her. So if we love the Lord Jesus we shall love the Bible because it speaks to us of him. The husband is not so stupid as to prefer his wife’s letters to her voice, or her photographs to herself. He simply loves them because of her. So, too, we love the Bible because of Christ. It is his portrait. It is his love-letter.” John Stott
“God’s intention for the gospel is that it not only grow wider in the world but that it also grow deeper in Christians.
When you trust in Jesus, your identity and worth is no longer based on what you can accomplish but on what Jesus accomplished for you.
I preach the gospel with life or death passion, not because I believe the gospel fully but because I don’t believe the gospel fully!
One reason we fail in OUR doing is because we fail to grasp at a deep, heart level what JESUS has already done.
One reason we give up in our efforts to obey is because we obsess more over our performance for Jesus than we do Jesus’ performance for us.
The gospel frees us from the slavery of becoming preoccupied with our goodness.
The gospel frees us to GIVE UP our place for others, not GUARD IN our place from others because our security is in Christ, not our place.
God’s grace toward us is not a lessening of his demands. Grace is experienced when we realize these demands have already been met in Jesus.
The gospel is meant to bring us to the end of ourselves so that we finally place our meaning, purpose, and sense of well-being in Jesus.
Because Christians find our emotional security in Christ’s achievement for us, we can admit our wrongs and weaknesses and not feel deflated.
My struggle isn’t believing my performance can EARN God’s favor; my struggle is believing my performance can KEEP God’s favor.
Legalism says God will love us if we change. The gospel says God will change us because He loves us.
Only the gospel can cause you to rejoice and be glad in your expendability: because Jesus was someone, your FREE to be no one.
God’s love for me and approval of me does not get bigger when I obey or smaller when I disobey. This makes me want to obey him more, not less!
Fall in love with Jesus’ work for you and you’ll grow. Fall in love with your work for Jesus and you’ll shrink.
Those who end up obeying more are those who increasingly realize that their standing with God is not based on their obedience, but Christ’s.
If you’re overly concerned with what others think then your living in the prison of human approval. Only the gospel can set you free!
Legalism says, “Pursue holiness to make God happy with you.” The gospel says, “Pursue holiness because God is happy with you.” HUGE DIFFERENCE!
What motivates our obedience determines whether or not it is a sacrifice of praise. Obedience to God’s commands prompted by fear or guilt is not true obedience.
The pursuit of holiness must be anchored in, and motivated by, the grace of God; otherwise it is doomed to failure.
Our spiritual lives become unimpressive and laborious when we spend our time and energy trying to spiritually impress God.
We only start “doing better” as we increasingly focus on what Jesus has already done, not on what we must do.
When we transfer trust from our success to Christ’s success, we experience the abundant freedoms that come from not having to measure up.” Tullian Tchividjian
“We can recognize God’s Word because God’s people listen to it, just as we can recognize God’s people because they listen to God’s Word.” John Stott
“It is evident that God loves all people, Jesus died for the sins of the world and God is acting in providence and power to draw men from every tribe, people, language and nation to salvation for his glory. To put salvation in the proper perspective of God’s divine grace alleviates a tremendous burden of having to discover the appropriate strategy or effective methodology as if results were dependent on human effort….The doctrines of grace are liberating to the missionary. Because the message of the gospel is indwelt with the power of God, the task becomes one of boldly communicating the claims of Christ and communicating the gospel which is the power of God to draw all men to himself….I see the growing Reformed movement in terms of encouraging prospects of fulfilling God’s mission. When the church discovers that bringing people to salvation is not a matter of counting numbers through human evangelistic efforts but of being an instrument of God’s grace and for his glory, motivation for missions will be greatly enhanced. It is amazing how the Reformed movement is misperceived as passive and anti-evangelistic rather than understanding the mission of God will only be compelled by the desire for him to be glorified in the salvation of the lost.” Jerry Rankin
“Trials and tribulations are very good for us in that they help us to know ourselves better than we knew ourselves before”. —D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones
“THE VALLEY OF VISION: Lord, high and holy, meek and lowly, Thou hast brought me to the valley of vision, where I live in the depths but see Thee in the heights; hemmed in by mountains of sin I behold Thy glory. Let me learn by paradox that the way down is the way up, that to be low is to be high, that the broken heart is the healed heart, that the contrite spirit is the rejoicing spirit, that the repenting soul is the victorious soul, that to have nothing is to possess all, that to bear the cross is to wear the crown, that to give is to receive, that the valley is the place of vision. Lord, in the daytime stars can be seen from deepest wells, and the deeper the wells the brighter Thy stars shine; let me find Thy light in my darkness, Thy life in my death, Thy joy in my sorrow, Thy grace in my sin, Thy riches in my poverty, Thy glory in my valley.” Puritan Poem
“The Bible is God preaching!” JI Packer
Scripture on the Great Commission: The Lord Jesus Christ gave His church clear instructions after His resurrection and before He was taken up to heaven. The Evangelistic Challenge: Mark 16:15-“Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation” and “Luke 24:47-“…that repentance and forgiveness of our sins should be proclaimed in His Name to all nations, beginning in Jerusalem.” The Discipling Challenge: Matthew 28:19-20-“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.” The Missiological Challenge: John 17:18-“As You sent Me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.” And John 20:21- “As the Father has sent Me, even so I am sending you.” The Global Challenge: Acts 1:8- “You will receive power and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” This encompasses the task before us; it is vast in scope. John P. Jones wrote in 1912, This enterprise is not only the greatest that the world has ever known; it is also the most difficult to achieve.” Yet, we believe that the Great Commission is not merely an ideal to aspire toward, but an achievable command given by the Lord. In each of the passages referenced above, the commissioning of the Church was accompanied by assurances of God’s power and authority and the very real presence of the Holy Spirit. The scale of the task before us is matched only by the greatness of the God who promises to accompany and empower us! Operation World: The Definitive Prayer Guide To Every Nation p. 27
“Everywhere in the New Testament God’s truth is something to be *done*, not something only to be believed. It carries with it demands, duties, obligations. The evangelical faith radically transforms those who believe and embrace it.” John Stott
“Experience must never be the criterion of truth; truth must always be the criterion of experience.” John Stott
“The devil blows the fire and melts the iron, and then the Lord fashions it for his own purposes. Let men and devils rage as they may, they cannot do otherwise than subserve the divine purposes.” – C. H. Spurgeon
“Conversion is not the smooth, easy-going process some men seem to think it; otherwise man’s heart would never have been compared to fallow ground and God’s Word to a plough.” —John Bunyan
“It’s been said that the gospel is not the ABCs of salvation, but the A to Z of the Christian life. That’s good to remember. We never move beyond this good news. Depth occurs when we more deeply explore the truth of the gospel and its implications.” Trevin Wax
“Believe not half you hear; repeat not half you believe; when you hear an evil report, halve it, then quarter it, and say nothing about the rest.” —C.H. Spurgeon
“God’s love is as shoreless & endless as eternity.” – D.A. Carson
“Nothing gives such offence, and stirs up such bitter feeling among the wicked, as the idea of God making any distinction between man and man, and loving one person more than another.” —J.C. Ryle
“Let us live as people who are prepared to die, and die as people who are prepared to live.” —James S. Stewart
“Lustful thoughts come upon us without a special invitation, like fleas and lice; love is there, on the other hand, when we want to serve others.” Martin Luther (1500’s)
“What does it mean ‘to love God with all of your mind’? (Matt. 22:35-40) I take it to mean that we direct our thinking in a certain way; namely, our thinking should be wholly engaged to do all it can to awaken and express the heartfelt fullness of treasuring God above all things” John Piper in “Think” p.83. This book has been a great encouragement to me in my pursuit to treasure Jesus above all!
“If your doctrine of election does not humble you then it is not the Bible’s doctrine & you should throw it away…The Bible does not make philosophical arguments to support the doctrine of election. It makes assertions….Election is a love story that was written before time began.” Tom Ascol
“To will is of nature, but to will aright is of grace.” – Augustine
“The gospel is good news of salvation. It was promised from eternity, was secured and purchased by Jesus Christ, and is now offered to friends. First, we must communicate it faithfully, we shall undoubtedly suffer for it. And when we suffer for it, we shall be tempted to trim it and to eliminate the elements that provoke opposition. So then, third, and above all, we must guard it against every possible corruption, keeping it pure whatever the cost. Guard it faithfully, spread it actively, suffer for it bravely—that is our threefold duty.” John Stott
“Difficulties in the way to heaven serve to bring us to a despair of ourselves, not of God.” —Thomas Manton
“The gospel teaches me every day that being a slave of Christ is the essence of freedom; while being free to myself is the essence of slavery “~Tullian Tchividjian
“Freedom to disagree with the Bible is an illusory freedom; in reality it is bondage to falsehood”-John Stott
“A good test of every ideology is whether it exalts God and humbles man, or whether it exalts man and dethrones God.” John Stott
“There is nothing that tells the truth about us as Christians so much as our prayer life.” —D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones
“Intercession is truly universal work for the Christian. No place is closed to intercessory prayer. No continent – no nation – no organization – no city – no office. There is no power on earth that can keep intercession out.” Richard Halverson– (So then, why don’t we do it more?)
“Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act” Dietrich Bonheoffer
“We must beware equally of an undevotional theology and of an untheological devotion” Handley Moule (quoted in John Stott’s commentary on Romans p. 311)
“When I have learned to love God better than my earthly dearest, I shall love my earthly dearest better than I do now.” CS Lewis
“One mark of growth in grace is increased humility. The man whose soul is growing feels his own sinfulness and unworthiness more every year.” …”The nearer [the believer] draws to God and the more he sees of God’s holiness and perfections, the more thoroughly is he sensible of his own countless imperfections.” – J. C. Ryle
“You thank God [for your salvation] because “you do not attribute your repenting and believing to your own wisdom, or prudence, or sound judgment, or good sense.” – J. I. Packer
J. D. Greear, author of Breaking the Islam Code, says:“Every church has got to make a decision whether or not it’s going to be a seed that exists for itself or whether it’s going to be a seed planted in the ground that dies [to be a blessing for the nations].”
“Beware in your prayers, above everything else, of limiting God – not only by unbelief, but by fancying that you know what He can do. Expect unexpected things ‘above all that we can ask or imagine’.” Andrew Murray“People do not drift toward holiness. Apart from grace-driven effort, people do not gravitate toward godliness, prayer, obedience to Scripture, faith, and delight in the Lord. We drift toward compromise and call it tolerance; we drift toward disobedience and call it freedom; we drift toward superstition and call it faith. We cherish the indiscipline of lost self-control and call it relaxation; we slouch toward prayerlessness and delude ourselves into thinking we have escaped legalism; we slide toward godlessness and convince ourselves we have been liberated”. —D.A. Carson
“I have but one passion – it is He, it is He alone. The world is the field, and the field is the world; and henceforth that country shall be my home where I can be most used in winning souls for Christ.”
Count Nikolaus Von Zinzendorf (founder of the Moravians)
“Deep theology is the best fuel of devotion; it readily catches fire, and once kindled it burns long.” —Will Metzger
“The mission of the church is to go into the world and make disciples by declaring the gospel of Jesus Christ in the power of the Spirit and gathering these disciples into churches, that they might worship and obey Jesus Christ now and in eternity to the glory of God the Father.” Kevin DeYoung
“Lord Jesus You are my righteousness, I am your sin. You took on you what was mine; yet set on me what was yours. You became what you are not, that I might become what I was not. “(Martin Luther-1500’s)
“As long as there are millions who are destitute of the Word of God and the knowledge of Jesus Christ, it will be impossible for me to devote time and energy to those who have both.” J.L. Ewen
God speaks to us primarily through His Word the Bible. But He also speaks to us through His creation …give me listening ears and a understanding heart! “The heavens and the sheer vastness of space are eagerly and continually ‘writing out’ without the use of words the glory of God, that is, the inescapable weight of the sheer ‘Godness’ of God” Robert Reymond- (Systematic Theology p. 397)
“If your preaching of the gospel doesn’t provoke the charge from some of antinomianism, you’re not preaching the gospel.” D.M. Lloyd-Jones
“Any obedience not grounded in or motivated by the gospel is unsustainable. No matter how hard you try, how “radical” you get, any engine smaller than the gospel that you’re depending on for power to obey will conk out in due time.” Ray Ortland
“Preaching to the heart, then, is not merely a matter of technique or homiletic style. These things have their proper place and relevance. But the more fundamental, indeed, the more essential thing for the preacher is surely the fact that something has happened in his own heart; it has been laid bare before God by His Word. He, in turn, lays his heart bare before those to whom he ministers. And within that context, the goal he has in view is so to lay bare the truth of the Word of God that the hearts of those who hear are opened vertically to God and horizontally to one another.”–Sinclair Ferguson
“He is no fool, who gives up what he cannot keep, to gain that which he cannot lose.” (Jim Elliot, killed in the Amazon at age 29)
“You will never glory in God till first of all God has killed your glorying in yourself.” —C.H. Spurgeon
“Our anxiety does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow, but only empties today of its strength.” ~C.H. Spurgeon
“Satan dreads nothing but prayer. His one concern is to keep the saints from praying. He fears nothing from prayerless studies, prayerless work, prayerless religion. He laughs at our toil, he mocks our wisdom, but he trembles when we pray.”—Samuel Chadwick
“I believe that if there is one thing which pierces the Master’s heart with unutterable grief, it is… not the world’s iniquity, but the Church’s indifferences.” —F.B. Meyer
“When I die, I shall then have my greatest grief and my greatest joy; my greatest grief, that I have done so little for Jesus, and my greatest joy, that Jesus has done so much for me.” —William Grimshaw
“Missionaries are not heroes who can boast in great sacrifice for God. They are the true Christian Hedonists. They know the battle cry of Christian Hedonism is missions. They have discovered a hundred times more joy and satisfaction in a life devoted to Christ and the gospel than in a life devoted to frivolous comforts …and pleasures and worldly advancements. Missions is gain! Hundredfold gain! “ John Piper
“Pseudo-faith always arranges a way out to serve in case God fails it. Real faith knows only one way and gladly allows itself to be stripped of any second way or makeshift substitutes. For true faith, it is either God or total collapse. And not since Adam first stood up on the earth has God failed a single man or woman who trusted him.” A. W. Tozer, “True Faith Brings Committal,” In The Root of the Righteous (Harrisburg, 1955), pages 49-50.
“Could the evangelical church say—WE CHRISTIANS CARE ABOUT ALL SUFFERIN, ESPECIALLY ETERNAL SUFFERING? I hope we can say that. But if we feel resistant to saying “especially eternal suffering,” or if we feel resistant to saying “we care about all suffering in this age,” then either we have a defective view of hell or a defective heart.” John Piper
“The best thing is neither to seek nor avoid troubles but to follow Christ and take the bitter with the sweet as it may come. Whether we are happy or unhappy at any given time is not important. That we be in the will of God is all that matters. We may safely leave with him the incident of heartache or happiness. He will know how much we need of either or both.” – A.W. Tozer, We Travel an Appointed Way, page 80.
Dr. Martin Luther warned: “I am much afraid that schools will prove to be wide gates to hell, unless they diligently labor in explaining the Holy Scriptures, engraving them in the hearts of the youth. I would advise no one to place his child where the Scriptures do not reign paramount. Every institution in which men are not constantly occupied with the Word of God must become corrupt.”
“The extent of man’s fall is so great and extensive that no man by the exercise of his own will or understanding can ever save himself or become a Christian.” – Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Exposition of Ephesians
“Before sovereign grace is a truth to defend, it is a captivating truth to glory in.” Ian Hamilton
“The first thing to remember is that we must never separate the benefits (regeneration, justification, sanctification) from the Benefactor (Jesus Christ). The Christians who are most focused on their own spirituality may give the impression of being the most spiritual … but from the New Testament’s point of view, those who have almost forgotten about their own spirituality because their focus is so exclusively on their union with Jesus Christ and what He has accomplished are those who are growing and exhibiting fruitfulness. Historically speaking, whenever the piety of a particular group is focused on OUR spirituality that piety will eventually exhaust itself on its own resources. Only where our piety forgets about us and focuses on Jesus Christ will our piety nourished by the ongoing resources the Spirit brings to us from the source of all true piety, our Lord Jesus Christ.” Sinclair Ferguson
“If I have learned anything in 35 or 40 years of teaching, it is that students don’t learn everything I teach them. What they learn is what I am excited about, the kinds of things I emphasize again and again and again and again. That had better be the gospel.
If the gospel—even when you are orthodox—becomes something which you primarily assume, but what you are excited about is what you are doing in some sort of social reconstruction, you will be teaching the people that you influence that the gospel really isn’t all that important. You won’t be saying that—you won’t even mean that—but that’s what you will be teaching. And then you are only half a generation away from losing the gospel.
Make sure that in your own practice and excitement, what you talk about, what you think about, what you pray over, what you exude confidence over, joy over, what you are enthusiastic about is Jesus, the gospel, the cross. And out of that framework, by all means, let the transformed life flow.” Don Carson
“Whatever your heart clings to and confides in, that is really your God” ~Martin Luther
“Truth without love is dogmatism. Love without truth is sentimentality. Speaking the truth in love is Christianity.” – Bob Russell
“Your task [as a preacher] is not to send people away from church saying, ‘That was a lovely sermon’ or ‘What an eloquent appeal!’ The one question is: Did they, or did they not, meet God today?…There will always be some who have no desire for that, some who rather than be confronted with the living Christ would actually prefer what G. K. Chesterton described as ‘one solid and polished cataract of platitudes flowing forever and ever.’ But when St. Peter finished his first great sermon in Jerusalem, reported in the book of Acts, I do not read that ‘when they heard this, they were intrigued by his eloquence’ . . . or ‘bored and impassive and contemptuous’; what I do read is, ‘When they heard this, they were pierced to the heart.’…The heart of man has a whole armor of escapist devices to hold off the danger when reality comes too near. But I would remind you that Peter’s theme that day – Jesus crucified and risen – is your basic message still, still as dynamic, as ‘mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds,’ as moving and heart-piercing as when men heard it preached in Jerusalem long ago.” James S. Stewart, Heralds of God (New York, 1946), pages 31-32.
“Worldlings make gold their god; saints make God their gold.”—Matthew Henry
“I preach as never sure to preach again, and as a dying man to dying men.” – Richard Baxter
“If you think you are too small to make a difference, try spending the night in a closed room with a mosquito” African Saying
“Make sure that in your own practice and excitement, what you talk about, what you think about, what you pray over, what you exude confidence over, joy over, what you are enthusiastic about is Jesus, the gospel, the cross.” Don Carson
“There has been a long tradition which sees the mission of the Church primarily as obedience to a command. It has been customary to speak of ‘the missionary mandate.’ This way of putting the matter is certainly not without justification, and yet it seems to me that is misses the point. It tends to make mission a burden rather than a joy, to make it part of the law rather than part of the gospel. If one looks at the New Testament evidence one gets another impression. Mission begins with a kind of explosion of joy. The news that the rejected and crucified Jesus is alive is something that cannot possibly be suppressed. It must be told. Who could be silent about such a fact? The mission of the Church in the pages of the New Testament is more like the fallout from a vast explosion, a radioactive fallout which is not lethal but life-giving.” Lesslie Newbigin, The Gospel in a Pluralist Society (Grand Rapids, 1989), page 116.
“God doesn’t need your good works, your neighbor does.” -Martin Luther
“One of the marks of a certain type of bad man is that he cannot give up a thing himself without wanting everyone else to give it up…That is not the Christian way. An individual Christian may see fit to give up all sorts of things for special reasons—marriage, or meat, or beer, or the cinema; but the moment he starts saying the things are bad in themselves, or looking down his nose at other people who do use them, he has taken the wrong turning.” CS Lewis- Mere Christianity p. 78-79
“There’s no such thing as secular music…only secular content and secular uses. Music, in and of itself, is neutral. What determines its label of godly or secular is what is added TO the music (content), and in what manner the music is used. The reverse is also true. There is no such as Christian music. What makes it “Christian” and edifying and God-honoring is the content applied to it and the way it is used.” Brian Thorton
“Idleness is the devil’s workshop, but so is busyness if, while we are busy here and there we fail in our main responsibility.” —Vance Havner
“When a great affliction arrests a sincere Christian, he may murmur and struggle at first; but when he considers it as sent from God, to bring him to God, the King of glory—he willingly and readily submits to the rod, and kisses the rod, saying, “It was good for me to be afflicted!” ~Psalm 119:71 (Thomas Brooks)
“The gospel is not, ‘believe that Christ died for every body’s sins, and therefore yours,’ anymore than it is, ‘believe that Christ died only for certain people’s sins, and so perhaps not yours.’ The gospel is ‘believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, who died for sins, and now offers you Himself as your savior’ ~JI Packer
The human heart is a factory of idols…Every one of us is, from his mother’s womb, expert in inventing idols.” -John Calvin
“There is no higher compliment that can be paid to a Christian than to call him godly.” —Jerry Bridges
“Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: ‘What! You too? I thought I was the only one.” — C.S. Lewis and “In the end, we will not remember the words of our enemies but the silence of our friends” Martin Luther King Jr.
“Live as Christ died yesterday, rose this morning and is coming back tomorrow” Martin Luther
“About 4% of all U.S. charitable giving goes to international causes of any kind” Richard Stearns
“The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it” Flanner O’Conner
“We are continually faced with a series of great opportunities brilliantly disguised as insoluble problems” John W. Gardner
“Don’t fail to do something just because you can’t do everything” Bob Pierce
“A church that lives within its four walls is no church at all” Morgan Chiulu (African pastor). “We drifted away from being fishers of men to being keepers of aquariums” Paul Harvey
“How different our standard is from Christ’s. We ask how much a man gives. He asks how much he keeps” Andrew Murray
“Our chief enemy is the lie that says sin will make our future happier. Our chief weapon is the truth that says God will make our future happier” John Piper—YES!!—See Ephesians 4:1-12
“The Spirit without the Word is weaponless and the Word without the Spirit is powerless” John Stott
“God’s work done in God’s way will never lack God’s supplies” Hudson Taylor
There are two things represented to us in the Bible as worth buying: TRUTH-Proverbs 23:23 and TIME-Ephesians 5:16
“The Calvinist is the Christian who confesses before men in his theology just what he believes in his heart when he prays” JI Packer
“God is free. I am free. If my freedom runs up against God’s freedom, I LOSE. His freedom restricts my freedom; my freedom does not restrict His. (See Ps. 33:10-11; Gen. 20:6, Prov. 16:9, 19:21, 20:24, 21:1; Nations-Is. 10:5-7 & Dan. 4:34-35)” RC Sproul
Jonathan Edward’s Law of Free Will: “Free moral agents always act according to the STRONGEST INCLINATION THEY HAVE AT THE MOMENT OF CHOICE or otherwise stated-We always choose according to our inclinations and according to our strongest inclination at any given moment”
“Free will is not the ability to do ANYTHING we want. It is the propensity to do EXACTLY what we want” Michael Patton
“Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: ‘What! You too? I thought I was the only one.” — C.S. Lewis
“Dear (American) Christian, we see everything through the distorted lens of our selfish, “me”-centered culture. We interpret the Scriptures through the “American Dream.” We must renew our view of reality through the Scriptures; we must set our minds on things above; we must look to the harvest; and we must always remember that this world is passing away, but he who does the will of God will abide forever. What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world, but loses his soul; and what will he give in exchange for his soul? To whom much is given, much is required. We must not be foolish, but we must redeem the time and walk circumspectly. We must use all our time, talents, and resources for Him! He is worthy of every breath, and the soul of one man is of greater worth than all the riches of the world!” Paul Washer
“If there be any one point in which the Christian church ought to keep its fervor at a white heat, it is concerning missions. If there be anything about which we cannot tolerate lukewarmness, it is the matter of sending the gospel to a dying world.” CH Spurgeon
“If there existed only one man or woman who did not love the Saviour, and if that person lived among the wilds of Siberia, and if it were necessary that all the millions of believers on the face of the earth should journey there, and every one of them plead with him to come to Jesus before he could be converted, it would be well worth all the zeal, labour, and expense. If we had to preach to thousands year after year, and never rescued but one soul, that one soul would be full reward for all our labour, for a soul is of countless price.” CH Spurgeon
“Live so as to be missed when dead.” Robert Murray McCheyne
“It’s true that [many] are praying for a worldwide revival. But it would be more timely, and more scriptural, for prayer to be made to the Lord of the harvest, that He would raise up and thrust forth laborers who would fearlessly and faithfully preach those truths which are calculated to bring about a revival.” A.W. Pink
Great gospel quotes: http://www.irishcalvinist.com/?p=156
“I need to be godly more than I need to be gifted.” Kevin DeYoung
“Men who are in love with applause have their spirits starved not only when they are blamed offhand, but even when they fail to be constantly praised” John Chrysostom quote in Dave Harvey’s Book “Rescuing Ambition p.39 (http://www.amazon.com/Rescuing-Ambition-Dave-Harvey/dp/1433514915/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1288283551&sr=1-1 )
“If you can’t preach the same Gospel in the mansions of Beverly Hills or the trenches of Vietnam, you aren’t preaching the real Gospel. The Gospel is trans-cultural, trans-temporal, and trans-situational.” Unknown ( From a Dan Phillips article in Pyromanics)
Principles which come from the Reformation:
1. Authority – the Bible alone is our authority and not the councils or leaders of the Church. The Bible is above tradition.
2. Salvation – is by the grace of God alone, accomplished by the atonement of Christ alone, received by faith alone. Grace comes before sacraments.
3. The Church – the true Church is composed of the elect, those regenerated by God’s Holy Spirit.
4. The Priesthood – consists of all true believers. The priesthood of all believers.
The Battle Cries of the Reformation
The Protestant Reformation mobilised by Luther rallied around these great battle cries:
Sola Christus – Christ alone is the Head of the Church.
Sola Scriptura – Scripture alone is our authority.
Sola Gratia – Salvation is by the grace of God alone.
Sola Fide – Justification is received by faith alone.
Soli Deo Gloria – Everything is to be done for the glory of God alone.
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“Speech is…only good when it is better than silence.” —Richard Sibbes
“What! Get to heaven on your own strength? Why, you might as well try to climb to the moon on a rope of sand!” – George Whitefield
“If we are not going to proclaim some aspect of the riches of Christ in every sermon, we shouldn’t be in the pulpit.” Graeme Goldsworthy, Preaching the Whole Bible as Christian Scripture, p. 126
“One of the marks of a mature person is the ability to dissent without creation dissension.” —Don Robinson
The Lord has “highlighted” the following statements upon my heart while reading these past months…may the quotes bless you as they have blessed me!
“I have taken my good deeds and bad deeds and thrown them together in a heap and fled from them both to Christ, and in him I have peace.” —David Dickson
Augustine: Jesus Christ is not valued at all until He is valued above all.
“Either worrying drives out prayer, or prayer drives out worrying.” D.A. Carson
“To suppose that whatever God requireth of us that we have power of ourselves to do, is to make the cross and grace of Jesus Christ of none effect.” John Owen
“As long as a man is persuaded that he can make even the smallest contribution to his salvation, he remains self-confident and does not utterly despair of himself, and so is not humbled before God. Such a man plans out for himself a position, an occasion, a work, which shall bring him final salvation, but which will not.” – Martin Luther
“Your worst days are never so bad that you are beyond the reach of God’s grace. And your best days are never so good that you are beyond the need of God’s grace.” – Jerry Bridges
Charles Spurgeon once said, “If sinners will be damned, at least let them leap to hell over our bodies. And if they will perish, let them perish with our arms about their knees, imploring them to stay. If hell must be filled, at least let it be filled in the teeth of our exertions, and let not one go there unwarned and unprayed for.”
“In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; in all things, charity.”
“Who delivered up Jesus to die? Not Judas, for money; not Pilate, for fear; not the Jews, for envy; but the Father, for love!” —Octavius Winslow
“It is increasingly obvious that people are prepared to tolerate Christianity up until the point that it begins to define its terms.”– C.J. Mahaney, in his sermon “Cross-Centered Worship”
“Leave your home, your comforts, your bed, your ease, your all, to feed lost souls. The Lord of glory left heaven for this; it is enough for the disciple to be as his Master. It is said of Alleine that ‘he was infinitely and insatiably greedy for the conversion of souls.’ . . . The Lord give you this heavenly compassion for this people. Do not be satisfied without conversion. . . . Remember that a moral sinner will lie down in the same hell with the vilest.” Robert Murray M’Cheyne
“People do not seek God. They seek after the benefits that only God can give them. The sin of fallen man is this: Man seeks the benefits of God while at the same time fleeing from God himself. We are, by nature, fugitives.” —R.C. Sproul
In his book Lloyd-Jones: Messenger of Grace, Iain Murray writes, “Preaching under the annointing of the Holy Spirit is preaching which brings with it a consciousness of God. It produces an impression upon the hearer that is altogether stronger than anything belonging to the circumstances of the occasion. Visible things fall into the background; the surroundings, the fellow worshippers, even the speaker himself, all become secondary to an awareness of God himself. Instead of witnessing a public gathering, the hearer receives the conviction that he is being addressed personally, and with an authority greater than that of a human messenger.”
“It is one thing to bring truth from the Bible, and another to bring it from God himself through the Bible.” Andrew Bonar
“Why do you think Jesus would look at the crowds around him, with all their deep needs, and then turn to his disciples and tell them to pray for themselves? The answer is humbling. When Jesus looked at the harassed and helpless multitudes, apparently his concern was not that the lost would not come to the Father. Instead his concern was that his followers would not go to the lost.” David Platt, Radical: Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream (Colorado Springs, CO: Multnomah, 2010), p. 187.
“The glory of the gospel is that when the church is absolutely different from the world she invariably attracts it” —Martyn Lloyd-Jones
“On My arm, they shall trust.” (Isaiah 51:5) “In seasons of severe trial, the Christian has nothing on earth that he can trust to, and is therefore compelled to cast himself on his God alone. When his vessel is quickly sinking, and no human deliverance can avail—he must simply and entirely trust himself to the providence and care of God…Happy storm—that wrecks a man on such a rock as this! O blessed hurricane—that drives the soul to God and God alone! When a man is so burdened with troubles, so poor, so friendless, so helpless that he has nowhere else to turn—he flies into his Father’s arms, and is blessedly clasped therein! Oh, tempest-tossed believer—it is a happy trouble which drives you to your Father!–Charles Spurgeon
Puritan Richard Sibbes once wrote, “As we say of the mother and the child, both hold, but the safety of the child is at that the mother holds him.” And “Jesus grip never weakens” ( C.J. Mahaney: http://www.sovereigngraceministries.org/Blog/post/CJ-Mahaney-Spiritual-Dehydration-Jude.aspx )
“I want my students to know that when I speak of the missio Dei and our role in it, that I not only believe it with my head, but I feel it with my heart. Thus, a Great Commission classroom starts by capturing the heart with the things that are of most importance to God, namely the fame of His Name and renown and the spread of authentic Christ-centered worship among the nations.” George Robinson
“The issue for Christians is not whether we are going to be theologians but whether we are going to be good theologians or bad ones.” (RC Sproul) and “Bad theology is the worst of all taskmasters.” Martin Luther (1500’s)
“I am not what I ought to be — ah, how imperfect and deficient! I am not what I wish to be — I abhor what is evil, and I would cleave to what is good! I am not what I hope to be — soon, soon shall I put off mortality, and with mortality all sin and imperfection.
Yet, though I am not what I ought to be, nor what I wish to be, nor what I hope to be, I can truly say, I am not what I once was; a slave to sin and Satan; and I can heartily join with the apostle, and acknowledge, “By the grace of God I am what I am.” – John Newton, as quoted in The Christian Pioneer
“Self-will and prayer are both ways of getting things done. At the center of self-will is me, carving a world in my image, but at the center of prayer is God, carving me in his Son’s image.” – Paul E. Miller
“The more you understand who Jesus is and what He has done for you, the more generous you become… I fear there are many hearing me who now know they are not Christians because they do not love to give. To give largely and liberally, not grudging at all, requires a new heart. An old heart would rather part with its lifeblood than its money.” Robert Murray McCheyenne
“I have learned to kiss the wave that strikes me against the Rock of Ages.” C.H. Spurgeon
“If a man is saved it is because God saves him; if he is lost it is because he has not believed. Paul teaches both and we must not try to get rid of either.” – Martyn Lloyd-Jones
“Calling is the truth that God calls us to himself so decisively that everything we are, everything we do, and everything we have is invested with a special devotion, dynamism, and direction.” Os Guinness
“The aim of the missionary is to do God’s will, not to be useful, not to win the heathen; he is useful and he does win the heathen, but that is not his aim. His aim is to do the will of his Lord.” Oswald Chambers
“I’m not afraid of failure; I am afraid of succeeding at things that don’t matter” William Carey (missionary to India, 1761-1834)
“The truth is that God in his wisdom, to make and keep us humble and to teach us to walk by faith, has hidden from us almost everything that we should like to know about the providential purposes which he is working out in the churches and in our own lives.” —J.I. Packer
“Faith holds the promise in one hand, and Christ in the other” — Thomas Watson
“The Spirit never loosens where the Word binds; the Spirit never justifies where the Word condemns; the Spirit never approves where the Word disapproves; the Spirit never blesses where the Word curses.” —Thomas Brooks
“Every saved person this side of heaven owes the gospel to every lost person this side of hell” David Platt – Radical: Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream p.76 (http://www.amazon.com/Radical-Taking-Faith-American-Dream/dp/1601422210/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1283724086&sr=1-1 )
“Where did this man get these things?” (Mark 6.2b)…“People are much more comfortable with a Jesus who is tame, explainable and pliable. He is a problem the minute he looks, feels, or sounds confident, complex or authoritative…Why?…Because he shatters our personally crafted lord and saviors…When the biblical Jesus shines through the fog of our imaginations he is seen as a King instead of a puppet. He is a Savior instead of an advisor. He is God instead of ‘this man’…Nothing in the life of Jesus is accidental. Jesus’ preaching in Mark 6 (and Luke 4) must be seen as a calculated effort to chase out their unbelief. Indeed all Christ-centered preaching endeavors to unfasten our clinging fingers from the idols we create and cling to the Savior that God gives.” Eric Raymond
“Just as there are no ultimate tragedies for the believer, so for the impenitent unbeliever there are no ultimate blessings. Every good gift God bestows upon the wicked, for which the wicked do not glorify God or acknowledge His goodness with gratitude and worship, becomes a tragedy. The more gifts God gives that are despised by the recipient, the more guilt is incurred, so that, to the wicked, on Judgment Day the gifts of God’s kindness become tragedies.” —R.C. Sproul
“It is the hardest thing in all the world, but the most liberating thing, for a sinful man to look square at the facts of his sin and defy the shame of it all by asserting the cross of Christ for those very sins. This is the work of the gospel. This is self-ministry. Everyman must learn how to apply the gospel of grace to his conscience when he has sinned. You cannot get free of your sins on your own; the only way to get free is to see them, in all their damnable inexcusability, covered and pardoned and forgiven and forever removed by the blood of Christ.” Ray Ortlund
“Why do you “thank” God for your conversion? It is because you know in your heart that God was entirely responsible for it. You do not attribute your repenting and believing to your own wisdom, or prudence, or sound judgment, or good sense.” – J.I. Packer
“Christian orthodoxy is being sacrificed on the altar of American Patriotism. Well patriotism is well and good, it can find it’s voice among many who disagree politically. This new religion of civil moralistic patriotic deism is less concerned with who God is then it is with who “we” are. It preaches a “gospel” of what we must do to “reclaim America” instead of the Gospel of what Jesus did for us on the Cross. Doctrines like the Trinity and the nature of man become inconsequential while views on “social justice” become issues of division.” Someone commenting on the Glenn Beck rally
“What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us. . . . For this reason the gravest question before the Church is always God himself, and the most portentous fact about any man is not what he at a given time may say or do but what he in his deep heart conceives God to be like. . . . Our real idea of God may lie buried under the rubbish of conventional religious notions and may require an intelligent and vigorous search before it is finally unearthed and exposed for what it is. Only after an ordeal of painful self-probing are we likely to discover what we actually believe about God.” A. W. Tozer, The Knowledge of the Holy (New York, 1961), pages 9-10
“I do not know when I am more perfectly happy than when I am weeping for sin at the foot of the cross.” C.H. Spurgeon
“Sin forsaken is one of the best evidences of sin forgiven.” J.C. Ryle
“Worship begins in holy expectancy, and it ends in holy obedience.” Erwin Lutzer
“All our difficulties are only platforms for the manifestations of His grace, power, and love. “ Hudson Taylor
“How marvelous it is that we do not hate sin more than we do! Sin is the cause of all the pain and disease in the world…God did not create man to be an ailing and suffering creature. It was sin, and nothing but sin, which brought in all the ills that flesh is heir to. It was sin to which we owe every racking pain, and every loathsome infirmity, and every humbling weakness to which our poor bodies are liable…Let us keep this ever in mind. Let us hate sin with a godly hatred.” –J.C. Ryle, Expository Thoughts on Mark, p. 99
“The saved are singled out not by their own merits, but by the grace of the Mediator.” – Martin Luther
“Saving faith is not a native product of the human heart, but is a spiritual grace communicated from on High.” – A.W. Pink
“God is far more willing to save sinners than sinners are to be saved.” – J.C. Ryle
“There is no better test of our spiritual state
and condition than our missionary zeal, our concern for lost souls. That
is always the thing that divides people who are just theoretical and
intellectual Christians from those who have a living and a vital spiritual
life.” – Martyn Lloyd-Jones
“Not everyone is called to be a missionary. But missions is for everyone” Steve Saint
“God cannot lead you on the basis of facts you do not have” Ralph D. Winter
“A man who has never traveled thinks his mother is the best cook” Kikuyu of Kenya … “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime” Mark Twain
“A missionary is someone who never gets used to the sound of pagan footsteps on their way to a Christless eternity” Unknown
“There is no need of faith where there is no consciousness of an element of risk. Faith, to be worthy of the name, must embrace doubt.” Elisabeth Elliot
“I have but one passion—it is He, it is He alone. The world is the field and the field is the world; and henceforth that country shall be my home where I can be most used in winning souls for Christ” Count Nicholas von Zinzendolf
“If we have a choice and unless there is compelling reasons to the contrary, the Christian worker should choose the place of greatest need! Failure to give adequate consideration to this factor has caused the incredible inequity in the distribution of workers” Gordon Olson
“I have but one candle of life to burn, and I would rather burn it in a land filled with darkness than a land flooded with lights” Ion Keith-Falconer
“The heart of most religions is good advice, good techniques, good programs, good ideas, and good support systems. These drive us deeper into ourselves, to find our inner light, inner goodness, inner voice, or inner resources…Nothing new can be found inside of us. There is no inner rescuer deep in my soul; I just hear echoes of my own voice telling me all sorts of crazy things to numb my sense of fear, anxiety, and boredom, the origins of which I cannot truly identify…But the heart of Christianity is Good News. It comes not as a task for us to fulfill, a mission for us to accomplish, a game plan for us to follow with the help of life coaches, but as a report that someone else has already fulfilled, accomplished, followed, and achieved everything for us.” —Michael Horton, The Gospel-Driven Life, p. 20
“Let’s stop asking God to bless our plans in the world & start aligning w/the plan He has promised to bless in His Word.” David Platt
“Our job is to present the Christian faith in modern terms, not to propagate modern thought in Christian terms. Confusion here is fatal.” JI Packer
“Oh, what a blessed truth is this! If a man, who has been blind for fifty years, could have his eyes opened, and could be taken out to see the stars, or to look up to the sun, how he would clap his hands, and cry, “What a wondrous sight it is!” And I know that, when I first perceived that Christ stood in my place, and that I stood in his place, — that I was accepted because he was rejected, that I was beloved because he endured his Father’s wrath on my account, — my soul felt as if it had never lived before, and had never known anything that was worth knowing till it perceived that wondrous truth.” CH Spurgeon
“We do not jettison worship for the sake of evangelism, but evangelize for the sake of the worship.” R.C. Sproul
“I’m not afraid of failure; I am afraid of succeeding at things that don’t matter” William Carey (missionary to India, 1761-1834)
“There is nothing in us or done by us, at any stage of our earthly development, because of which we are acceptable to God. We must always be accepted for Christ’s sake, or we cannot ever be accepted at all. This is not true of us only when we believe. It is just as true after we have believed. It will continue to be true as long as we live. Our need of Christ does not cease with our believing; nor does the nature of our relation to Him or to God through Him ever alter, no matter what our attainments in Christian graces or our achievements in behavior may be… It is always on His “blood and righteousness” alone that we can rest.” B.B. Warfield
“Aim at heaven and you will get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you get neither” C.S. Lewis
”Anxiety does not empty tomorrow of its sorrows, but only empties today of its strength.” – C.H. Spurgeon
“If a commission by an earthly king is considered an honor, how can a commission by a Heavenly King be considered a sacrifice?” — David Livingstone
“If ten men are carrying a log — nine of them on the little end and one at the heavy end — and you want to help, which end will you lift on?” — William Borden, as he reflected on the numbers of Christian workers in the U.S. as compared to those among unreached peoples.
“Go stand by the gates of hell, and hear the damned entreat you to go to their father’s house and bid their brothers and sisters and servants and masters not to come there. Then look Christ in the face — whose mercy you have professed to obey — and tell Him whether you will join heart and soul and body and circumstances in the march to publish His mercy to the world.” — William Booth
“Not called!’ did you say?’Not heard the call,’ I think you should say. Put your ear down to the Bible, and hear Him bid you go and pull sinners out of the fire of sin. Put your ear down to the burdened, agonized heart of humanity, and listen to its pitiful wail for help. Go stand by the gates of hell, and hear the damned entreat you.” William Booth
“Give me one hundred preachers who fear nothing but sin and desire nothing but God, and I care not a straw whether they be clergymen or laymen, such alone will shake the gates of hell, and set up the kingdom of heaven on earth.” John Wesley
“A sermon is “an applicatory declaration, spoken in God’s name and for his praise, in which some part of the written Word of God delivers through the preacher some part of its message about God and godliness in relation to those whom the preacher addresses.” (J.I. Packer, “Truth and Power: The Place of Scripture in the Christian Life,” chapter 5: Mouthpiece for God, page 162)
“The emperor Trajan tore off a piece of his robe to bind up one of his soldier’s wounds. But Christ tore off His own flesh for us! “He gave Himself for us to redeem us” (Titus 2:14). Christ gave Himself for us—what more could He give?” Thomas Watson
“When individuals disagree on the proper interpretation of a passage of Scripture, the problem does not lie with the Scriptures, for God guided its composition so that it could be understood. Rather, the problem lies with us…When we don’t find the specific answer to a question in the Bible, we are not free to add to the commands of Scripture what we have found to be pragmatically correct.” Wayne Grudem
“If Jesus answered all your prayers from the last 30 days, would anything change in THE World or just YOUR world?” John Bryson
“Saving souls can be likened to a man drowning in a deep well and a volunteer can do nothing unless there are people who will hold the rope for him to be lowered till he reaches the drowning man, and then pull them up to safety.” Carey adds, “I will go to India as a volunteer to seek sinners drowning in the well of Sin. But I can’t do it alone. I need rope holders.” William Carey- “Father of Modern Missions”
“Truth is not always to be had at the same price. Buy it we must at any, but sell it upon no terms … [Rev. 12:11 says] ‘they loved not their lives unto the death’ … Life itself they counted an enemy when it would part them with truth..” – William Gurnall
“Wesley and Whitfield may preach the gospel better than I do but they can never preach a better gospel.” C.H. Spurgeon
“If we perish then Christ the Almighty Ruler of the world Himself must suffer with us. Even if this cause were to collapse, I would much rather be ruined with Christ than rule with Caesar.”–Martin Luther
“Why is it that some have believed? It is because the Spirit has sanctified them, has set them apart, has called them out. It is the call of the Spirit; it is the work of the Spirit in conviction, and calling out, and giving power to believe.” – Martyn Lloyd Jones
“The chief occupational hazard of leadership is pride.” – John Stott
“We spend the whole of our lives watching ourselves. But when a man becomes meek he has finished with all that; he no longer worries about himself and what other people say. To be truly meek means we no longer protect ourselves, because we see there is nothing worth defending.” – Lloyd-Jones
“The Spirit of God must come, and make the letter alive to you, transfer it to your heart, set it on fire and make it burn within you, or else its divine force and majesty will be hid from your eyes.” – C.H. Spurgeon
“Without Christ, not one step; with Him, anywhere!” – David Livingstone
“The only reason why you are saved is the sovereign compassion of Jesus. It is not that you are better than others, that you were less wicked, of better dispositions; more attentive to your Bible . . . It is the free grace of God. Love God forever and ever, because He chose you of His own free will . . . It will be a matter of praise through eternity.” Robert M. M’Cheyne
“The essence of effective teaching is found in the ability to simplify without at the same time distorting.” R.C. Sproul
“There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not declare, ‘Mine'”. Abraham Kuyper
The only thing more frightening than being in a small boat in the middle of a big storm is being in a small boat with a man who shouts at big storms and succeeds. (See Mark 4:35-41)
“No sin can be little, because it is committed against the great God of heaven and earth. To commit little sins, the sinner must find out a little God.” ~ John Bunyan.
“Faiths first reckons then it risks and then it rests!” Leonard Ravenhill
“The extent of man’s fall is so great and extensive that no man by the exercise of his own will or understanding can ever save himself or become a Christian.” – Martyn Lloyd-Jones
“Bad theology is the worst of all taskmasters.” Martin Luther (1500’s)
“Fairy tales do not tell children the dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children the dragons can be killed.” G.K. Chesterton
“Breathe in me, O Holy Spirit, that my thoughts may all be holy. Act in me, O Holy Spirit, that my work, too, may be holy. Draw my heart, O Holy Spirit, that I love but what is holy. Strengthen me, O Holy Spirit, to defend all that is holy. Guard me, then, O Holy Spirit, that I always may be holy. Amen.” Augustine
“When the clouds of trial, pain, loss, hardship, hurt, and tears roll in, we must never forget that our Lord Jesus Christ imaged God well even when suffering. When Jesus was hurting the most, as he hung on the cross for our sins, he reflected the mercy and justice of God perfectly. Jesus invites us to not waste the worst moments and seasons of our life but rather consider them treasures to be invested purposefully in glorifying God by imaging the character of Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit. This is Jesus’ point when he says, ‘If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.’ Thankfully, unlike so many half-true theologies that speak only of the victories of Christian life and how to image God when we are winning, Jesus shows us that if our aim is to image God, then when we win and lose and as we live and die, every moment is a sacred opportunity to be captured for his glory, our joy, and others’ good.” Mark Driscol
“For my own part, I have never ceased to rejoice that God has appointed me to such an office. People talk of the sacrifice I have made in spending so much of my life in Africa. . . . Is that a sacrifice which brings its own blest reward in healthful activity, the consciousness of doing good, peace of mind, and a bright hope of a glorious destiny hereafter? Away with the word in such a view, and with such a thought! It is emphatically no sacrifice. Say rather it is a privilege. Anxiety, sickness, suffering, or danger, now and then, with a foregoing of the common conveniences and charities of this life, may make us pause, and cause the spirit to waver, and the soul to sink; but let this only be for a moment. All these are nothing when compared with the glory which shall be revealed in and for us. I never made a sacrifice” David Livingstone
“What is the chief end of preaching? I like to think it is this. It is to give men and women a sense of God and His presence.” Martyn Lloyd-Jones
“As preachers we have accepted our calling and do not question its usefulness or impact. We are men who have been humbled and are compelled to keep talking to the headstones until someone walks out of the ground. When we see the dirt move, there is reason for excitement.” Tim Challies
“The demands of Christ are too humbling to our natural pride, too searching for the callous conscience, too exacting for our fleshly desires. And a miracle of grace has to be wrought within us before this awful depravity of our nature, this dreadful state of affairs, is changed.” – A.W. Pink
“God knows how to serve his own ends by the very sins of men, and yet have no communion at all in the sin he so overrules.” – John Flavel
“Christian contentment is that sweet, inward, quiet, gracious frame of spirit, which freely submits to and delights in God’s wise and fatherly disposal in every condition.” Jeremiah Burroughs
John Stott commenting on Romans 1:5 which says “[I am called] to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of His Name among the nations” rightly said “The highest of missionary motives is neither obedience to the Great Commission (important as that is), nor love for sinners who are alienated and perishing (strong as that incentive is, especially as we contemplate the wrath of God…), but rather zeal—burning and passionate zeal—for the glory of Jesus Christ….Only one imperialism is Christian… and that is concern for His Imperial Majesty Jesus Christ, and for the glory of His empire….We should be ‘jealous’…for the honor of His Name—troubled when it remains unknown, hurt when it is ignored, indignant when it is blasphemed. And all the time anxious and determined that it shall be given honor and glory which are due to it” (John Stott, Romans: God’s Good News for the World, p. 53.)
“All that the Father gives me shall come to me.”- John 6:37 … Oh! The power and majesty which rest in the words “shall come.” He does not say they have power to come, nor they may come if they will, but they “shall come” … subdued by sovereign love!” – C.H. Spurgeon
“The missionary’s object is to endeavor by every means in his power to make known the gospel by preaching, exhortation, conversation, instructing of the young; improving, so far as in his power, the temporal condition of those among whom he labors, by introducing the arts and sciences to civilization, and doing everything to commend Christianity to their hearts and consciences. The missionary will be exposed to great trials of his faith and patience from the indifference, distrust, and even direct opposition and scorn of those for whom he is laboring.” David Livingstone
“Seek him! Seek him always. But go beyond seeking him; expect him. Do you expect anything to happen when you get up to preach in a pulpit? Or do you just say to yourself, ‘Well, I have prepared my address, I am going to give them this address; some of them will appreciate it and some will not’? Are you expecting it to be the turning point in someone’s life? Are you expecting anyone to have a climactic experience? This is what preaching is meant to do. This is what you find in the Bible and in the subsequent history of the church…Seek this power, expect this power, yearn for this power. And when the power comes, yield to him. Do not resist. Forget all about your sermon if necessary. Let him loose you, let him manifest his power in you and through you. . . . This unction, this anointing, is the supreme thing. Seek it until you have it; be content with nothing less. Go on until you can say, ‘My preaching was not with enticing words of man’s wisdom but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power.’ He is still able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we can ask or think.” D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Preaching and Preachers (Grand Rapids, 1971), page 325.
“A truly wise man is one, not who has attained, but who knows that he has not attained and is pressing onward to perfection.” Bridges
“Why do we sit inside the four walls singing ‘Let the earth hear His voice’? It doesn’t make sense. Let the earth hear His voice! Get Out!” – Leonard Ravenhill
“All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.” ~ Edmund Burke
“It is not enough for the artist to have lovely visions in his mind–he must get his visions on the canvas, where they will be blessings to the world…It is not enough to hear good lessons, or look on good examples. When we have heard and seen–we must go out and DO the good things which are so beautiful, which our judgment commends. Now we have read and understand the story of the Good Samaritan. Is that all we need to do? No! We must, “Go–and DO likewise!”
“The sacrificial, costly love of Jesus changes us. When we see the beauty of what he has done for us, it attracts our hearts to him. We realize that the love, the greatness, the consolation, and the honor we have been seeking in other things is here. The beauty also eliminates our fear. If the Lord of the universe loves us enough to experience this for us, what are we afraid of? Tim Keller
“Some sincere believers mistake a clearer view, and deeper sense of their depravity, for an actual increase of sin. The Christian seems sometimes to himself, to be growing worse, when actually it is only that he sees more clearly what in fact he really is!” – John Angell James
“Of all deadly sins, this is the most deadly, namely, that any one should think he is not guilty of a damnable and deadly sin before God.” – Martin Luther
“Forgiveness is not the making of a fault to be no fault… We must still own ourselves deserving the wrath of God, which maketh for our constant humiliation and admiration of grace; so that he that is pardoned still deserveth punishment.” – Thomas Manton
“The demands of Christ are too humbling to our natural pride, too searching for the callous conscience, too exacting for our fleshly desires. And a miracle of grace has to be wrought within us before this awful depravity of our nature, this dreadful state of affairs, is changed.” – A.W. Pink
“In our quest for the fullness of the Spirit, we have sometimes forgotten that a Spirit-filled intelligence is one of the powerful weapons for pulling down satanic strongholds.”Richard F. Lovelace, Dynamics of Spiritual Life (Downers Grove, 1979), page 183
“A man is opposed to Christ, he hates his gospel, does not understand it and will not receive it– the Holy Spirit comes, puts light into his darkened understanding, takes the chain from his bondaged will, gives liberty to his conscience, gives life to his dead soul, … and the man becomes a new creature in Christ Jesus.” – C.H. Spurgeon
“The fuel of worship is a true vision of the greatness of God; the fire that makes the fuel burn white hot is the quickening of the Holy Spirit; the furnace made alive and warm by the flame of truth is our renewed spirit; and the resulting heat of our affections is powerful worship, pushing its way out in confessions, longings, acclamations, tears, songs, shouts, bowed heads, lifted hands, and obedient lives.” John Piper (Desiring God p. 82)
“Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested. That is, . . . some few are to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention.” Francis Bacon, “Of Studies,” in David T. Pottinger, editor, English Essays from Bacon to Lucas (New York, 1917), page 2.
“Be careful how you treat God, my friends. You may say to yourself, ‘I can sin against God and then, of course, I can repent and go back and find God whenever I want him.’ You try it. And you will sometimes find that not only can you not find God but that you do not even want to. You will be aware of a terrible hardness in your heart. And you can do nothing about it. And then you suddenly realize that it is God punishing you in order to reveal your sinfulness and your vileness to you. And there is only one thing to do. You turn back to him and you say, ‘O God, do not go on dealing with me judicially, though I deserve it. Soften my heart. Melt me. I cannot do it myself.’ You cast yourself utterly upon his mercy and upon his compassion.” D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Revival (Westchester, 1987), page 300.
“The gospel is not just a body of doctrinal content. It’s a power—it is the power of God unto salvation to all who believe. It’s not just about God’s power—it is God’s power.” -Tim Keller
“The difference between an unconverted and a converted man is not that one has sins and the other has none; but that the one takes part with his cherished sins against a dreaded God, and the other takes part with a reconciled God against his hated sins.” William Arnot
“God rescues us by breaking us, by shattering our strength and wiping out our resistance. When He has overpowered our resistance, He binds us with His cords of love and draws us to Himself. There, “faint with His loveliness” we lie down conquered and thank God again and again for the blessed conquest.” – A.W. Tozer
“Why I always promote reading great book that glorify Christ. Books may preach when the author cannot, when the author may not, when the author dares not, yes, and which is more, when the author is not.” Thomas Brooks
“If we are Christ’s indeed, we are called not to a holiday but to a campaign. Our tent is pitched on a field of battle.” H. C. G. Moule
“Spiritual leadership is not won by promotion, but by prayers and tears. It is attained by much heart-searching and humbling before God; by self-surrender, a courageous sacrifice of every idol, a bold uncompromising, and uncomplaining embracing of the cross, and by an eternal, unfaltering looking unto Jesus crucified.”
“Never fear dying, beloved. Dying is the last, but the least matter that a Christian has to be anxious about. Fear living – that is a hard battle to fight, a stern discipline to endure, a rough voyage to undergo.” C.H. Spurgeon
“Conscience is like a bee; use it well, and it will give honey; use it ill, and it will put forth a sting.” Thomas Watson
“It will be better for you to frequent the humblest shed where God is present, than to worship in the most respectable edifice where you will have nothing but the words of man, without the living power of the living God.” C. H. Spurgeon
“In eight Scriptural passages, Jesus is described by the Greek word Theos (God): John 1:1-3; 1:18; 20:28; Rom. 9:5; Titus 2:13; Heb. 1:8; 2 Pet. 1:1; 1 John 5:20. The New Testament also affirms the deity of Jesus in calling him Yahweh. Old Testament prophecies concerning Yahweh are quoted in the New Testament as being references to Jesus (compare Mal. 3:1 and Luke 1:76; Joel 2:32 and Rom. 10:13; Isa. 45:23 and Rom. 14:10; Psalm 45:6 and Heb 1:8,9). Angels Worship him (Heb. 1:6) while at the same time refuse to receive worship (Rev. 19:10) yet Jesus willingly receives worship (Matthew 2:11, 14:33, 28:9, 17; Luke 24:52; John 9:38).” http://www.monergism.com/
“[Those who] view themselves in the flattering looking-glass of self-love, appear bigger in their own eyes than they are! They think their spark—is a sun! They think their drop—is a sea! – Thomas Watson
“Only God himself can satisfy the craving of a soul really aroused by the Holy Spirit.” C.H. Spurgeon
“We must not confide in the armor of God, but in the God of this armor, because all our weapons are only mighty through God.” William Gurnall
“Humility may well be called the ‘queen of the Christian graces’. To know our own sinfulness and weakness, and to feel our need of Christ, is the very beginning of saving religion. The man who really knows himself–and his own heart; God–and His infinite majesty and holiness; Christ–and the price at which he was redeemed; that man will never be a proud man!” Unknown
“The doctrine of particular redemption is worth talking about because it gets to the heart of the gospel. Should we say “Christ died so that sinners might come to him”? Or, “Christ died for sinners”? There’s a big difference. Did Christ’s work on the cross make it possible for sinners to come to God? Or did Christ’s work on the cross actually reconcile sinners to God? In other words, does the death of Jesus Christ make us save-able or does it make us saved? If the atonement is not particularly and only for the sheep, then either we have universalism–Christ died in everyone’s place and therefore everyone is saved–or we have something less than full substitution. If Jesus died for every person on the planet then we no longer mean that he died in place of sinners, taking upon himself our shame, our sins, and our rebellion so that we have the death of death in the death of Christ. Rather, we mean that when Jesus died he made it possible to come to him if we will do our part and come to him. But this is only half a gospel. Certainly, we need to come to Christ in faith. But faith is not the last work that finally makes us saved. Faith is trusting that Jesus has in fact died in our place and bore the curse for us—effectually, particularly, and perfectly….Reformed people talk of “limited” atonement not because they have an interest in limiting power of the cross, but in order to safeguard the central affirmation of the gospel that Christ is a Redeemer who really redeems. “We are often told that we limit the atonement of Christ,” Spurgeon observed, “because we say that Christ has not made a satisfaction for all men, or all men would be saved.” But, Spurgeon argues, it is the view of the atonement which says no one in particular was saved at the cross that actually limits Christ’s death. “We say Christ so died that he infallibly secured the salvation of a multitude that no man can number, who through Christ’s death not only may be saved, but are saved, must be saved and cannot by any possibility run the hazard of being anything but saved.”…I belabor this point not to belittle Arminian brothers and sisters, but to give Jesus Christ his full glory. Christ does not come to us merely saying, “I’ve done my part. I laid down my life for everyone because I have saving love for everyone in the whole world. Now, if you would only believe and come to me I can save you.” Instead he says to us, “I was pierced for your transgressions. I was crushed for your iniquities (Isa. 53:5). I have purchased with my blood men for God from every tribe and language and people and nation (Rev. 5:9). I myself bore your sins in my body on the tree, so that you might infallibly die to sins and assuredly live for righteousness. For my wounds did not merely make healing available. They healed you (1 Peter 2:24).”…“Amazing love!” a great Arminian once wrote. “How can it be that you, my Lord, should die for me?!” Praise be to our Good Shepherd who didn’t just make our salvation possible, but sustained the anger of God in body and soul, shouldered the curse, and laid down his life for the sheep.” Kevin DeYoung
“I fear there are some Christians among you to whom Christ cannot say ‘Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you.’ Your haughty dwelling arises in the midst of thousands who have scarce a fire to warm themselves at and have but little clothing to keep out the biting frost, and yet you never darkened their door. You heave a sigh perhaps at a distance, but you do not visit them. Ah my dear friends, I am concerned for the poor, but more for you. I know not what Christ will say to you on the great day. You seem to be Christians, and yet you care not for his poor. Oh, what a change will pass upon you as you enter the gates of heaven! You will be saved, but that will be all. There will be no abundant entrance for you. ‘He that soweth sparingly shall reap sparingly.’ And I fear that there may be many hearing me who may know well that they are not Christians, because they do not love to give. To give largely and liberally, not grudging at all, requires a new heart. An old heart would rather part with its life-blood than its money. Oh my friends, enjoy your money. Make the most of it. Give none of it away. Enjoy it quickly, for I can tell you, you will be beggars throughout eternity.” Robert Murray McCheyne, Works (New York, 1847), II:482.
“The sins of the ungodly are looking-glasses in which we may see our own hearts. Do we see a heinous, impious wretch? Behold a picture of our own hearts! Such would we be–if God left us! What is in wicked men’s practice –is in our nature. Sin in the wicked–is like fire which flames and blazes forth. Sin in the godly…–is like fire hid in the embers.” Thomas Watson
“Every command of Jesus has blood all over it” John Piper
“Since God has called me to be an ambassador of His. My ears have been deaf to every other call.”
“If you rise just a little bit above the common herd, if you achieve just a modicum more success than your neighbor, most surely those barbs of criticism are going to be shot your way. To avoid criticism: do nothing, say nothing, be nothing…there is no defense against reproach – except obscurity.” D. James Kennedy
“To declare that God helps those who help themselves, is to repudiate one of the most precious truths taught in the Bible, and in the Bible alone; namely, that God helps those who are unable to help themselves, who have tried again and again only to fail.” A.W. Pink
One of many reasons for me to exercise… “Two men were walking in a forest, when they suddenly saw a savage, hungry-looking bear. One of the men quickly put on a pair of running shoes. The other guy exclaimed, “You idiot! You can’t run faster than a bear.” To which the first guy replied, “I don’t have to run faster than the bear, I only have to run faster than you!”
The Times invited several eminent authors to write essays on the theme “What’s Wrong with the World?” Chesterton’s contribution took the form of a letter: Dear Sirs, I am. Sincerely yours, G. K. Chesterton
“Here is my initial thought on how to balance the two (grace and truth): grace supplies the why and truth provides the how of what we believe. The grace of Christ is the reason why we defend the truth and the truth of Christ is how his grace saves us. Without grace there is no point to truth and without truth there is no power in grace.” Mike Wittmer
“A god who does not rule all things absolutely is no God at all–but only a weak, frustrated, defeated idol, carved from one of the trees in the dark forest of man’s depraved imagination!”
“The cross is the crucifier of the world, the death of sin. Beneath its awful shadow, brought to its sacred foot, the world’s glory pales, sin’s power is paralyzed, and Satan, the arch-tempter, recoiling from its brightness and writhing beneath its death-bruise, relinquishes his victim, and …retires, defeated and dishonored, to his own place.” – Octavius Winslow
“Eye’s on the Prize, Joy is set before you” Kevin Turner
“This life ought so to be spent by us as to be only a journey towards heaven.” Jonathan Edwards
“Take as many to heaven with you as ye are able to draw. The more ye draw with you, ye shall be the welcomer yourself.” Samuel Rutherford
Hudson Taylor wrote: “If the Spirit of God works mightily, we may be sure that the spirit of evil will also be active.”
The great Baptist preacher, C.H. Spurgeon, warned: “Believe not half you hear; repeat not half you believe. When you hear an evil report, halve it, then quarter it, and say nothing about the rest of it.”
The great Reformer, John Calvin, declared: “No greater injury can be inflicted upon men than to ruin their reputation.”
Thomas Brooks taught: “Of all the members in the body, there is none so serviceable to Satan as the tongue.”
C. H. Spurgeon wrote: “The more prominent you are in Christ’s service, the more certain are you to be the butt of calumny. I have long ago said farewell to my character. I lost it in the early days of my ministry by being a little more zealous than suited a slumbering age. And I have never been able to regain it except in the sight of Him who judges all the earth, and in the hearts of those who love me for my work’s sake.”
John Calvin wrote: “There is nothing more slippery or loose than the tongue.”
“To make human action the cause of divine blessing is to overturn the whole nature of salvation.” – Iain Murray
“I would rather drink the dregs of Christ’s wine vat, when the berries are sour, than swallow the sweetest wine of the vintage of unbelief. Believe the gospel, whether or not it yields immediate comfort. We would sooner be God’s dogs than the devil’s darlings.” C.H. Spurgeon
“If you believe what you like in the gospel, and reject what you don’t like, it is not the gospel you believe, but yourself.” (Augustine)
“The whole gospel is contained in Christ.” (John Calvin)
“Whenever the gospel is preached it is as if God himself came into the midst of us.” (John Calvin)
“There is nothing attractive about the gospel to the natural man; the only man who finds the gospel attractive is the man who is convicted of sin.” (Oswald Chambers)
“A gospel that elevates man and dethrones God is not the gospel.” (Will Metzger)
“The world has many religions; it has but one gospel.” (George Owen)
“The man who does not glory in the gospel can surely know little of the plague of sin that is within him. (J.C. Ryle)
“The revelation of the gospel is to a world that is already under indictment for its universal rejection of God the Father.” (R.C. Sproul)
“If the Lord’s bearing our sin for us is not the gospel, I have no gospel to preach.” (C.H. Spurgeon)
“The heart of the gospel is redemption, and the essence of redemption is the substitutionary sacrifice of Christ.” (C.H. Spurgeon)
“The gospel is a glorious declaration of the mighty acts of God when he invaded this earth in the person of his eternal Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.” (John Blanchard)
“The gospel is not ‘God loves us,’ but ‘God loves us at the cost of his Son.’” (Derek Thomas)
“As there is only one God, so there can be only one gospel.” (James Denney)
“The church is the fruit of the gospel.” (Hywel R. Jones)
“We have an unchanging gospel, which is not today green grass and tomorrow dry hay; but always the abiding truth of the immutable Jehovah.” (C.H. Spurgeon)
“The gospel begins and ends with what God is, not what we want or think we need.” (Tom Houston)
“When we preach Christ crucified, we have no reason to stammer, or stutter, or hesitate, or apologize; there is nothing in the gospel of which we have any cause to be ashamed.” (C.H. Spurgeon)
“O, what I owe to the file, to the hammer, to the furnace of my Lord Jesus!” Samuel Rutherford
“We…teach and comfort an afflicted sinner this way: ‘Brother, it is impossible for you to become so righteous in this life that your body is as clear and spotless as the sun. You still have spots and wrinkles (Eph. 5:27), and yet you are holy.’ But you say: ‘How can I be holy when I have sin and am aware of it?’ ‘That you feel and acknowledge sin- this is good. Thank God, and do not despair. It is one step toward health when a sick man admits and confesses his disease.’ ‘But how will I be liberated from sin?’ ‘Run to Christ, the Physician, who heals the contrite of heart and saves sinners. Believe in Him. If you believe, you are righteous…And the sin that still remains in you is not imputed but is forgiven for the sake of Christ, in whom you believe and who is perfectly righteous…His righteousness is yours; your sin is His,’” (Martin Luther, Luther’s Works, vol. 26, p. 233).
“According to my judgment the most important point to be attended to is this: above all things see to it that your souls are happy in the Lord. Other things may press upon you, the Lord’s work may even have urgent claims upon your attention, but I deliberately repeat, it is of supreme and paramount importance that you should seek above all things to have your souls truly happy in God Himself! Day by day seek to make this the most important business of your life. This has been my firm and settled condition for the last five and thirty years. For the first four years after my conversion I knew not its vast importance, but now after much experience I specially commend this point to the notice of my younger brethren and sisters in Christ: the secret of all true effectual service is joy in God, having experimental acquaintance and fellowship with God Himself…. But in what way shall we attain to this settled happiness of soul? How shall we learn to enjoy God? How obtain such an all-sufficient soul-satisfying portion in him as shall enable us to let go the things of this world as vain and worthless in comparison? I answer, This happiness is to be obtained through the study of the Holy Scriptures. God has therein revealed Himself unto us in the face of Jesus Christ.” George Mueller
“Work with all your might; but trust not in the least in your work.” George Mueller
“As to myself, I would tell you how it is with me if I could: at the best, it would be an inconsistent account…I am a sinner, believing in the name of Jesus. I am a silly sheep, but I have a gracious, watchful Shepherd. I am a dull scholar, but I have a Master who can make the dullest learn. He still bears with me, He still employs me, He still enables me, He still owns me. Oh for a coal of heavenly fire to warm my heart, that I might praise him as I ought!” John Newton in a letter to D. West, Esq. (August 29, 1774).
“If you’re going to be a leader, you have to be a reader!” Unknown
“There are only 3 options for the Christian and missions: being a goer, being a sender, or being disobedient.” John Piper
“I will place no value on anything I have or may possess except in relation to the Kingdom of God.” David Livingstone
“When the devil accuses us and says, ‘You are a sinner and therefore damned,’ we should answer, ‘Because you say I am a sinner, I will be righteous and saved.’ ‘No,’ says the devil, ‘you will be damned.’ And I reply, ‘No, for I fly to Christ, who gave himself for my sins. Satan, you will not prevail against me when you try to terrify me by setting forth the greatness of my sins and try to bring me into heaviness, distrust, despair, hated, contempt and blasphemy against God. On the contrary, when you say I am a sinner, you give me armor and weapons against yourself, so that with your own sword I may cut your throat and tread you under my feet, for Christ died for sinners. . . . As often as you object that I am a sinner, so often you remind me of the benefit of Christ my Redeemer, on whose shoulders, and not on mine, lie all my sins. So when you say I am a sinner, you do not terrify me but comfort me immeasurably.’” Martin Luther
-(Commenting on Galatians 1:4, “…the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins.”)
“Prayer is striking the winning blow at the concealed enemy. Service is gathering up the results of that blow among the people we see and touch.” S. D. Gordon
“Unbelief says: Some other time, but not now; some other place, but not here; some other people, but not us. Faith says: Anything He did anywhere else He will do here; anything He did any other time He is willing to do now; anything He ever did for other people He is willing to do for us! With our feet on the ground, and our head cool, but with our heart ablaze with the love of God, we walk out in this fullness of the Spirit, if we will yield and obey. God wants to work through you!” -A. W. Tozer, (The Counselor p. 116)
“Conviction of sin is just the sinner seeing himself as he is, and as God has all along seen him” Bonar
“The preacher must impersonate the gospel. Its divine, most distinctive features must be embodied in him. The constraining power of love must be in the preacher as a projecting, eccentric, an all-commanding, self-oblivious force. The energy of self-denial must be his being, his heart and blood and bones. He must go forth as a man among men, clothed with humility, abiding in meekness, wise as a serpent, harmless as a dove; the bonds of a servant with the spirit of a king, a king in high, royal, in dependent bearing, with the simplicity and sweetness of a child…The preacher must throw himself, with all the abandon of a perfect, self-emptying faith and a self-consuming zeal, into his work for the salvation of men. Hearty, heroic, compassionate, fearless martyrs must the men be who take hold of and shape a generation for God. If they be timid time servers, place seekers, if they be men pleasers or men fearers, if their faith has a weak hold on God or his Word, if their denial be broken by any phase of self or the world, they cannot take hold of the Church nor the world for God. “–E.M. Bounds Power through Prayer
“Preach the gospel; if necessary use words” is like saying “Tell me your phone number; if necessary use digits.” JD Greear
“Never lose heart in the power of the gospel. Do not believe that there exists any man, much less any race of men, for whom the gospel is not fitted.” C.H. Spurgeon
“He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.” Jim Elliot (Martyred Missionary)
“I realized that I am immortal till my Master’s work with me is done” Missionary John Patton (P. 207 in his autobiography).
“No reserve, no retreat, no regret.”
-Missionary William Borden
“Some like to live within sound of church or chapel bell; I would like to run a rescue shop within a yard of hell” Missionary C.T. Studd
“The will of God will never take us where the Grace of God will not protect us.” C.H. Spurgeon
“If, in teaching the gospel, we tell the sinner what he has to do before we tell him what God has done; if we tell him to examine his own heart before we tell him to study the cross of Christ; we take out the whole gladness from the glad tidings, and preach another gospel.” Bonar
“Blessed the man and woman who is able to serve cheerfully in the second rank, a big test.” – Mary Slessor
“Jesus does not love his own with a little of his love…” – C. H. Spurgeon
“Where must a man go for pardon? Where is forgiveness to be found? There is a way both sure and plain and that way is simply to trust in the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior. It is to cast your soul, with all its sins, unreservedly on Christ, – to cease completely from any dependence on your own works or doings, either in whole or in part – and to rest on no other work but Christ’s work, no other merit but Christ’s merit, as your ground of hope. Take this course and you are a pardoned soul.” J.C. Ryle
“In order to rightly view the cross of Christ we must not see it first as a means for our exaltation but rather for our humiliation; for it was primarily our sin’s collision with divine holiness that reckoned Jesus to endure such cosmic humiliation. This sin-induced humiliation must inform our understanding of exaltation.
Therefore, there is nothing in the cross for us to boast in other than Christ; for he was not motivated to save us by anything valuable in us whatsoever. Instead, it was his essential character of love and goodness which moved him. And in obedience to his Father, he came and in my place condemned he stood.” Eric Raymond
“Lord Jesus, You are my righteousness, I am your sin. You took on you what was mine; yet set on me what was yours. You became what you were not, that I might become what I was not” (Martin Luther 1500’s)
“I seek not praise; I fear not blame.” Theodorus Jacobus Frelinghuysen.
Reaching Africa's Unreached 