Consider this, Christian: that all your trials and troubles, calamities and miseries, crosses and losses which you meet in this world are all the hell you shall ever have!!
– Thomas Brookes –
Let the Cross Slay You Utterly – AW Tozer
Though the cross of Christ has been beautified by the poet and the artist, the avid seeker after God is likely to find it the same savage implement of destruction it was in the days of old. The way of the cross is still the pain-wracked path to spiritual power and fruitfulness. So do not seek to hide from it. Do not accept an easy way. Do not allow yourself to be patted to sleep in a comfortable church, void of power and barren of fruit. Do not paint the cross nor deck it with flowers. Take it for what it is, as it is, and you will find it the rugged way to death and life. Let it slay you utterly.
– AW Tozer –
Getting Out of a Trial – AB Simpson
There are two ways of getting out of a trial. One is to simply try to get rid of the trial, and be thankful when it is over. The other is to recognize the trial as a challenge from God to claim a larger blessing than we have ever had, and to hail it with delight as an opportunity of obtaining a larger measure of Divine grace. Thus even the adversary becomes an auxiliary, and the things that seem to be against us turn out to be for the furtherance of our way. Surely, this is to be more than conquerors through Him who loved us.
– AB Simpson –
Live with an Eternal Perspective – Robert Murray M’Cheyne
Live near to God, and all things will appear little to you in comparison with eternal realities.
– Robert Murray M’Cheyne –
Finding Shelter and Fruit Amidst the Storm – John Owen
Did you never run to a tree for shelter in a storm, and find fruit which you did not expect? Did you never go to God for safeguard in these times, driven by outward storms, and there find unexpected fruit, the peaceable fruit of righteousness, that made you say, “Happy tempest, which cast me into such a harbor”?
– John Owen –
1616 –1683
God Is With Us – CS Lewis
God whispers to us in our joys, speaks to us in our difficulties, and shouts to us in our pains.
– CS Lewis –
1898-1963
A Frightened World Needs a Fearless Church – AW Tozer
A frightened world needs a fearless church.
– AW Tozer –
Revealing What’s Inside You – John Owen
Temptations and occasions put nothing into man, but only draw out what was in him before.
– John Owen –
1616-1683
The Purity of Gold – Amy Carmichael
The goldsmith never leaves his crucible once it has entered the fire. He periodically lifts out the gold, lets it cool, rubs it between his fingers, and if not satisfied puts it back … This time he blows the fire hotter than it was before, and each time he puts the gold back into the crucible, the heat of the fire is increased, “It could not bear it so hot at first, but it can bear it now; what would have destroyed it then helps it now.” “How do you know when the gold is purified?” we asked, and he answered, “When I can see my face in it, then it is pure.”
– Amy Carmichael –
from Gold Cord