Compassion costs. It is easy enough to argue, criticize and condemn, but redemption is costly, and comfort draws from the deep. Brains can argue, but it takes heart to comfort.
– Samuel Chadwick –
Meeting Jesus Where He Is – Richard Wurmbrand
Whoever wishes to meet Jesus must meet him in places where brothers and sisters of Jesus are hungry, thirsty, naked, unwanted, sick or in prison. Whoever keeps himself distant from these places remains distant from Jesus.
– Richard Wurmbrand –
Hiring Out the Christian Life? – Cal Thomas
It is now possible to live a “christian life” without doing the things that Jesus commanded us to do. We have hired people to go into all the world, to visit those in prison, to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to care for widows and orphans. The average Christian doesn’t have to do it.
– Cal Thomas –
Go to the Poor – Tony Campolo
Jesus never says to the poor: “come find the church,” but he says to those of us in the church: “go into the world and find the poor, hungry, homeless, imprisoned.”
– Tony Campolo –
True Repentance – George Whitefield
True repentance will entirely change you; the bias of your souls will be changed, then you will delight in God, in Christ, in His law, and in His people.
– George Whitefield –
May My Time Be Used to the Advantage of Christ – Thomas Chalmers
Pray that the brief remaining time I have in this world may be employed to the best advantage, both for the profit of my own soul and for that of others. More especially may the time spent in company be laid out for Christ, and not lost in the common-places and frivolities of ordinary conversation. May my speech be leavened with religion and yet be adapted to the peculiarities and the needs of every man, so that all offence may, when possible, be shunned, yet many be won to the faith and the following of Jesus.
– Thomas Chalmers –
from Sabbath Scripture Readings
Comfort Heart and Feet – William Booth
It is impossible to comfort men’s hearts with the love of God when their feet are perishing with cold.
– William Booth –
Being Used By God, for God – Bramwell Booth
When Christ formed in us finds free course for all His mind and all His passion; when our eyes are opened to the great purposes of His life in the salvation of the whole world; and when we hear, through Him, the cry of those for whom He was born, and for whom He died, God will pour out on us grace to send us forth—grace sufficient, grace abundant, grace triumphant. Have you come to this? Can you say He is thus dwelling in you, and working in you, to will and to do of His good pleasure?
Do not turn away with the paralyzing fear that it cannot be; that the life of Jesus can never be lived out again in flesh and blood. Remember, He is “the same yesterday, and today, and forever.” All He was in Bethlehem, to Mary and Joseph; all He was to His work-mates in Nazareth; all He was in the wilderness, fighting with fiends, in the deserts feeding the hungry, or among the multitude—healing the sick, blessing the little children, casting out devils, and preaching the Kingdom; all He was in Bethany, weeping over Lazarus, and crying, “Lazarus, come forth”; in the garden of His agony, in the darkness of His cross, in the hour of His Resurrection, all this—all-all-all—He is today. He belongs to the everlasting Now. All He was to the martyrs who died for His Name, all He has been to our fathers, He is to us, and will be to our children, for with Him is no variableness nor shadow of turning. Yes! This unchanging Christ “is in us, except we be reprobate,” the Life and Image of God, and the Hope of Glory.
– Bramwell Booth –
from Our Master
Church’s Concern with the Poor – Howard Synder
The church’s concern for and identification with the poor are sure signs of its faithfulness to the Kingdom and are often signs of fundamental renewal.
– Howard A. Synder –