T. (Theodore) Austin-Sparks

Settler or Pioneer? – T. Austin-Sparks

The whole history of the Church is one long story of this tendency to settle down on this earth and to become conformed to this world, to find acceptance and popularity here and to eliminate the element of conflict and of pilgrimage. That is the trend and the tendency of everything. Therefore outwardly, as well as inwardly, pioneering is a costly thing.

– T. Austin-Sparks –

Jesus Cannot Be Understood Apart from the Cross – T. Austin-Sparks

It is of far-reaching importance and vital consequence to recognize that the Person of our Lord cannot really be known and understood apart from the Cross. It is equally of consequence to realize that the Cross is only really understood and adequately appreciated when the Person of Christ is discerned. These two work hand-in-hand and are mutually dependent.

– T. Austin-Sparks –

August 23, 2014

The function of the Prophet has almost invariably been that of recovery … for obvious reasons, the people were not disposed to go the costly way of God’s full purpose, the Prophet was usually an unpopular person.

– T. Austin Sparks –

August 9, 2014

The history of God’s specific movements with the Church is not the history of His adding something, but of His bringing back to the primal fullness with which He filled His Son.

– T. Austin Sparks –

June 19, 2014

The mark of a life governed by the Holy Spirit is that such a life is continually and ever more and more occupied with Christ, that Christ is becoming greater and greater as time goes on…. Oh, the depths, the fullness, of Christ!  If we live as long as ever man lived, we shall still be only on the fringe of this vast fullness that Christ is.

– T. Austin-Sparks

January 28, 2013

No flesh shall glory in His presence, and the religious flesh is no more acceptable than the irreligious.

– T. Austin-Sparks –