The work of the Holy Spirit in the church is done in the context of persecution. The Spirit is not a guide and a helper for those on the straight way perfectly able to manage on their own. He comes to assist people caught up in the thick of battle and tried beyond their strength. Jesus makes it quite plain that the way before his followers is a hard and difficult way.
– Leon Morris –
Out of every one hundred men, ten shouldn’t even be there, eighty are just targets, nine are the real fighters, and we are lucky to have them, for they make the battle. Ah, but the one, one is a warrior, and he will bring the others back.
– Heraclitus –
Come, then, let us restore the lost chord of Christianity heroism to the world, and the crown of the world to Christ. Christ Himself asks the question, “Will you be a Malingerer or a Militant?”
To your knees, man! And to your Bible! Decide at once! Don’t hedge! Time flies! Cease your insults to God, quit consulting flesh and blood. Stop your lame, lying, and cowardly excuses.
– CT Studd –
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
Let your Christianity be so unmistakable, your eye so single, your heart so whole, your whole so straightforward, that all who see you may have no doubt Whose you are and Whom you serve.
– JC Ryle –
We will not build on the sand, but on the bedrock of the sayings of Christ, and the gates and minions of hell shall not prevail against us. Should such men as we fear? Before the whole world, yes, before the sleepless, lukewarm, faithless, namby-pamby Christian world, we will dare to trust our God, we will venture our all for Him, we will live and we will die for Him, and we will do it with His joy unspeakable singing aloud in our hearts. We will a thousand times sooner die trusting only in our God than live trusting in man. And when we come to this position the battle is already won, and the end of the glorious campaign in sight. We will have the real Holiness of God, not the sickly stuff of talk and dainty words and pretty thoughts; we will have a Masculine Holiness, one of daring faith and works for Jesus Christ.
– CT Studd –
If missions languish, it is because the whole life of godliness is feeble. The command to go everywhere and preach to everybody is not obeyed, until the will is lost by self-surrender in the will of God. There is little right giving because there is little right living, and because of the lack of sympathetic contact with God in holiness of heart, there is a lack of effectual contact with him at the Throne of Grace. Living, praying, giving and going will always be found together, and a low standard in one means a general debility in the whole spiritual being.
– Arthur T. Pierson –
People who do not know the Lord ask why in the world we waste our lives as missionaries. They forget that they too are expending their lives … and when the bubble has burst, they will have nothing of eternal significance to show for the years they have wasted.
– Nate Saint –
missionary martyr with Jim Elliot
Sympathy is no substitute for action.
– David Livingstone –