If you are a serious soldier, do not flirt with any of your desires that are beneath Christ and heaven. They will play the harlot and steal your heart.
– William Gurnall –
Character
Entire Manhood and Womanhood to Christ – Charles Spurgeon
Oh, Christian men and women, you will not glorify God much unless you really put your strength into the ways of the Lord, and throw your body, soul, and spirit – your entire manhood and womanhood – into the work of the Lord Jesus Christ.
– Charles Spurgeon –
The Point the Whole of Christianity Turns – William Wilberforce
This is the cardinal point on which the whole of Christianity turns. “Without holiness, no man shall see the Lord” (Hebrews 12:14). The nature of that holiness which the true Christian seeks to possess is none other than the restoration of the image of God in his soul. Obtaining it depends entirely on the operation of God’s Holy Spirit.
The true Christian knows therefore that this holiness does not precede his reconciliation with God, and then be its cause. But he has to follow, and be its effect. In short, it is by faith in Christ alone, faith marked by repentance of sin.
– William Wilberforce –
from his book Real Christianity, 1797
Discontent is Like a Worm – Jeremiah Burroughs
Discontent is like a worm that eats the meat out of the nub, and then when the meat is eaten out of it, you have the shell.
– Jeremiah Burroughs –
(1600-1646)
A Bible That’s Falling Apart … – Charles Spurgeon
A Bible that’s falling apart usually belongs to someone who isn’t.
– Charles Spurgeon –
If It were The Last Hour Of My Life – Johnathan Edwards
(I am) resolved, never to do anything which I would be afraid to do if it were the last hour of my life.
– Jonathan Edwards –
Compare Yourself Only With Christ – Ralph Venning
There are some poor souls, and I believe there are some among the Corinthians, that are apt to become discouraged when they compare themselves with others. When a dwarf stands by a giant, a man of low stature by a tall one, as David by Goliath, he seems to be nobody; yet he is a man, a perfect man, in spite of the vast difference between them.
Many poor souls, when they see themselves outstripped in knowledge, faith, love and patience by some that came into Christ long after them, are apt to think that they are not saints because they are not saints such as those.
– Ralph Venning –
from Learning in Christ’s School, 1675
Crisis always reveals character – Oswald Chambers
If you are not doing the thing that lies nearest, because God as engineered it, when the crisis comes instead of being revealed as fit, you will be revealed as unfit. Crisis always reveal character.
– Oswald Chambers –
Beware of no man more than yourself – Charles Spurgeon
Beware of no man more than of yourself, for we often carry our worst enemies within us.
– Charles Spurgeon –
from The Complete John Ploughman