I may be such a pig-headed cross-patched, and have such determined notions of my own, that no one can live with me. That is not suffering for the Son of Man’s sake; it is suffering for my own sake.
– Oswald Chambers –
Christian Life
May My Life Be Yielded to be Wielded – Jim Elliot
Take me, O God, and may my life be yielded that it might be wielded. Yea, I would know wielding the sword myself so that my hand would cleave theretowholly helpless without the Wordweary in its use but unrelenting in my clutch of it (2 Samuel 23:2-6).
– Jim Elliot –
from his August 14, 1948 Journal
The Vigor of Our Spiritual Life – George Müller
The vigor of our Spiritual Life will be in exact proportion to the place held by the Bible in our life and thoughts.
– George Müller –
Suffering From a Lack of Belief and Receiving – Vance Havner
We’re suffering from a believism that never has believed and a receivism that never has received and it leads to deceivism.
– Vance Havner –
Don’t Be Laughed Out of Your Religion – Thomas Watson
Better have men reproach you for being good, than have God damn you for being wicked. Be not laughed out of your religion. If a lame man laugh at you for walking upright, will you therefore limp?
– Thomas Watson –
from The Great Gain of Godliness, 1682
Pray Without Ceasing – Oswald Chambers
“Pray without ceasing” (I Thessalonians 5:17). Keep the child-like habit of continually exclaiming in your heart to God, recognize and rely on the Holy Spirit all the time. Inarticulate prayer, the impulsive prayer that looks so futile, is the thing God always heeds. The apostolic habit ought to be the persistent habit of each one of us.
– Oswald Chambers –
from If You Will Ask
Need Time Alone With God – Austen Phelps
It has been said, that no great work in literature or in science was ever wrought by a man who did not love solitude. We may lay it down as an elemental principle of religion, that no large growth in holiness was ever gained, by one who did not take time to be often, and long, alone with God.
– Austen Phelps –
from The Still Hour: Communion with God in Prayer, 1859
Study the Praise You Profess – Charles Spurgeon
I wish that men studied the praise they profess to present unto God more.
– Charles Spurgeon –
from Spurgeon on Praise
Clinging to Christ – John Owen
The first effect of a true love for Christ is our clinging to him. The believer’s soul is knit to Christ’s soul as David’s was to Jonathan’s (1 Samuel 18:1). Love produces a firm clinging to Christ crucified that makes a soul in some sense always present with Christ on the cross.
– John Owen –
from The Holy Spirit, 1674