Christian Life

January 13, 2014

Eternal Light! eternal Light!
How pure the soul must be
When, placed within Thy searching sight,
It shrinks not, but with calm delight
Can live, and look on Thee!

The spirits that surround Thy throne
May bear the burning bliss;
But that is surely theirs alone,
Since they have never, never known
A fallen world like this.

O how shall I, whose native sphere
Is dark, whose mind is dim,
Before the Ineffable appear,
And on my naked spirit bear
That uncreated beam?

There is a way for man to rise
To that sublime abode:
An offering and a sacrifice,
A Holy Spirit’s energies,
An Advocate with God.

These, these prepare us for the sight
Of holiness above;
The sons of ignorance and night,
May dwell in the eternal Light,
Through the eternal Love.

– Thomas Binney –

January 12, 2014

There are people in the presence of God [who are there] only by a technical redemption. You see, what I worry about in this hour is that we are technically Christians, and we can prove that we are Christians. We are Christians, technically. And anybody can flip open a Greek lexicon and show you that you are a saint. But I am afraid of that kind of Christianity, because if I haven’t felt a sense of vileness by contrast with that sense of unapproachable and indescribable holiness, I wonder if I had ever been hit hard enough to really repent. And if I don’t repent, I wonder if I can believe. We are told, “Just believe it, brother. Just believe it. Now, come on, let me take your name and address. Yes, what church would you like to go to?” We have it all fixed up, my brethren. But I’m afraid our fathers knew God in a different manner than that.

– AW Tozer –

January 11, 2014

Sweet, sweet grace of God! It was a happy day, spent with saints and sinners. Street meetings tonight brought me into contact with a successful man who has an empty heart. How shall I praise God sufficiently for the inexplicable miracle of divine grace in my soul? And how explain it to others? I have committed this man’s soul to God, and His Word, expecting to write one day in these [journal] pages of his turning to the Lord and finding great peace. You see these words, Lord, and are my Judge as to whether they are in faith.

– Jim Elliot –

January 10, 2014

Eternity shall be at once a great eye-opener and a great mouth-shutter. It shall be the Rectifier of all injustice (and how vast is injustice!), the Confirmer of martyrs’ blood, the Explainer of years of labor swallowed up in meaningless ruin on earth. Lord, deliver me from sweet doctrinal nothings.

– Jim Elliot –

January 9, 2014

Oh, it is gripping to think that our eyes are to be blessed so as to see Him, ‘so coming in like manner’ as He went away . . . How poorly will appear anything but a consuming operative faith in the person of Christ when He comes. How lost, alas, a life lived in any other light!

– Jim Elliot –

January 8, 2014

One doesn’t learn to speak a language in a couple of months. It will be plugging for a good while yet. Seems that I’ll never get through ‘preparing’ for the mission field. But I’ve been comforted this week thinking of our Lord’s thirty silent years of readying Himself at home with His family and bending over a carpenter’s bench. Were those days any less of a fragrance to God than His later work before the eyes of the people? I think not. A well-made piece of furniture and a healed blind man represented the same thing to the Father—a job well done; mission accomplished. So with us here. Nothing great, but what is that to Him with whom there is no great or small?

– Jim Elliot –

January 7, 2014

If it sounds like I’m sticking my nose into your business, remember that I say this with a regard to the eternal profit of your soul, and that the Lord has stirred me up to write of this. Christ needs some young fellows to sell out to Him and recklessly toss their lives into His work.

– Jim Elliot –
From a letter written to a friend, as quoted in Shadow of the Almighty

January 6, 2014

O Lord, make me to forget myself. I would not be of those who already have their reward in receiving recognition from men.

– Jim Elliot –

January 5, 2014

My life is lived now both externally and internally different from what I knew when the old man was in the saddle. Bless the Lord for this . . .

– Jim Elliot –