Christian Life

November 20, 2012

The potency of prayer has subdued the strength of fire; it has bridled the rage of lions, hushed anarchy to rest, extinguished wars, appeased the elements, expelled demons, burst the chains of death, expanded the gates of heaven, assuaged diseases, repelled frauds, rescued cities from destruction, stayed the sun in its course, and arrested the progress of the thunderbolt. Prayer is an all-efficient panoply, a treasure undiminished, a mine that is never exhausted, a sky unobscured by clouds, a heaven unruffled by the storm. It is the root, the fountain, the mother of a thousand blessings.

– St. Chrysostom –
from EM Bounds’ book Purpose in Prayer 

November 19, 2012

One cannot save and then pitchfork souls into heaven…Souls are more or less securely fastened to bodies…and as you cannot get the souls out and deal with them separately, you have to take them both together.

– Amy Carmichael –

November 18, 2012

The canon-mind is the most honest, happy, holy, and healthy mind in the universe. It’s a mind controlled by the person of Jesus Christ, esteeming the things that He esteems, despising the things that He despises. It is a mind in tune with Heaven, discriminating between light and darkness with the deftness of God Himself. It is a mind radically loyal to the words of Scripture, unbending in opposition, unyielding to doubt and unwavering in its allegiance.

– Eric Ludy –
from The Bravehearted Gospel

November 17, 2012

‎In God’s kingdom, recognition and honor are not sought for and strived after, but given by God alone. And they come not to those who have exalted themselves, but only to those who have taken the lowest place, just as He did…He does not call us to be noticed and applauded by the world. He calls us to decrease, more and more, that He might increase within us.

– Leslie Ludy –

November 16, 2012

We cannot be right with God and not be right with other believers.

– Nancy DeMoss –

November 15, 2012

We must never allow the majority to overrule the clear teaching of the Word of God.

– AW Tozer –

November 14, 2012

In the Western world the enemy has forsworn violence.  He comes against us no more with sword and fagot; he now comes smiling, bearing gifts.  He raises his eyes to heaven and swears that he too believes in the faith of our fathers, but his real purpose is to destroy that faith, or at least to modify it to such an extent that it is no longer the supernatural thing it once was.  He comes in the name of philosophy or psychology or anthropology, and with sweet reasonableness urges us to rethink our historic position, to be less rigid, more tolerant, more broadly understanding.

– AW Tozer –
from God Tells the Man Who Cares, p171

November 13, 2012

It has been shown that the primary limitation imposed upon you as man, in order that you may be in the likeness of your Maker and bear the image of the invisible, is that of total dependence upon God – in that your behavior, to be godly, must derive directly and exclusively from God’s activity in you and through you.  Any activity, therefore, in which you may engage, no matter how nobly conceived, which does not stem from this humble attitude of dependence upon God, violates the basic principles of your true humanity and the role for which you were created.  By independence (or the absence of faith), you eliminate God, the source of your own “godliness.”  But only God has the right to be the source of His own godliness, so that however unwittingly, you are acting as your own god!

You will still believe or pretend that you are worshiping God; but as the object of your imitation, even Christ Himself may only be an excuse for worshiping your own ability to imitate – an ability vested in yourself.  And this is the basis of all self-righteousness!

It is startling to discover that even God may be used as an excuse for worshiping yourself, demonstrating again the satanic genius for distorting truth and deceiving man – for it was to this temptation that Adam and Eve fell in the Garden!

– Ian Thomas –
The Mystery of Godliness, p187

November 12, 2012

The whole purpose of the Redemption is to give back to man the original source of life, and in a regenerated man this means “Christ . . . formed in you.”  Am I willing that the old disposition should be crucified with Christ?  If I am, Jesus Christ will take possession of me and will baptize me into His life until I bear a strong family likeness to Him.  It is a lonely path, a path of death, but it means ultimately being “presenced with Divinity.”  The Christian life does not take its pattern from good men, but from God Himself, that is why it is an absolutely supernormal life all through.

 – Oswald Chambers –