Christian Life

November 13, 2011

Men are in a restless pursuit after satisfaction in earthly things. They will exhaust themselves in the deceitful delights of sin, and, finding them all to be vanity and emptiness, they will become very perplexed and disappointed. But they will continue their fruitless search. Though wearied, they still stagger forward under the influence of spiritual madness, and though there is no result to be reached except that of everlasting disappointment, yet they press forward. They have no forethought for their eternal state; the present hour absorbs them. They turn to another and another of earth’s broken cisterns, hoping to find water where not a drop was ever discovered yet.

– Charles Spurgeon –

November 12, 2011

Conviction of sin is one of the rarest things that ever strikes a man. It is the threshold of an understanding of God. Jesus Christ said that when the Holy Spirit came He would convict of sin, and when the Holy Spirit rouses a man’s conscience and brings him into the presence of God, it is not his relationship with men that bothers him, but his relationship with God – against Thee, Thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in Thy sight. Conviction of sin, the marvel of forgiveness, and holiness are so interwoven that it is only the forgiven man who is the holy man, he proves he is forgiven by being the opposite to what he was, by God’s grace. Repentance always brings a man to this point: I have sinned. The surest sign that God is at work is when a man says that and means it. Anything less than this is remorse for having made blunders, the reflex action of disgust at himself.

The entrance into the Kingdom is through the panging pains of repentance crashing into a man’s respectable goodness; then the Holy Ghost, Who produces these agonies, begins the formation of the Son of God in the life. The new life will manifest itself in conscious repentance and unconscious holiness, never the other way about. The bedrock of Christianity is repentance. Strictly speaking, a man cannot repent when he chooses; repentance is a gift of God. The old Puritans used to pray for the gift of tears. If ever you cease to know the virtue of repentance, you are in darkness. Examine yourself and see if you have forgotten how to be sorry.

– Oswald Chambers –
My Utmost For His Highest, December 7th

November 11, 2011

The deeper we are willing to enter into the death of self, the more shall we know of the mighty power of God, and the perfect blessedness of a perfect trust.

– Andrew Murray –

November 10, 2011

WHEN HE GIVETH QUIETNESS
by  Mrs. TD Crewdson in “The Little While and Other Poems”

Jesus! if Thou be near to bless,
We shall not faint nor fail;
For when Thou givest quietness,
No trouble shall prevail.

Thy quietness! — ’tis not the calm
That spreads in Vesper hours.
O’er earth’s green vales, the dewy balm
Of nature’s closing flowers.

‘Tis not the calm the worldling knows.
In dreamy hours of pride;
Though, softly lapped in false repose,
His gilded shallop ride.

Thy quietness! — no fount of earth
Hath ever proved its source;
No mortal skill revealed its birth,
Or traced its hidden course.

Saviour! — Thou hast met the gale
On Thy unsheltered breast,
That we, the weak, the sick, the frail.
Might joy in peace and rest.

November 9, 2011

God always gives His best to those who leave the choice to Him.

– Jim Elliot –

November 8, 2011

We always admire those who stand up when everyone else ducks or bows down. You may be the only one in your generation, but never bend your knee [to difficulties or the culture]. . . . Your knee is to bend solely to Jesus Christ.

– Eric Ludy –

November 7, 2011

There is nothing more boring than being religious. There is nothing more exciting than being a Christian. Sad thing is that countless religious people don’t know the difference between religious and being a Christian.

– Ian Thomas –

November 6, 2011

In our abandonment we give ourselves over to God just as God gave Himself for us, without any calculation. The consequences of abandonment never enter into our outlook because our life is taken up with Him.

– Oswald Chambers –
from My Utmost for His Highest

November 5, 2011

The reason some of us are such poor specimens of Christianity is because we have no Almighty Christ. We have Christian attributes and experiences, but there is no abandonment to Jesus Christ.

– Oswald Chambers –
from My Utmost for His Highest