Flesh – Carnal Nature – Selfishness

Conviction, Repentance, Obedience, and Humility – Charles Finney

Revival is a renewed conviction of sin and repentance, followed by an intense desire to live in obedience to God. It is giving up one’s will to God in deep humility.

– Charles Finney –

A Tongue Like Thunder – Robert Murray M’Cheyne

As I was walking in the fields, the thought came over me with almost overwhelming power, that every one of my flock must soon be in heaven or hell. Oh how I wished that I had a tongue like thunder, that I might make all hear; or that I had a frame like iron, that I might visit every one and say, “Escape for thy life! Ah sinner! You little know how I fear that you will lay the blame of your damnation at my door.”

– Robert Murray M’Cheyne –

Godliness is a Joy and Pleasure – Richard Baxter

Will you say that godliness is unpleasant, because it makes a man sorry for his ungodliness?… Would you wish a man that hath lived so long in sin and misery, to have no sorrow for it in his return—especially when it is but a healing sorrow, preparing for remission, and not a sorrow joined with despair, as theirs will be that die impenitently?

– Richard Baxter –
1615-1691

The Allurer of the Soul – William Perkins

Preaching is the flexanima*, the allurer of the soul, by which our self-willed minds are subdued and changed from an ungodly and pagan lifestyle to a life of Christian faith and repentance.

– William Perkins –
from The Art of Prophesying, 1592

*(Flexanima is Latin for: moving, affecting, touching)

Don’t Be Linked to the World – Thomas Watson

Let us beware of having our hearts too much linked to the world. The world damps zeal as earth chokes the fire.

– Thomas Watson –
from The Great Gain of Godliness, 1682

What Do You Find Sweetness In? – Thomas Brooks

Oh what bitterness do I now find in that which Satan, the world, and my own deluded heart told me I should find sweetness in.

– Thomas Brooks –
from Heaven on Earth: A Treatise on Christian Assurance, 1654

Giving Up the Right to Myself – Oswald Chambers

“If any man will come after Me,” said Jesus, “the condition is that he must leave something behind,” that is to say, his right to himself. Is Jesus Christ worth it, or am I one of those who accept His salvation but thoroughly object to giving up my right to myself to Him?

– Oswald Chambers –