Afflictions add to the saints’ glory. The more the diamond is cut, the more it sparkles; the heavier the saints’ cross is, the heavier shall be their crown.
– Thomas Watson –
Hardship
The Testing Time is Coming – DL Moody
There is no one beyond the reach of the tempter. Keep that in mind. Life may run smoothly for a while, but the testing time is coming.
– DL Moody –
Led Into the Wilderness – FB Meyer
The Lord himself was led up into the wilderness. And in one form or another, every soul who has done a great work in the world has passed through similar periods of obscurity, suffering, disappointment, or solitude.
– FB Meyer –
Your Support and Comfort for Affliction – Brother Lawrence
Continue, then, always with God; it is the only support and comfort for your affliction.
– Brother Lawrence –
from The Practice of the Presence of God
Christians Who Bear Willingly the Cross for God’s Glory – Richard Wurmbrand
In a letter smuggled out secretly, the Underground Church said, ”We dont pray to be better Christians, but that we may be the only kind of Christians God means us to be: Christlike Christians, that is, Christians who bear willingly the cross for Gods glory.”
– Richard Wurmbrand –
from Tortured for Christ
Suffering for Christ vs Suffering for Self – Oswald Chambers
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 –
Dying Thoughts – Richard Baxter
Is he the God of the hills, and not of the valleys? Did he love me in my youth and health, and will he not also in my age and pain and sickness?
– Richard Baxter –
from Dying Thoughts, 1683
Don’t Run Into Sin – Thomas Watson
Many, to rid themselves out of trouble, run themselves into sin. When God has bound them with the cords of affliction, they go to the devil to loosen their bands. Better it is to stay in affliction than to sin ourselves out of it.
– Thomas Watson –
Don’t Be Weary In Doing Good – John Wesley
Unless God has raised you up for this very thing, you will be worn out by the opposition of men and devils. But if God be for you, who can be against you? Are all of them together stronger than God? O be not weary of well doing!
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