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
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 –
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
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 –
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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We have to pray with our eyes on God, not on the difficulties.
– Oswald Chambers –
As the Lord makes use of all the seasons of the year, frost and heat, to produce the harvest, so all prosperous and adverse providences are for the promoting of the work of holiness in the soul.
– Thomas Watson –
from The Godly Man’s Picture
The great God, the former of all things, taketh part with them that fear him, and engage themselves to walk in his ways, of love, and respect, they bear unto him; so that such may boldly say, “The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me” (Hebrews 13:6).
– John Bunyan –
from All Loves Excelling, 1692