[The Church of Acts] is the church of Jesus Christ before it became fat and out of breath by prosperity. This is the church of Jesus Christ before it became muscle bound by over organization. This is the church of Jesus Christ where they didn’t gather together a group of intellectuals to study phycho-sematic medicine, they just healed the sick. This is the church of Jesus Christ where they did not say prayers, but they prayed in the Holy Ghost. There’s a vast difference.
– JB Phillips –
When Christ formed in us finds free course for all His mind and all His passion; when our eyes are opened to the great purposes of His life in the salvation of the whole world; and when we hear, through Him, the cry of those for whom He was born, and for whom He died, God will pour out on us grace to send us forth—grace sufficient, grace abundant, grace triumphant. Have you come to this? Can you say He is thus dwelling in you, and working in you, to will and to do of His good pleasure?
Do not turn away with the paralyzing fear that it cannot be; that the life of Jesus can never be lived out again in flesh and blood. Remember, He is “the same yesterday, and today, and forever.” All He was in Bethlehem, to Mary and Joseph; all He was to His work-mates in Nazareth; all He was in the wilderness, fighting with fiends, in the deserts feeding the hungry, or among the multitude—healing the sick, blessing the little children, casting out devils, and preaching the Kingdom; all He was in Bethany, weeping over Lazarus, and crying, “Lazarus, come forth”; in the garden of His agony, in the darkness of His cross, in the hour of His Resurrection, all this—all-all-all—He is today. He belongs to the everlasting Now. All He was to the martyrs who died for His Name, all He has been to our fathers, He is to us, and will be to our children, for with Him is no variableness nor shadow of turning. Yes! This unchanging Christ “is in us, except we be reprobate,” the Life and Image of God, and the Hope of Glory.
– Bramwell Booth –
from Our Master
Sickness helps to make us think seriously of God, and our souls, and the world to come. Most people in their days of health can find no time for such thoughts. They dislike them. They put them away. They count them troublesome and disagreeable.
Now a severe disease has a wonderful power of mustering and rallying these thoughts, and bringing them up before the eyes of a man’s soul. Even a wicked king like Benhadad, when sick, could think of Elisha (2 Kings 8:8.) Even unbelieving sailors, when death was in sight, were afraid, and “cried every man to his god.” (Jonah 1:5.) Surely anything that helps to make people think is good.
– JC Ryle –
from Sickness
The more I suffer the more I cling to the gospel. It is true, and the fires only burn it into clearer certainty to my soul. I have lived on the gospel, and I can die on it. Never question it.
– Charles Spurgeon –
from Letters of Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Christ heals with more ease than any other. Christ makes the devil go out with a word (Mark 9:25). Nay, he can cure with a look: Christ’s look melted Peter into repentance; it was a healing look. If Christ doth but cast a look upon the soul he can recover it. Therefore David prays to have a look from God, “Look Thou upon me, and be merciful unto me” (Psalm 119:132).
– Thomas Watson –