We want the corruption of the world and yet still go to heaven. We want to be like the world with the pleasure of sin but still have the benefits of salvation. But Scripture is clear, though we are in the world, we are not to be OF the world. We are to be entirely different than the world.
– Eric Ludy –
Wherein does the beauty of the diamond lie, but in this, that it is a true diamond? If it is a counterfeit, it is worth nothing. So wherein does the beauty of a Christian lie, but in this, that he has the truth in the inward parts (Psalms 51:6)?
– Thomas Watson –
from The Godly Man’s Picture, 1666
We are saved and sanctified for God, not to be specimens in His showrooms, but for God to do with us even as he did with Jesus—make us broken bread and poured-out wine as he chooses. That is the test—not spiritual fireworks or hysterics, not fanaticism, but a blazingly holy life that confronts the horror of the world with a fierce purity—chaste physically, morally and spiritually—and this can only come about in the way it came about in the life of Our Lord.
– Oswald Chambers –
The neglected heart will soon be a heart overrun with worldly thoughts; the neglected life will soon become a moral chaos; the church that is not jealously protected by mighty intercession and sacrificial labors will before long become the abode of every evil bird and the hiding place for unsuspected corruption. The creeping wilderness will soon take over that church that trusts in its own strength and forgets to watch and pray.
– AW Tozer –
Never let the world break in
Fix a mighty golf between
Keep me humble and unknown
Prized and loved by God alone
– EM Bounds –
If missions languish, it is because the whole life of godliness is feeble. The command to go everywhere and preach to everybody is not obeyed, until the will is lost by self-surrender in the will of God. There is little right giving because there is little right living, and because of the lack of sympathetic contact with God in holiness of heart, there is a lack of effectual contact with him at the Throne of Grace. Living, praying, giving and going will always be found together, and a low standard in one means a general debility in the whole spiritual being.
– Arthur T. Pierson –
If you don’t plan to live the Christian life totally committed to knowing your God and to walking in obedience to Him, then don’t begin; for this is what Christianity is all about. It is a change of citizenship, a change of governments, a change of allegience. If you have no intention of letting Christ rule your life, then forget Christianity; it’s not for you.
– Kay Arthur –
If I profess with the loudest voice and clearest exposition every portion of the Word of God except precisely that little point which the world and the devil are at that moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ, however boldly I may be professing Him. Where the battle rages there the loyalty of the soldier is proved and to be steady on all the battle front besides, is mere flight and disgrace if he flinches at that point.
– Martin Luther –
I am afraid of only one thing—that I should become a grain of wheat not willing to die.
– Young Missionary Girl –
(as told by Corrie ten Boom)