Holiness

December 24, 2013

Dear friend, salvation would be a sadly incomplete affair if it did not deal with the whole part of our ruined estate. We want to be purified as well as pardoned. Justification without sanctification would not be salvation at all. It would call the leper clean, and leave him to die of his disease; it would forgive the rebellion, and allow the rebel to remain an enemy of his King. It would remove the consequence but overlook the cause, and this would leave an endless and hopeless task before us. It would stop the stream for a time, but leave an open fountain of defilement which would sooner or later break forth with increased power.

– Charles Spurgeon –

December 23, 2013

Dear friends, you may have awakenings, enlightenings, experiences, a full heart in prayers, and many signs, but if ye lack holiness, you will never see the Lord. A real desire after complete holiness is the truest mark of having been born again. The Saviour first covers the soul with His white raiment, then makes the soul glorious within – restores the lost image of God, and fills the soul with pure heavenly holiness. Unregenerate men among you cannot bear this.

– Robert Murray M’Cheyne –

November 16, 2013

How beautiful are the arms, which have embrace Christ, the eyes which have gazed upon Christ, the lips which have spoken with Christ, the feet which have followed Christ. How beautiful are the hands which have worked the works of Christ, the feet which treading in His footsteps have gone about doing good, the lips which have spread abroad His Name, the lives which have been counted for Him.

– Christina Rossetti –

November 5, 2013

The greatest test of whether the holiness we profess to seek or to attain is truth and life will be whether it produces an increasing humility in us. In man, humility is the one thing needed to allow God’s holiness to dwell in him and shine through him. The chief mark of counterfeit holiness is lack of humility. The holiest will be the humblest.

– Andrew Murray –

October 16, 2013

A true love of God must begin with a delight in his holiness.

– Jonathan Edwards –

September 30, 2013

We all want progress, but if you’re on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive.

– CS Lewis –

September 27, 2013

There was a day when I died; died to self, my opinions, preferences, tastes and will; died to the world, its approval or censure; died to the approval or blame even of my brethren or friends; and since then I have studied only to show myself approved unto God.

– George Müller –

September 26, 2013

You and I have need of the strongest spell that can be found to wake us from the evil enchantment of worldliness.

– CS Lewis –
from: Weight of Glory

September 20, 2013

[The Christian life is] to be like [Christ]. To displace self from the inner throne and to enthrone Him; to make not the slightest compromise with the smallest sin. We aim at nothing less than to walk with God all day long, to abide every hour in Christ, and He and His words in us, to love God with all the heart, and our neighbor as ourselves. . . .  It is possible to cast every care on Him daily, and to be at peace amidst pressure, to see the will of God in everything, to put away all bitterness and clamor and evil speaking, daily and hourly. It is possible by unreserved resort to divine power under divine conditions to become strongest through and through at our weakest point. . . . It does not depend on wearisome struggle, but on God’s power to take the consecrated soul and to keep him. . . . Christ [is] our righteousness, upon Calvary, received by faith, is also Christ our holiness, in the heart that submits to Him and relies upon Him. . . . A message as old as the Apostles but too much forgotten: the open secret of inward victory for liberty in life and service through the trusted power of an indwelling Christ; Christ in us for our deliverance from sin, for our emancipation from the tyranny of self, for the conquest of temptation.

– Bishop Moule –
from Thoughts on Christian Sanctity, as quoted in The Keswick Story by John Charles Pollock (CLC Publications, 2006, pages 98-99)