If we are devoted to the cause of humanity, we shall soon be crushed and broken-hearted, for we shall often meet with more ingratitude from men than we would from a dog; but if our motive is love to God, no ingratitude can hinder us from serving our fellow men.
– Oswald Chambers –
…we want to get away from this terrible, haunting preoccupation with ourselves where we love our love of God rather than God Himself.
– Art Katz –
The Believer is a silly sheep. What a precious thing is a shepherd and how precious are green pastures and still waters! The Believer is like a desolate woman. What a precious thing is a husband who shall provide for her and shall console and cherish her. The Believer is a pilgrim and the hot sun beats on him. What a precious thing is the shadow of a great rock in a weary land. The Believer is a bond-slave by nature. What a precious thing is the trumpet of jubilee and the ransom price that sets him free. The Believer, by nature, is a sinking, drowning man. How precious to him is that plank of Free Grace, the Cross of Christ, on which he puts his poor trembling hands and secures Glory! But what more shall I say? Time would fail me to tell of all the needs of the Believer and of the all-abounding and ever-flowing streams of love that flow from Christ, the Fountain who fills the Believer to the brim! O say, you children of God, is He not while you are in these lowlands of need and suffering, inconceivably, unutterably, superlatively precious to you?
– Charles Spurgeon –
…my heart is taken with Christ, it is ravished with His love; my soul is burning, my soul is beating towards Christ. Oh, none but Christ, none but Christ! I cannot live in myself, I cannot live in my duties, I cannot live in external privileges, I cannot live in outward mercies; I can live only in Christ, who is my life, my love, my joy, my crown, my all in all. Oh, the more I come to know Him in His natures, in His names, in His offices, in His discoveries, in His visits, in His beauties, the more I find my heart and affections to prize Christ, to run after Christ, to be affected with Christ, and to be wonderfully endeared to Christ!
– Thomas Brooks –
Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, let not the mighty man glory in his might, nor let the rich man glory in his riches; but let him who glories glory in this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the LORD, exercising lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth. For in these I delight.
– God –
Jeremiah 9:23-24
And yet, if it be true that God alone is goodness and joy and love; if it be true that our highest blessedness is in having as much of God as we can; if it be true that Christ has redeemed us wholly for God, and made a life of continual abiding in His presence possible, nothing less ought to satisfy than to be ever breathing this blessed atmosphere, “I wait on Thee.”
– Andrew Murray –
Perfect love is a kind of self-dereliction, a wandering out of ourselves; it is a kind of voluntary death, wherein the lover dies to himself, and all his own interest, not thinking of them, nor caring for them anymore, and minding nothing but how he may please and gratify the party whom he loves.
– Henry Scougal –
It is not great talents nor great learning nor great preachers that God needs, but men great in holiness, great in faith, great in love, great in fidelity, great for God – men always preaching by holy sermons in the pulpit, by holy lives out of it. These can mold a generation for God.
– EM Bounds –
I want deliberately to encourage this mighty longing after God. The lack of it has brought us to our present low estate. The stiff and wooden quality about our religious lives is a result of our lack of holy desire. Complacency is a deadly foe of all spiritual growth. Acute desire must be present or there will be no manifestation of Christ to His people. He waits to be wanted. Too bad that with many of us He waits so long, so very long, in vain.
– AW Tozer –