Obedience

Our Danger Lies in Resisting Him – Fenelon

God is our true Friend, who always gives us the counsel and comfort we need. Our danger lies in resisting Him; so it is essential that we acquire the habit of hearkening to His voice, or keeping silence within, and listening so as to lose nothing of what He says to us. We know well enough how to keep outward silence, and to hush our spoken words, but we know little of interior silence. It consists in hushing our idle, restless, wandering imagination, in quieting the promptings of our worldly minds, and in suppressing the crowd of unprofitable thoughts which excite and disturb the soul.

– François Fénelon –
(1651-1715)

Pray for Guidance vs Obedience – Elisabeth Elliot

Does it make sense to pray for guidance about the future if we are not obeying in the things that lie before us today? How many momentous events in Scripture depended on one person’s seemingly small act of obedience! Rest assured: Do what God tell you to do now, and, depend on it, you will be shown what to do next.

– Elisabeth Elliot –
from Quest for Love

Prayer Will Become Effective When … – AW Tozer

Have you noticed how much praying for revival has been going on of late – and how little revival has resulted? I believe the problem is that we have been trying to substitute praying for obeying, and it simply will not work. To pray for revival while ignoring the plain precept laid down in Scripture is to waste a lot of words and get nothing for our trouble. Prayer will become effective when we stop using it as a substitute for obedience.

– AW Tozer –

Thomas Brooks on the Conquest of Sin

In conquering of those enemies that be within, you make a conquest over the devil and hell itself. … And as this is the most noble conquest, so it is the most necessary conquest. You must be the death of your sins, or they will be the death of your souls. Sin is a viper, that does always kill where it is not killed.

– Thomas Brooks –

Unable To Hear My Voice – C S Lewis

He thinks great folly child,’ said Aslan. ‘This world is bursting with life for these few days because the song with which I called it into life still hangs in the air and rumbles the ground. It will not be so for long. But I cannot tell that to this old sinner, and I cannot comfort him either; he has made himself unable to hear my voice. If I spoke to him, he would hear only growling’s and roaring’s. Oh Adam’s sons, how cleverly you defend yourselves against all that might do you good! …

– CS Lewis –

Devotion Signifies a Devoted Life to God – William Law

Devotion signifies a life given, or devoted to God. He therefore is the devout man, who lives no longer to his own will, or the way and spirit of the world, but to the sole will of God, who considers God in everything, who serves God in everything, who makes all the parts of his common life, parts of piety, by doing everything in the name of God, and under such rules as are conformable to his Glory.

– William Law –
from A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life, 1729