Sanctification

How You Can Know How Spiritual You Are – Leonard Ravenhill

Not how many meetings you go to.
Not how many gifts you have.
Not how many sermons you preach.
Not how many records you’ve made.
Tell me what time you spend alone with God …
and I’ll tell you how spiritual you are.

– Leonard Ravenhill –

Do You Need Revival In Your Own Life? – Charles Finney

Do you feel its necessity? Are you ready to make the sacrifices essential to promote it? Are you ready to lay aside every weight and every other concern, and enter heart and soul into the promotion of a spiritual awakening in your community? Are you ready to fulfill all the conditions upon which a revival can be had? In view of the solemn judgment, decide as you will wish you had when you stand before Jesus!
– Charles Finney –

Tempting Sin – Thomas Brooks

To venture upon the occasion of sin, and then to pray, “Lead us not into temptation,” is the same as to thrust thy finger into the fire, and then pray that it may not be burnt.
– Thomas Brooks –

Walking as Christ Walked – Andrew Murray

He who seeks to abide in Christ must walk even as He walked. A branch bears fruit of the same sort as the vine to which it belongs. The life of the vine and the branch is so completely identical that the manifestation of that life must be identical too. When the Lord Jesus redeemed us with His blood, and presented us to the Father in His righteousness, He did not leave us in our old nature to serve God as best we could. No. In Him dwelt eternal life, and every one who is in Him receives from Him that same eternal life in its holy, heavenly power. So He that abides in Him must also walk even as He walked.
– Andrew Murray –

God’s Grace Works Often in a Silent and Secret Way – Thomas Brooks

God oftentimes works grace in a silent and secret way and takes sometimes five, sometimes ten, sometimes fifteen, sometimes twenty years; yea, sometimes more, before he will make a clear and satisfying report of his own work upon the soul.

– Thomas Brooks –
from Heaven on Earth: A Treatise on Christian Assurance,1654

Falling Into Water – Thomas Watson

It is not falling into water that drowns, but lying in it. It is not falling into sin that damns, but lying in it without repentance.

– Thomas Watson –
from The Doctrine of Repentance, 1668

We Must be a Fiery Church – EM Bounds

God requires to be represented by a fiery Church. He can and does tolerate many things in the way of infirmity and error in His children. He can and will pardon sin when the penitent prays, but two things are intolerable to Him–insincerity and lukewarmness. Lack of heart, and lack of heat are two things that He loathes, and to the Laodiceans He said, in terms of unmistakable severity and condemnation: “I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of My mouth” (Revelation 3:15-16). Nothing short of being red hot for God can keep the glow of heaven in our hearts these chilly days.

– EM Bounds –

What is a Contrite Heart – Thomas Brooks

The Contrite Heart: True repentance includes sorrow for sin and contrition of heart. It breaks the heart with sighs and sobs and groans, for a loving God and Father is by sin offended, a blessed Saviour afresh crucified, and the sweet Comforter, the Spirit, grieved and vexed.

– Thomas Brooks –