Sourcing

November 13, 2012

It has been shown that the primary limitation imposed upon you as man, in order that you may be in the likeness of your Maker and bear the image of the invisible, is that of total dependence upon God – in that your behavior, to be godly, must derive directly and exclusively from God’s activity in you and through you.  Any activity, therefore, in which you may engage, no matter how nobly conceived, which does not stem from this humble attitude of dependence upon God, violates the basic principles of your true humanity and the role for which you were created.  By independence (or the absence of faith), you eliminate God, the source of your own “godliness.”  But only God has the right to be the source of His own godliness, so that however unwittingly, you are acting as your own god!

You will still believe or pretend that you are worshiping God; but as the object of your imitation, even Christ Himself may only be an excuse for worshiping your own ability to imitate – an ability vested in yourself.  And this is the basis of all self-righteousness!

It is startling to discover that even God may be used as an excuse for worshiping yourself, demonstrating again the satanic genius for distorting truth and deceiving man – for it was to this temptation that Adam and Eve fell in the Garden!

– Ian Thomas –
The Mystery of Godliness, p187

November 12, 2012

The whole purpose of the Redemption is to give back to man the original source of life, and in a regenerated man this means “Christ . . . formed in you.”  Am I willing that the old disposition should be crucified with Christ?  If I am, Jesus Christ will take possession of me and will baptize me into His life until I bear a strong family likeness to Him.  It is a lonely path, a path of death, but it means ultimately being “presenced with Divinity.”  The Christian life does not take its pattern from good men, but from God Himself, that is why it is an absolutely supernormal life all through.

 – Oswald Chambers –

November 11, 2012

We might as well pray for God to invade and conquer us, for until he does, we remain in peril from a thousand foes.  We bear within us the seeds of our own disintegration.  Our moral imprudence puts us always in danger of accidental or reckless self-destruction. The strength of our flesh is an ever present danger to our souls.  Deliverance can come to us only by the defeat of our old life.  Safety and peace come only after we have been forced to our knees.  God rescues us by breaking us, by shattering our strength and wiping out our resistance.  Then He invades our natures with that ancient and eternal life which is from the beginning.  So he conquers us and by that benign conquest saves us for himself.

 – AW Tozer –

November 10, 2012

Your new birth puts God into action in you.  It lets all of God loose, clothed with the redeemed humanity of your own flesh and blood as a forgiven sinner, so that at last you become a normal human being as Jesus was.

– Ian Thomas –
The Indwelling Life, p26

November 9, 2012

The Cross in actual history is the point where the real Presence of God enters human history; and the point where the real Presence of God enters human life is the moment of absolute surrender, not of religious sentiment.  The first step to sacramental discipleship is the crowning of Jesus as Lord.

– Oswald Chambers –

November 6, 2012

God is waiting for you to stop so He can begin.

– Watchman Nee –

October 31, 2012

The time I spend with God determines both the direction and quality of the time I spend elsewhere.

– Randy Alcorn –

October 28, 2012

I’m not busy. I have all the time I need to accomplish the things the Lord wants me to do today.

– Tim Challies –

October 26, 2012

Many people see salvation only as deliverance from judgment; they have not seen that salvation is also deliverance from self.

– Watchman Nee –