The one marvelous secret of a holy life lies not in imitating Jesus, but in letting the perfections of Jesus manifest themselves in my mortal flesh. Sanctification is “Christ in you.”… Sanctification is not drawing from Jesus the power to be holy; it is drawing from Jesus the holiness that was manifested in Him, and He manifests it in me.
– Oswald Chambers –
A man gives another a piece of bread or a piece of money. He gives it away and has nothing further to do with it. It is not so with God’s gift of the Holy Spirit. No, the spirit is God. God is in the Spirit who comes to us, even as he was in the Son. The gift of the Spirit is the most personal act of the Godhead. It is the gift of Himself to us.
– Andrew Murray –
from Experiencing the Holy Spirit
Oh, for closest communion with God, till soul and body, head, face, and heart—shine with Divine brilliancy! But oh! for a holy ignorance of our shining!
– Robert Murray M’Cheyne –
Sufficiency in myself is a persistent thought, though I try to judge it. Lord Jesus, Tender Lover of this brute soul, wilt Thou make me weak? I long to understand Thy sufficiency and my inadequacy, and how can I sense this except in experience? So, Lord, Thou knowest what I am able to bear. Send trouble that I might know peace; send anxiety that I might know rest in Thee. Send hard things that I may learn to rely on Thy dissolving them. Strange askings, and I do not know what I speak, but my desire is toward Theeanything that will intensify and make me tender, Savior. O desire to be like Thee, Thou knowest.
– Jim Elliot –
From his journal, October 27, 1948
Thou must be emptied of that wherewith thou art full, that thou mayest be filled with that whereof thou art empty.
– Augustine –
Nowhere can we get to know the holiness of God, and come under His influence and power, except in the inner chamber. It has been well said: “No man can expect to make progress in holiness who is not often and long alone with God.”
– Andrew Murray –
If we would find God amid all the religious externals we must first determine to find him, and then proceed in the way of simplicity. …We must put away all effort to impress, and come with the guileless candor of childhood. If we do this, without doubt God will quickly respond.
– AW Tozer –
from The Pursuit of God
If then you are wise, you will show yourself rather as a reservoir than as a canal. A canal spreads abroad water as it receives it, and a reservoir waits until it is filled before overflowing, and thus without loss to itself communicates its superabundant water. In the Church at the present day we have many canals but few reservoirs.
– Bernard of Clairvaux –
Prayer is not getting things from God, that is the most initial stage; prayer is getting into perfect communion with God.
– Oswald Chambers –