Surrender

Joy is Found in Self-Abandonment – Elisabeth Elliot

The world looks for happiness through self-assertion. The Christian knows that joy is found in self-abandonment. “If a man will let himself be lost for My sake,” Jesus said, “he will find his true self.”

– Elisabeth Elliot –

A Mighty Longing After God – AW Tozer

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 –

Two Signs of Grace – Robert Candlish

Two unequivocal signs of grace; a desire to be thoroughly washed and cleansed,—”Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin,” (Psalm 51:2)—and a willingness to appear before God for that end, without concealment and without guile,—”I acknowledge my transgressions; and my sin is ever before me” (Psalms 51:3).

– Robert Candlish –
from The Prayer of a Broken Heart: Expository Discourses on Psalm 51, 1873

Humility – Henry Scougal

Humility imports a deep sense of our own meanness, with a hearty and affectionate acknowledgment of our owing all that we are to the Divine bounty; which is always accompanied with a profound submission to the will of God, and great deadness toward the glory of the world, and applause of men.

– Henry Scougal –
from The Life of God in the Soul of Man

Godliness is a Joy and Pleasure – Richard Baxter

Will you say that godliness is unpleasant, because it makes a man sorry for his ungodliness?… Would you wish a man that hath lived so long in sin and misery, to have no sorrow for it in his return—especially when it is but a healing sorrow, preparing for remission, and not a sorrow joined with despair, as theirs will be that die impenitently?

– Richard Baxter –
1615-1691

Take Jesus at His Word – DL Moody

I believe that a ship will carry me across the ocean, because I have tried it. But, this will not help another man who wants to go, unless he acts on my knowledge. So knowledge of Christ does not help us unless we act on it. That is what it is to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. It is to act on what we believe.

As a man steps on board ship to cross the Atlantic, so we must take Christ and make a commitment of our souls to Him. He has promised to keep all who put their trust in Him. To believe on the Lord Jesus Christ is simply to take Him at His word.

– DL Moody –
from The Way to God

You Pray as You Live – Andrew Murray

Men pray as they live, because it is the life that prays. The life that, with wholehearted devotion gives up everything for God and to God can claim everything from God.

– Andrew Murray –
from The Ministry of Intercession