The first effect of a true love for Christ is our clinging to him. The believer’s soul is knit to Christ’s soul as David’s was to Jonathan’s (1 Samuel 18:1). Love produces a firm clinging to Christ crucified that makes a soul in some sense always present with Christ on the cross.
– John Owen –
from The Holy Spirit, 1674
The Holy Spirit is not a power that in any sense is subordinate to us, entrusted to us, or to be used by us. He is an energizing power that is over and above us, carrying forward His work from moment to moment. Our right place and our proper attitude must always be that of the deepest dependence in our own nothingness and impotence. Our chief concern is to let Jesus do His work within us.
– Andrew Murray –
from Experiencing the Holy Spirit
After the Crucifixion came the Resurrection. After the Resurrection the Ascension. Because Jesus wore a crown of thorns, He now wears a crown of glory. Because He came poor, He now sits enthroned. Because He made Himself of no reputation, He now has a name which is above every name. Because He was willing to become a slave, He is now Master of everything. Because He was obedient to death, He is Lord of Life and holds the keys of hell and death. Because He made Himself of no reputation, every knee will someday bow before Him. Every renunciation led to glory.
– Elisabeth Elliot –
from The Path of Loneliness
All my requests are lost in one: “Father, Thy will be done!”
– Charles Wesley –
We religious leaders need to look very much more deeply. We can so easily have talks with people, and they can say we have helped, write us grateful letters, even stand steady for a time till the juice we have put into them runs out; but, we may have brought them no hunger for God—because that hunger is no ache in our own heart—nor brought them anywhere near to the end of self.
– Florence Allshorn –
I often overestimate my ability and underestimate my need.
– Mr. Gaston –
This is the very place meant by God to turn your eyes to Him.
– Elisabeth Elliot –
Exercise great self-denial: “Let him deny himself” (Matthew 16:24). Self-ease, self-ends, whatever comes in competition with (or stand in opposition to) Christ’s glory and interest must be denied. Self is the great snare; self-love undermines the power of godliness. The young man in the Gospel might have followed Christ, but something of self-hindered (Matthew 19:20-22). Self-love is self-hatred. The man who cannot get beyond himself will never get to heaven.
– Thomas Watson –
from The Godly Man’s Picture, 1666
Before God uses the man, God breaks the man.
– Charles Spurgeon –