Are we going in the way Christ has gone, or are we only talking and praying and singing about it? What about likes and dislikes? What about choices? What about Self? Christ’s way is the way that says “No” to the “I” that rises up so often and in its many different disguises. “If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself (say “No” to himself), and take up his cross daily, and follow Me.”
– Amy Carmichael –
[When] Christ died, He left a will in which He gave His soul to His Father, His body to Joseph of Arimathea, His clothes to the soldiers, and His mother to John. But to His disciples, who had left all to follow Him, He left not silver or gold, but something far better—His PEACE!
– Matthew Henry –
No child of God sins to that degree as to make himself incapable of forgiveness.
– John Bunyan –
Oh that God would give me the thing which I long for! That … I may see a people wholly devoted to God, crucified to the world, and the world crucified to them. A people truly given up to God in body, soul and substance! How cheerfully would I then say, “Now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace.”
– John Wesley –
It is never our earnestness that brings us into touch with God, but our Lord Jesus Christ’s vitalizing death. (See Hebrews 10:19-23)
– Oswald Chambers –
from If You Will Ask
Taking up my “cross” means a life voluntarily surrendered to God.
– AW Pink –
We take our stand at the cross and consent to be nailed to it, voluntarily, actually; to submit to the pain whereby the flesh dies; the hands are pierced that carnal work may no longer be done in the energy of the flesh; the feet are pierced that no longer we may walk according to the flesh; the brow is pierced with the thorn crown that our head may not any longer be held up for human diadems and fading laurel wreaths …
– AT Pierson –
The well-defined spiritual life is not only the highest life, but it is also the most easily lived. The whole cross is more easily carried than the half. It is the man who tries to make the best of both worlds who makes nothing of either. And he who seeks to serve two masters misses the benediction of both.
– Henry Drummond –
Though the cross of Christ has been beautified by the poet and the artist, the avid seeker after God is likely to find it the same savage implement of destruction it was in the days of old. The way of the cross is still the pain-wracked path to spiritual power and fruitfulness. So do not seek to hide from it. Do not accept an easy way. Do not allow yourself to be patted to sleep in a comfortable church, void of power and barren of fruit. Do not paint the cross nor deck it with flowers. Take it for what it is, as it is, and you will find it the rugged way to death and life. Let it slay you utterly.
– AW Tozer –