The World

Why You Struggle in Prayer – Oswald Chambers

If we are struggling in prayer it is because the wiles of the enemy are getting the upper hand, and we must look for the cause in our lack of discipline. There are some things we have not been strenuously practicing. We used to pray in the morning, do we now? We used to commune with God over the Bible, do we now? We used to be in contact with God wherever we went, are we now? Put on the whole armor of God and continuously practice, then the wiles of the devil cannot get you unaware.

– Oswald Chambers –
from If You Will Ask, 30

Where Your Treasure Is – George Müller

The Lord concludes: “for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” (Matt 6:21) Where should the heart of the disciple of the Lord Jesus be, but in heaven? Our calling is a heavenly calling, our inheritance is a heavenly inheritance, and our citizenship is in heaven.

But if we believers in the Lord Jesus lay up treasures on earth, than our hearts will be on earth.

Laying up treasures in heaven will draw the heart heavenward. It brings along with it, even in this life, precious spiritual blessings as a reward of obedience to the commandment of our Lord.

– George Müller –
from The Autobiography of George Muller

A Single Eye for the Glory of God – Elisabeth Elliot

[Amy Carmichael’s] great longing was to have a “single eye” for the glory of God. Whatever might blur the vision God had give her of His work, whatever could distract or deceive or tempt other to seek anything but the Lord Jesus Himself she tried to eliminate.

– Elisabeth Elliot –

The Gospel Changes – Samuel Bolton

The law may chain up the wolf, but it is the Gospel that changes the wolfish nature.

– Samuel Bolton –
from The True Bounds of Christian Freedom, 1645

Love God, Not the World – Thomas a Kempis

Call often to mind that proverb, “That the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing” (Ecclesiastes 1:8). Endeavor therefore to withdraw thy heart from the love of visible things, and to turn thyself to the invisible. For they that follow their sensuality, do stain their own consciences, and lose the favour of God.

– Thomas a Kempis –
from  The Imitation of Christ