The work of the Holy Spirit in the church is done in the context of persecution. The Spirit is not a guide and a helper for those on the straight way perfectly able to manage on their own. He comes to assist people caught up in the thick of battle and tried beyond their strength. Jesus makes it quite plain that the way before his followers is a hard and difficult way.
– Leon Morris –
This is the very place meant by God to turn your eyes to Him.
– Elisabeth Elliot –
With the freedom of spirit, there is courage and strength of faith against opposition… It gives him courage and strength to resist. The more opposition, the more courage he has. When the early Christians had the Spirit of God (Acts 4:23ff), they resisted opposition, and the more they were opposed, the more they grew. They were cast in prison, and rejoiced. And the more they were imprisoned, the more courageous they were still.
– Richard Sibbes –
from Glorious Freedom, 1639
Saints are made in the furnace of affliction. Great times of trials provide a chance to prove and demonstrate the supernatural!
– JT Crane –
God give me a deep humility, a well-guided zeal, a burning love and a single eye—and then let men or devils do their worst.
– George Whitefield –
God has no problems, only plans.
– Corrie ten Boom –
A Christian does not fight for victory, but FROM victory.
– Steve Rosen –
An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered.
– GK Chesterton –
from On Running After One’s Hat
Although you see the stars sometimes by their reflections in a puddle, or in the bottom of a well, yes, in a stinking ditch; yet the stars have their situation in heaven. So, though you see a godly man in a poor, miserable, low, despised condition for the things of this world, yet he is fixed in heaven, in the region of heaven: “Who has raised us up,” says the apostle, “and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.” (Eph 2:6).
– Thomas Brooks –
from Precious Remedies Against Satan’s Devices