No one expects to reach the heights of success in education, the arts, finance or athletics without a great deal of hard work and perseverance. We often use the expression “You have to really want it!” Growing in our faith requires the same. Christianity is based on a revelation from God that is filled with information that the natural mind could never have imagined. The wealth of this knowledge will never be mastered without diligent effort.
– William Wilberforce –
He who hath given himself entirely unto God will never think he doth too much for him.
– Henry Scougal –
from The Life of God in the Soul of Man
In commencing any Christian work, novelty greatly assists enthusiasm, and it is very natural that under first impulses the beginner should achieve an easy success. The difficulty of the Christian is very seldom the commencement of the work; the true labor lies in the perseverance which alone can win the victory.
– Charles Spurgeon –
taken from Council for Christian Workers
Let me do nothing today without calmness of soul.
– John Wesley –
God must perform the work, or else it never will be performed. Along the road from sin to heaven, from the first leaving of the swine-trough right up to the joyful entrance into the banquet, and the music and dancing of glorified spirits, every step we must be enabled to take by divine grace. Every good thing that is in a Christian, not merely begins, but progresses and is consummated by the fostering grace of God, through Jesus Christ.
If my finger were on the golden latch of paradise, and my foot were on its jasper threshold, I should not take the last step so as to enter heaven unless the grace which brought me so far should enable me full and fairly to complete my pilgrimage. Salvation is God’s work, not man’s.
– Charles Spurgeon –
I have so much business to do today that I shall not be able to get through it with less than three hours [of] prayer.
– Martin Luther –
Unless God has raised you up for this very thing, you will be worn out by the opposition of men and devils. But if God be for you, who can be against you? Are all of them together stronger than God? O be not weary of well doing!
– John Wesley –
God’s work done in God’s way will never lack God’s supply.
– Hudson Taylor –
The gospel alone is sufficient to rule the lives of Christians everywhere … any additional rules made to govern men’s conduct added nothing to the perfection already found in the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
– John Wycliffe –