God deliver me from the dread asbestos of other things. Saturate me with the oil of the Spirit that I may be aflame.

...Jim Elliot

A.W. Tozer

...Henri J. M. Nouwen

Easter is not the celebration of a past event. The alleluia is not for what was; Easter proclaims a beginning which has already decided the remotest future. The Resurrection means that the beginning of glory has already started.
...Karl Rahner

"Truth is a glorious but hard mistress. She never consults, bargains or compromises."

...A.W. Tozer

To forsake Christ for the world, is to leave a treasure for a trifle ... eternity for a moment, reality for a shadow.

...William Jenkyn

"Joy is the serious business of Heaven."

...C.S. Lewis

We live and die. Christ died and lived!
John R. W. Stott

"If God is satisfied with the work, the work may be satisfied with itself."
...C.S. Lewis

There is never any peace for those who resist God.
... Francois Fenelon (1651-1715)

A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for...

William Shedd

There are many people who... speak to God in prayer, but
hardly ever listen to Him, or else listen to Him only vaguely.
... Paul Tournier (1898-1986)

He that sees the beauty of holiness, or true moral good, sees the greatest and most important thing in the world...
Unless this is seen, nothing is seen that is worth seeing: for there is no other true excellence or beauty.
... Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758)

A man may study because his brain is hungry for knowledge, even Bible knowledge. But he prays because his soul is hungry for God.

...Leonard Ravenhill

A Christian man is most free lord of all, and subject to none; a Christian man is the most dutiful servant of all, and subject to everyone.
... Martin Luther (1483-1546)

Let all our employment be to know God; the more one knows Him, the more one desires to know Him. And as knowledge is commonly the measure of love, the deeper and more extensive our knowledge shall be, the greater will be our love; and if our love of God were great we should love Him equally in pains and pleasures.
... Brother Lawrence (c.1605-1691)

Humility is a strange flower; it grows best in winter weather, and under storms of affliction.

...Samuel Rutherford

Faith is not only a commitment to the promises of Christ;
faith is also a commitment to the demands of Christ.
... William Barclay (1907-1978)

The King of glory sends his Son,
To make his entrance on this earth;
Behold the midnight bright as noon,
And heav’nly hosts declare his birth!

About the young Redeemer’s head,
What wonders, and what glories meet!
An unknown star arose, and led
The eastern sages to his feet.

Simeon and Anna both conspire
The infant Savior to proclaim;
Inward they felt the sacred fire,
And bless’d the babe, and own’d his name.

Let pagan hordes blaspheme aloud,
And treat the holy child with scorn;
Our souls adore th’ eternal God
Who condescended to be born.

... Isaac Watts (1674-1748)

Our Lord has written the promise of the resurrection, not in books alone but in every leaf in springtime.
... Martin Luther (1483-1546)

Testimony is showing your scars and telling how Jesus healed you.

Warren Walden

It is strange that while praying, we seldom ask for a change of character, but always a change of circumstances.

Fallen man is not simply an imperfect creature who needs improvement. He is a rebel who must lay down his arms. Laying down your arms, surrendering, saying you are sorry, realizing that you have been on the wrong track and getting ready to start life over again from the ground floor - that is the only way out of a hole. This process of surrender - this movement full speed astern - is repentance.

...C.S. Lewis

A marble cutter, with chisel and hammer, was changing a stone into a statue. A preacher looking on said: "I wish I could deal such changing blows on stony hearts." The workman answered: "Maybe you could, if you worked like me, upon your knees."

Don't worry about what you do not understand... worry about what you do understand in the Bible but do not live by.

...Corrie Ten Boom

If we have no zeal for the glory of God our mercy must be superficial, man-centered human improvement with no eternal significance. And if our zeal for the glory of God is not a revelling in his mercy, than our so-called zeal, in spite of all its protests, is out of touch with God and hypocritical.

...John Piper

The one great fear which is a holy fear is, I think, lest
you make your adventure too small, too easy, too self-full, too mediocre. Christianity fails because people will keep on the surface too much, they will not go down to face these deep inner obediences; and that is ultimately to be beaten by themselves. We talk big and play so small. And the world has found it out—-the great bulk have discarded Christianity as the way of Hope and put their hope in other things.
... Florence Allshorn (1887-1950)

Nothing is easier than saying words. Nothing is harder than living them, day after day. What you promise today must be renewed and redecided tomorrow and each day that stretches out before you.

...Arthur Gordon

Nothing sets a person so much out of the devil's reach as humility.

...Jonathan Edwards

Whoever has Christ in his heart, so that no earthly or temporal things——not even those that are legitimate and
allowed——are preferred to Him, has Christ as a foundation. But if these things be preferred, then even though a man seem to have faith in Christ, yet Christ is not the foundation to that man.
... St. Augustine

Prayer is the preface to the book of Christian living; the test of the new life sermon; the girding on of armor for battle; the pilgrim’s preparation for his journey. It must be supplemented by action or it amounts to nothing.
... Arthur Stevens Phelps (1863-1948)

The greatest single distinguishing feature of the omnipotence of God is that our imagination gets lost when thinking about it.

...Blaise Pascal

Of one hundred men, one will read the Bible; ninety-nine will read the Christian.

Dwight L Moody

The chains of habit are too weak to be felt until they are too strong to be broken.

Samuel Johnson

Unless we look upon ourselves as called to unity, we shall
never be united. If God does not will that we should be
united, what can our devices for producing it avail? Whereas, if we believe that it is His will, and that we are fighting against His will by our divisions, we have a right confidently to hope that He will at last bring us to repentance, or, if we do not repent, will accomplish His purposes in spite of us.
... F. D. Maurice (1805-1872)

One sees great things from the valley, only small things from the peak.

...G. K. Chesterton

Prayer is not overcoming God's reluctance, but laying hold of His willingness.

...Martin Luther

Grace is but glory begun, and glory is but grace perfected.

...Jonathan Edwards

Not only do we not know God except through
Jesus Christ; We do not even know ourselves
except through Jesus Christ.

...Blaise Pascal

4. Resolved, never to do any manner of thing, whether in soul or body, less or more, but what tends to the glory of God; nor be, nor suffer it, if I can avoid it.

...from the Resolutions of Jonathan Edwards

Few delights can equal the mere presence of One whom we fully trust.

...George Macdonald

The Holy Scriptures are our letters from home.
... St. Augustine (354-430)

God frees our souls, not from service, not from duty, but
into service and into duty; and he who mistakes the purpose of his freedom mistakes the character of his freedom. He who thinks that he is being released from the work, and not set free in order that he may accomplish that work, mistakes the condition into which his soul is invited to enter.
... Phillips Brooks (1835-1893),

Prayer and love are learned in the hour when prayer
becomes impossible and your heart has turned to stone.
... Thomas Merton

The kingdom of heaven is not come even when God’s will is
our law; it is fully come when God’s will is our will.
... George MacDonald (1824-1905)

Wealth and riches, that is, an estate above what sufficeth our real occasions and necessities, is in no other sense a ‘blessing’ than as it is an opportunity put into our hands, by the providence of God, of doing more good.
... John Tillotson (1630-1694)

Let a man set his heart only on doing the will of God and
he is instantly free... If we understand our first and sole
duty to consist of loving God supremely and loving everyone, even our enemies, for God’s dear sake, then we can enjoy spiritual tranquility under every circumstance.
... A. W. Tozer (1897-1963), The Pursuit of God

The life of prayer is just love to God, and the custom of
being ever with Him.
... St. Teresa (1515-1582)

He was the Word that spake it;
He took the bread and brake it;
And what that Word did make it
I do believe, and take it.
... John Donne (1573-1631)

Because upon the first glad Easter day
The stone that sealed His tomb was rolled away,
So, through the deepening shadows of death’s night,
Men see an open door ... beyond it, light.
... Ida Norton Munson (b.1877)

Thanksgiving is the language of heaven, and we had better
start to learn it if we are not to be mere dumb aliens there.
... A. J. Gossip (1873-1954)

Pray that your loneliness may spur you into finding something to live for, great enough to die for.
...Dag Hammarskjold

If I be bound to pray for all that be in distress, surely
I am bound, so far as it is in my power, to practice what I pray for.
... George Herbert (1593-1633)

We should always pray with as much earnestness as those
who expect everything from God; we should always act with as much energy as those who expect everything from themselves.
... Charles C. Colson

The aim and final end of all music should be none other than the glory of God and the refreshment of the soul. If heed is not paid to this, it is not true music but a diabolical bawling and twanging.
... J. S. Bach (1685-1750)

Whatever task God is calling us to, if it is yours, it is mine, and if it is mine, it is yours. We must do it together -- or be cast aside together, and God in his absolute freedom goes on by other means to use His Church in hastening His Kingdom.
... Howard Hewlett Clark (1903-1983)

If man is man and God is God, to live without prayer is
not merely an awful thing: it is an infinitely foolish thing.
... Phillips Brooks (1835-1893)

Do little things as though they were great, because of the
majesty of Jesus Christ who does them in us, and who lives our life: and do the greatest things as though they were little and easy, because of His omnipotence.
... Blaise Pascal (1623-1662)

Isaiah 58:10 (NLT)
Feed the hungry and help those in trouble. Then your light will shine out from the darkness, and the darkness around you will be as bright as day.

The moment we make up our minds that we are going on with this determination to exalt God overall, we step out of the world’s parade... We acquire a new viewpoint; a new and different psychology will be formed within us; a new power will begin to surprise us by its upsurgings and its outgoings.
... A. W. Tozer (1897-1963),

If you want to get the hang of it [incarnation], think how you would like to become a slug or a crab.
...C. S. Lewis

There is a state of perfect peace with God which can be attained under imperfect obedience.
... John Owen (1616-1683)

As long as I see any thing to be done for God, life is worth having; but O how vain and unworthy it is to live for any lower end!
... David Brainerd

We need never shout across the spaces to an absent God. He is nearer than our own soul, closer than our most secret thoughts.
... A. W. Tozer (1897-1963), The Pursuit of God [1948]

If we are to live unto God at any time, or in any place, we are to live unto Him at all times and all places. If we are to use anything as the gift of God, we are to use everything as His gift.
... William Law (1686-1761)

Our deeds determine us as much as we determine our deeds."
...:George Eliot

Do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger men. Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers. Pray for powers equal to your tasks.
...Phillips Brooks (1835 - 1893)

I don’t ask God to bless what I do. I pray He will help me to do what He blesses.
... Bob Pierce, founder and president, World Vision

Many ordinary treasures may be denied the man who has God, or if he is allowed to have them, the enjoyment of them will be so tempered that they will never be necessary to his happiness. Or if he must see them go, one after one, he will scarcely feel a sense of loss.
... A. W. Tozer (1897-1963), The Pursuit of God

If the heart is devoted to the mirage of the world, to the creature instead of the Creator, the disciple is lost... However urgently Jesus may call us, His call fails to find
access to our hearts. Our hearts are closed, for they have already been given to another.
... Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945)

We must alter our lives in order to alter our hearts, for it is impossible to live one way and pray another.
... William Law (1686-1761)

“To me who am but black cold charcoal; Grant, O Lord, that by the fire of Pentecost, I may be set ablaze.”

...St. John of Damascus

I believe in Christianity as I believe that the Sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.

... C. S. Lewis (1898-1963)

It is the fellowship of the Cross to experience the burden of the other. If one does not experience it, the fellowship he belongs to is not Christian. If any member refuses to bear that burden, he denies the law of Christ.
... Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945), Life Together

Believe that Christ is God – then call upon him and pray to him.

...Søren Kierkegaard

God is none other than the Saviour of our wretchedness. So we can only know God well by knowing our iniquities... Those who have known God without knowing their wretchedness have not glorified him, but have glorified themselves.

... Blaise Pascal (1623-1662)

"The church is not a museum for saints, but a hospital for sinners."

...Morton Kelsey

Patience is not waiting passively until someone else does something. Patience asks us to live the moment to the fullest, to be completely present to the moment, to taste the here and now, to be where we are. When we are impatient, we try to get away from where we are. We behave as if the real thing will happen tomorrow, later, and somewhere else. Be patient and trust that the treasure you are looking for is hidden in the ground on which you stand.

- Henri J.M. Nouwen

God has no grandchildren.
... Robert MacColl Adams (1913-1985)

We are all pencils in the hand of a writing God, who is sending love letters to the world.
... Mother Teresa (Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu) (1910-1997)

It seems to me, as time goes on, that the only thing that is worth seeking for is to know and to be known by Christ -- a privilege open alone to the childlike, who, with receptivity, guilelessness, and humility, move Godward.
... Charles H. Brent (1862-1929)

For I seek not to understand in order that I may believe; but I believe in order that I may understand, for I believe for this reason: that unless I believe, I cannot understand.
... Anselm of Canterbury (1033-1109)

Jesus Christ is a God whom we approach without pride, and before whom we humble ourselves without despair.
... Blaise Pascal (1623-1662)

IT seems as if Easter always falls at a bad time for me; it seems to come consistently at the busiest time of the year. I haven't had time to prepare, to ponder, to live with the rhythm of the season. Often I try to cram it all into the time between Good Friday and Easter, and then I wonder why I don't feel elated on Easter morning.

Although this habit still can elicit guilt in me, I'm beginning to learn that Easter is a season, not just a day. Resurrection is a process that I live into and live out of.

-- Jan L. Richardson

There is no creature made that can understand how much and how sweetly and how tenderly our Maker loves us...

-- Julian of Norwich

A life devoted unto God, looking wholly unto Him in all our actions, and doing all things suitably to His glory, is so far from being dull and uncomfortable, that it creates new comforts in everything that we do.
... William Law (1686-1761)

Faith, if it be a living faith, will be a working faith.
... John Owen (1616-1683)

The widest thing in the universe is not space, it is the potential capacity of the human heart. Being made in the image of God, it is capable of almost unlimited extension in all directions. Christians should seek for inner enlargement till their outward dimension gives no hint of the vastness within.
... A. W. Tozer

A Christian cannot help being free, because in the pursuit and attainment of his object, no one can either hinder or retard him.
... Lyof N. Tolstoy

When Christ reveals Himself there is satisfaction in the slenderest portion, and without Christ there is emptiness in the greatest fullness.
... Alexander Grosse

God will either give you what you ask, or something far better.
... Robert Murray M'Cheyne (1813-1843)

A satisfying prayer life elevates and purifies every act of body and mind and integrates the entire personality into a single spiritual unit. In the long pull we pray only as well as we live.
... A. W. Tozer (1897-1963), The Pursuit of God

The evidence for Christian truth is not exhaustive, but it is sufficient. Too often, Christianity has not been tried and found wanting -- it has been found demanding, and not tried.
... John Baillie (1886-1960)

Suppose Christianity is not a religion but a way of life, a falling in love with God, and, through Him, a falling in love with our fellows. Of course, such a way is hard and costly, but it is also joyous and rewarding even in the here-and-now. People who follow that Way know beyond all possible argument that they are in harmony with the purpose of God, that Christ is with them and in them as they set about His work in our disordered world. If anyone thinks this is perilous and revolutionary teaching, so much the better. That is exactly what they thought of the teaching of Jesus Christ. The light He brought to bear upon human affairs is almost unbearably brilliant: but it is the light of Truth, and in that light human problems can be solved.

... J. B. Phillips (1906-1982)

The trouble is that I'm in a hurry, but God isn't. - Phillips Brooks

When God would make His name known to mankind, He could find no better word than "I AM". "I am that I am," says God, "I change not." Everyone and everything else measures from that fixed point.

... A. W. Tozer (1897-1963), The Pursuit of God

Whoever strives to withdraw from obedience, withdraws from grace.

... Thomas à Kempis (1380-1471)

"Prayer is a work to which we must commit ourselves if we are to make sense of our lives in the light of eternity." -Terry Glaspey

I believe in God like I believe in the sun rise. Not because I can see it, but because I can see all that it touches. - C.S. Lewis

Understanding is the reward of faith. Therefore seek not to understand that you may believe, but believe that you may understand.
... St. Augustine (354-430)

"If we only have the will to walk, then God is pleased with our stumbles."

C.S. Lewis

A little faith will bring your soul to heaven , but a lot of faith will bring heaven to your
soul."
Dwight L. Moody

Salt, when dissolved in water, may disappear, but it does
not cease to exist. We can be sure of its presence by tasting
the water. Likewise, the indwelling Christ, though unseen,
will be made evident to others from the love which he imparts
to us.
... Sadhu Sundar Singh (1889-1929)

Living the word is the most effective way to spread it.

-- Ryan Dennis

What I am urging is that we so freshly fall in love with Jesus that what is precious to Him becomes precious to us and what is priority to Him becomes priority for us..."

--David Shibley

Any concern too small to be turned into a prayer is too small to be made into a burden.

Corrie ten Boom

"He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose."

--Jim Elliot

To live is nothing, unless to live be to know Him by whom we live.

... John Ruskin (1819-1900)

Christianity preaches the unending worth of the apparently worthless and the unending worthlessness of what is apparently so valuable.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, A Testament to Freedom

Do I think well of myself, think myself a nice chap? Well, I am afraid I sometimes do (and those are no doubt my worst moments) but that is not why I love myself. In fact, it is the other way round: My self-love makes me think myself nice, but thinking myself nice is not why I love myself. So loving my enemies does not apparently mean thinking them nice either.

That is an enormous relief. For a good many people imagine that forgiving your enemies means making out that they are really not such bad fellows after all, when it is quite plain that they are. Go a step further - in my most clear-sighted moments not only do I not think myself a nice man, but I know that I am a very nasty one. I can look at some of the things I have done with horror and loathing. So apparently I am allowed to loathe and hate some of the things my enemies do ...

But years later it occurred to me that there was one man to whom I had been doing this all my life - namely myself. However much I might dislike my own cowardice or conceit or greed, I went on loving myself. There had never been the slightest difficulty about it. In fact, the very reason why I hated the things was that I loved the man. Just because I loved myself, I was sorry to find that I was the sort of man who did those things.

Consequently, Christianity does not want us to reduce by one atom the hatred we feel for cruelty or treachery. ... But it does want us to hate them in the same way in which we hate things within ourselves: being sorry that the man should have done such things, and hoping, if it is anyway possible, that somehow, sometime, somewhere, he can be cured and made human again.

- C.S. Lewis, Learning in War-Time

"The measure of a life, after all, is not its duration, but its donation."

... Corrie ten Boom (1892-1983)

Are we not all members of the same Body and partakers of the same Spirit and heirs of the same blessed hope of eternal life? ... Why do we not, as becomes brethren, dwell together in
unity, but are so apt to quarrel and break out into heats, to crumble into sects and parties, to divide and separate from one another upon every trifling occasion? Give me leave... in the
name of our dear Lord ... to recommend to you this new commandment of his, that ye love one another. Which is almost a new commandment still, and hardly the worse for wearing, so
seldom is it put on, and so little hath it been practiced among Christians.

... John Tillotson (1630-1694), Sermons

Is prayer your steering wheel or your spare tire?

... Corrie ten Boom (1892-1983)

“Pray not that God is on our side but that we are on the side of God.”

...attributed to President Lincoln

Has it ever occurred to you that one hundred pianos all tuned to the same fork are automatically tuned to each other? They are of one accord by being tuned, not to each other, but to another standard to which each one must individually bow. So one hundred worshippers meeting together, each one looking away to Christ, are in heart nearer to each other than they could possibly be were they to become 'unity' conscious and turn their eyes away from God to strive for closer fellowship. Social religion is perfected when private religion is purified. The body becomes stronger as its members become healthier. The whole church of God gains when the members that compose it begin to seek a better and a higher life.

... A. W. Tozer (1895-1963)

We are building many splendid churches in this country, but we are not providing leaders to run them. I would rather have a wooden church with a splendid parson, than a splendid church with a wooden parson.

... Samuel Smith Drury (1878-1938)

Nobody seriously believes the universe was made by God
without being persuaded that He takes care of His works.
... John Calvin (1509-1564)

There are only two kinds of men: the righteous, who believe themselves sinners; the rest, sinners who believe themselves righteous.

... Blaise Pascal (1623-1662)

Christians love one another. They never fail to help widows; they save orphans from those who would hurt them. If a man has something, he gives freely to the man who has nothing. If they see a stranger, Christians take him home and are happy, as though he were a real brother. They don't consider themselves brothers in the usual sense, but brothers instead through the Spirit, in God. And if they hear that one of them is in jail, or persecuted for professing the name of their redeemer, they all give him what he needs -- if it is possible, they bail him out. If one of them is poor and there isn't enough food to go around, they fast several days to give him the food he needs... This is really a new kind of person. There is something divine in them.

... Aristides, a lawyer, before Hadrian, 2nd century

The first service one owes to others in the fellowship consists in listening to them. Just as love of God begins in listening to His Word, so the beginning of love for the brethren is learning to listen to them. It is God's love for us that He not only gives us His Word but lends us His ear. So it is His work that we do for our brother when we learn to listen to him.

... Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945), Life Together

The authority of Scripture is greater than the comprehension of the whole of man's reason.

... Martin Luther (1483-1546)

If the mercy of God is so great that He can instruct us, to our salvation, even when He hides Himself, what a brilliance of light we must expect when He reveals Himself!

... Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), Pensees

The great danger facing all of us... is not that we shall
make an absolute failure of life, nor that we shall fall into outright viciousness, nor that we shall be terribly unhappy, nor that we shall feel [that] life has no meaning at all--not these things. The danger is that we may fail to perceive life's greatest meaning, fall short of its highest good, miss its deepest and most abiding happiness, be unable to tender the most needed service, be unconscious of life ablaze with the light of the Presence of God--and be content to have it so--that is the danger: that some day we may wake up and find that always we have been busy with husks and trappings of life and have really missed life itself. For life without God, to one who has known the richness and joy of life with Him, is unthinkable, impossible. That is what one prays one's friends may be spared--satisfaction with a life that falls short of the best, that has in it no tingle or thrill that comes from a friendship with the Father.

... Phillips Brooks (1835-1893).