August Quotes

There can be no participation in Christ’s life without a participation in his death, and we cannot enjoy the benefits of his death unless we are partakers of the power of his life. We must be reconciled to God in order to be holy, and we cannot be reconciled without thereby becoming holy.

-Charles Hodge

No matter how hard Satan tries, he cannot dim the glory of Jesus. People may close their eyes or turn their backs, but neither of those actions reduces Jesus' divine stature. 

-Woodrow Kroll

A Sovereign Protector I have, unseen, yet forever at hand. 

-Augustus M. Toplady

To be a follower of the Crucified means, sooner or later, a personal encounter with the cross. And the cross always entails loss.

-Elisabeth Elliot

“Loving someone requires maintaining a measure of optimism on that person’s behalf. Hope is an attitude that good will eventually come to those who may now be failing. Failure invades every Christian’s life, and it often causes others to give up on the one who fails. Yet, Christians who love continue to hope for the best. This optimism encourages others to keep moving forward. This hope is based not on the Christian, but on Christ. The hope of each Christian is that Christ will preserve him to glory. When a brother falls, it is Christ who picks him up and makes him stand (Rom. 14:4). Christ is the one who promised to finish the work he began".

-(Pratt, R. L., Jr. (2000). I & II Corinthians (Vol. 7). Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman Publishers.)

Yet, just as the soil patiently endures the frigid hand of frost and snow and bitter cold, the soul's
winter is only a curving bend to the fair meadows of spring. Only through mourning can one know the exhilaration of joy. Beauty is the by-product of burnt, ash-dust. God looks at a field of stinky, dead earth and says, "This is my garden." I have learned never to begrudge winter, for in her wake lie all the trees of Eden.

-Unknown 

But did the clouds rain free, and the earth open beneath me, I would not stir; for I know who planted me here, and as long as He wills me to stand, neither men or devils can move me hence.
~William Wallace

Mercy is never free. Mercy is very expensive. Mercy requires paying the cost of justice, and that is the cost of our Savior’s life. But that mercy is beautiful to behold for those whom God has given eyes to see it. Mercy changes lives. And the offer of mercy can also harden. 

~Tony Reinke

Hold your ground! Should a Christian flee? Should a Christian be afraid? You are not going anywhere—Hold fast your position! You are not changing the things that God has set. You heed God’s lead, not the Enemy’s! The Enemy will not define the terms of your life. The Enemy will not dictate where you go, what you say, what you don’t say, or what you do, or don’t do. God set you here. Stand firm. Don’t move from this position. Be still and watch what your God will do for those who trust in His Almighty Name! 

~Eric Ludy

What we offer unto God? Stubborn, sinful, rebellious rejection. But unto us? A Child is born. A Son is given.

 ~James MacDonald

May Quotes

In prayer, it is better to have a heart without words - than words without a heart.

-John Bunyan

What wings are to a bird, what fruit is to the tree, what the rose is to the thorn, that is praise to a child of God.

-Spurgeon

In true Christianity, there are no short-term commitments and no escape clauses. 

-John Blanchard

In order to receive grace, you must accept Jesus. Not the idea of Jesus, but the actual Jesus; the One who calls you to leave everything behind. The One who says that you must carry your cross, the One who spoke truth in the face of deceit. The Christ who clung unto a world that had let go long ago, Jesus who calls us beloved. If grace is an ocean, you must jump in! 

-T.B. LaBerge

A great white throne: Great, because of the causes that will be decided there ... white, because of its immaculate purity ... a throne, because a King will sit there. 

-F. B. Meyer

Take up the Bible, ask the Holy Spirit for help, lay the promises up in your heart, and fight the good fight — to live by faith in future grace. 

-John Piper

Circumstances don't create character; they reveal character. 

-David Jeremiah

Only men who ken their weakness, find their strength in Christ alone. 

-John Knox

God's plans reach from an eternity past to an eternity to come. Let Him take His own time.

-William S. Plumer

The burden God places on each of us is to become who we are meant to be. We are most fully ourselves when Christ most fully lives in us and through us. The mother shines brightest with her child in her arms, the father when he forgives his wandering son, and the artist when he or she is drawing attention to grace, by showing the pinprick of light overcoming the darkness in the painting, or the story, or the song. The world knows darkness. Christ came into the world to show us light. I have seen it, have been blinded by it, invaded by it. I will tell its story.

-Andrew Peterson

April Quotes

In the stillness of things, when one looks at the stars shining bright in the dark sky, God speaks to us in that silence.

 -Unknown

God has given us the DNA of righteousness. We are saints. Nothing we do will make us more righteous than we already are. Nothing we do will alter this reality. God knows our DNA. He knows that we are "Christ in me."

-John S. Lynch

The saving work of Christ includes deliverance from the death penalty for sin in one’s past life, the power of sin in his present life, and the very presence of sin in the future life.

-Henry Morris

God does not comfort us by showing us the future, but by showing us Himself. 

-Tim Challies

Sometimes when we least expect it, a small cross proves a lovely crown, a seemingly unimportant event becomes a lifelong experience, or a stranger becomes a friend. 

-Louisa May Alcott

“God loves a cheerful giver” (2 Corinthians 9:7). This doesn’t mean we should give only when we’re feeling cheerful. The cheerfulness often comes during and after the act of obedience, not before it. So don’t wait until you feel like giving—it could be a long wait! Just give and watch the joy follow.

-Randy Alcorn

[T]he ultimate question for a responsible man to ask is not how he is to extricate himself heroically from the affair, but how the coming generation shall continue to live.

-Dietrich Bonhoeffer

God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.

-C.S. Lewis

Bible commentator R. C. H. Lenski once noted that people with eager but uncertain vows of allegiance to Christianity are like those who view “the soldiers on parade, the fine uniforms, and the glittering arms and [are] eager to join, forgetting the exhausting marches, the bloody battles, the graves, perhaps unmarked.” 

-John MacArthur

Expecting perfection from ourselves or others is not what holiness is about.

-Kevin DeYoung

March Quotes

A real Christian is an odd number, anyway. He feels supreme love for the One whom he has never seen; talks with familiarly every day to

Someone he cannot see; expects to go to heaven on the virtue of Another; empties himself in order to be full; admits he is wrong so he

can be declared right; goes down in order to get up; is strongest when he is weakest; richest when he is poorest and happiest when he feels the worst. He dies so he can live; forsakes in order to have; gives away so he can keep; sees the invisible; hears the inaudible' and knows that which passeth understanding.

- A.W. Tozer

Fairy tales are more than true — not because they tell us dragons exist, but because they tell us dragons can be beaten. 

-G.K. Chesterton

The moment that we take a significant step of obedience, we will be tested.

-Unknown

If we have learned to be silent before the Word, we shall also learn to manage our silence and our speech during the day."

-Bonhoeffer

When Jesus Christ is magnified, Believers are unified.

-Chad Johnson

There is sweet joy in feeling that God knows all and, notwithstanding, loves us still.

-J. Hudson Taylor

Peace is not a gift that passes from Christ the giver to us the receivers. His peace is ours because he is ours, and the peace he is experiencing we are experiencing. Our experience of peace is his peace in us because he is in us. Similarly his strength. Paul says, “Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might.” (Ephesians 6:10). Being “in the Lord” is the same as the branch being in the vine. The strength of the Lord is not merely a gift from him to us. When we are strong against the devil and sin, our strength is his strength. He is being strong in us. We are being strong "in the strength of his might."

-John Piper

Walking by faith will cause all of us to recognize that as children of God we are just pilgrims and strangers down here on this earth.

-J. Vernon McGee

If we followed you for a thousand years, we would need your grace just as much the next day, the next moment, as we did the first day we believed.

-prayer by Paul Tripp

It is easier to serve God without a vision, easier to work for God without a call because then you are not bothered by what God requires, common sense is your guide, veneered over with Christian sentiment. You will be more prosperous and successful, more leisure hearted, if you never realize the call of God. But if once you receive a commission from Jesus Christ, the memory of what God wants will always come like a goad, you will no longer be able to work for Him on the common-sense basis.

-Oswald Chambers

January Quotes

To surrender a precious dream is a fearful thing, but to pursue anything but the full measure of the glory of God’s love is a wasted life.

-Joshua Eddy

Where God tears great gaps we should not try to fill them with human words.

-Dietrich Bonhoeffer

We are secure, not because we hold tightly to Jesus, but because He holds tightly to us.

-R.C. Sproul

Enemy-occupied territory---that is what this world is. Christianity is the story of how the rightful king has landed, you might say landed in disguise, and is calling us to take part in a great campaign of sabotage.

-C.S. Lewis

It is not the mouth that is the main thing to be looked at in prayer, but whether the heart is so full of affection and earnestness in prayer with God, that it is impossible to express their sense and desire; for then a man desires indeed, when his desires are so strong, many, and mighty, that all the words, tears, and groans that can come from the heart, cannot utter them.

-John Bunyan

The point of your life is to point to Him. Whatever you are doing, God wants to be glorified, because this whole thing is His. 

-Francis Chan

There is a living God. He has spoken in the Bible. He means what He says and will do all that He has promised.

-Hudson Taylor

Don’t you know that day dawns after night, showers displace drought and spring and summer follow winter? Then have hope! Hope forever, for God will not fail you!

-Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Too often we pay so much attention to what we need to do that we totally neglect the extent to which we are entirely dependent on the Spirit to do what we cannot do. 

-Jerry Bridges

Right now if this preacher died he would go to heaven. Not because I spent years in the jungles and the Andes Mountains of Peru. Not because of piety, devotion or Bible study. Not because of denominational affiliation, baptism, or participation in the Lord’s supper. If I died right now, I would go to heaven because two thousand years ago the Son of God shed His blood for this wretched man. And that is my hope.

-Paul Washer

December Quotes

Christianity preaches the infinite worth of that which is seemingly worthless and the infinite worthlessness of that which is seemingly so valued.

-Dietrich Bonhoeffer

You never go away from us, yet we have difficulty in returning to You. Come, Lord, stir us up and call us back. Kindle and seize us. Be our fire and our sweetness. Let us love. Let us run. 
-St. Augustine

“Is it true, O Christ in heaven, that the highest suffer the most?

That the strongest wander furthest and most hopelessly are lost?

That the mark of rank in nature is capacity for pain?

That the anguish of the singer makes the sweetness of the strain?” 

-John Milton

A holy woman's object in life is a perfect union with the will of God, perfect conformity. And as we are conformed to the image of Christ and conform our wills to God, we will find that our joy is greater and greater. Humility and surrender can be your gateway to joy.

-Elisabeth Elliot

Pray that this year you may be holy, humble, zealous, and patient and have closer communion with Christ. Pray that you may be an example and blessing to others, and that you may live more for the glory of your Master… Let January open with joy in the Lord, and December close with gladness in Jesus.

-Charles H. Spurgeon

I choose to believe the Bible because it is a reliable collection of historical documents, written by eyewitnesses during the lifetime of other eyewitnesses. They report supernatural events that took place in fulfillment of specific prophecies, and they claim to be divine rather than human in origin.

-Dr. Voddie Baucham

Here we have a picture of God’s ideal woman…Faith in God that sees beyond present bitter setbacks. Freedom from the securities and comforts of the world. Courage to venture into the unknown and the strange. Radical commitment in the relationships appointed by God… It is a beautiful thing to watch a woman like this serve Christ with courage.

-John Piper

The point of your life is to point to Him. Whatever you are doing, God wants to be glorified, because this whole thing is His. 

-Francis Chan

Let us banish every fearful thought, and rejoice with exceeding great joy, in the prospect that this year we shall begin to be "forever with the Lord. 

-C. H. Spurgeon

But friends, as we face a new year, let us take heart! Let us find courage! -not in the strength of our own arms, but in the power of our resurrected Lord who sits in the heavens and does whatsoever He pleases (Ps.115:3)! Let us persevere in hope! -not because we see the light at the end of the tunnel, which we may not--but because our King has guaranteed a harvest in due season if we faint not (Gal.6:9). And when we do feel like fainting, let us remember that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, but to those who are weak in Christ--because when we are weak, then are we strong (2 Cor.12:10).
-Neil Craig

July Quotes

Jesus is coming back for HIS church, not yours.

-Unknown

In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.

-Martin Luther King Jr.

We are who we are, not because we are who we are, but we are who we are because we live in Christ.

-Unknown

God is always doing 10,000 things in your life, and you may be aware of three of them.

-John Piper

God's training is for NOW, not presently. 

His purpose is for THIS MINUTE, not for something in the future. 

We have nothing to do with the afterwards of obedience; 

we get it wrong when we think of the afterwards. 

What men call training and preparation, God calls the end... 

If we realize that obedience is the end, 

then EACH MOMENT IS PRECIOUS. 

-Oswald Chambers

If you remove the snow from the hillside in the late winter, you will find sweet flowers growing there, beneath the cold drifts, unhurt by the storm and by the snowy blankets that have covered them. Just so, should we keep our hearts tender and sensitive beneath life's fiercest winter blasts, and through the longest years of suffering, and even of injustice and wrong treatment. That is true, victorious living.

-J.R. Miller

Those who worry about the loss of time entailed by such small, external acts of helpfulness are usually taking their own work too seriously. We must be ready to allow ourselves to be interrupted by God, who will thwart our plans and frustrate our ways time and again, even daily, by sending people across our path with their demands and requests. 

-Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Cheerfully and gratefully I lay myself and all I am or own at the feet of Him who redeemed me with His precious blood, engaging to follow Him, bearing the cross He lays upon me. This is the least I can do, and I do it while my heart lies broken and bleeding at His feet. 

-Elizabeth Prentiss

Wherever we see the Word of God purely preached and heard, there a church of God exists, even if it swarms with many faults.

-John Calvin

Becoming a mentor has got to be something that comes up within you—it’s got to be God’s work. It can’t be our work because we’ll give answers that aren’t God’s answers.

-Patty Webb

In my many years of pastoring, counseling, and traveling, I’ve found an all-too-common and dangerous theme among Christians: no one lays down the law better than the one who thinks they’re keeping it themselves.

-Paul Tripp

Ah, I have kept Him waiting when I ought not, but He has waited even then. Always waiting – so patient with my foolishness, my weakness, my fear. Our fellowship is with God, and fellowship is friendship, and friendship means that partnership which, on His part, is the accommodating of His strength to my weakness. 

-G. Campbell Morgan

If He loved me yesterday, He loves me today. My unmoving mansion of rest is my blessed Lord. Even when prospects are few and hopes are squashed and joy is waning, I have lost nothing of what I have in God. He is "my refuge" to which I continually return. I am a pilgrim in the world, but at home in my God. In the earth I wander, but in God I dwell in a quiet dwelling place.

-Charles Spurgeon

Wherever we see the Word of God purely preached and heard, there a church of God exists, even if it swarms with many faults.

-John Calvin

Friendship is held to be the severest test of character. It is easy, we think, to be loyal to a family and clan, whose blood is in your own veins.

-Charles Alexander Eastman

A man never discloses his own character so clearly as when he describes another's.

-Leo C. Rosten

Keep Yourselves from Idols

I've been reading through Deuteronomy again for the past couple days, and the passage on idolatry in chapter four stood out to me this time, and as most of us know, idolatry was an issue that the Israelites struggled with frequently. In fact, it makes up much of their history as they fell, time and time again, into worshipping other gods from other nations.

While I didn't do an extensive study of this passage, I read it in its context and mentally connected the passage to other places in Scriptural history. The reason God gave here for forbidding idolatry was interesting: You saw no form of any kind the day the LORD spoke to you at Horeb out of the fire. Therefore watch yourselves very carefully so that you do not become corrupt and make for yourselves an idol..." (Deut.4:15-16a, NIV). Since the Israelites had not been permitted to see a physical image of God, they were warned against creating an representative object of which to worship. Even Moses, the meekest man, had not been permitted to see God's face, and the Lord Himself had to protect Moses from seeing His glory. They did not know what the image of God looked like, save that they were created in His image, and therefore, they must not attempt to create a replica of something which they had never seen.

Not only were they not to create an idol, but they were not to make and image of any shape: not a man or woman, not an animal on earth or a bird, not like any creature that moves on the ground or a fish in the water, not a heavenly body or anything whatsoever.

The Fire that spoke from the burning bush had rescued His people from the furnace of Egypt. The One who had not revealed His face had placed His image on the faces and hearts of men. The One who commanded them to cross the Jordan would one day send His Son to "cross the Jordan" (figuratively) to redeem Israel. The Covenant-Maker commanded His covenant-breakers not to attach themselves with any other gods. The God who gathered Israel as a nation would scatter them for their rebellion. The gods who turned the peoples' hearts away would eventually be the motivator to turn their hearts back to Yahweh.

God was God then, and God is God now. The God who rescued, scattered, and redeemed His people also does the same with us today when we leave the worship of His throne and join with others to worship our own heart's desires. This passage was a reminder of that. We tend to idolize things such as people, money, or places...even things like self-pity, grief, or happiness can become places of idolatry because our hearts are bent on placing something or someone on the throne rather than Christ.

But the God who allowed circumstances to cause suffering for Israel, also waited for their repentance and never left them or forgot His covenant with them. And ultimately, He sent a Redeemer for their (and our) sake, to rescue them permanently and bring them into His eternal home. There we will see His glory face-to-face and there will be no struggle to allow Him to rule in our hearts.

Dear children, keep yourselves from idols. 
(1 John 5:21, NIV)

May Quotes

God has a purpose for your life. You have something to do here. 

-Pendragon (movie)

And wars are exhausting — especially long ones. That’s why you are often tired. Most soldiers who experience the fierceness of combat want to get out of it. That’s why you feel urges to escape or surrender. That’s why there are times you’re tempted to give up.

"But don’t give up. No, rather “take courage! Do not let your hands be weak, for your work shall be rewarded” (2 Chronicles 15:7).

-Unknown

Live as though Christ died yesterday, rose from the grave today, and is coming back tomorrow.

-Unknown

When a man comes to the point that he will no longer receive anything except from the hands of him who has the right to withhold, and in who giving alone lies the value of possession, then is he approaching the inheritance of the saints in light, those whose strength is made perfect in weakness. But some, for the present, can in no way comprehend such matters any more than the chickens in the yard. Their hour will come; in the meantime, they are counted the fortunate ones of the earth.

-George MacDonald (The Laird's Inheritance)

I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever.

-Unknown

All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us. 

 -J.R.R. Tolkien

If two friends ask you to judge a dispute, don’t accept, because you will lose one friend; on the other hand, if two strangers come with the same request, accept because you will gain one friend. 

-Augustine of Hippo

Times will come in life when you’ll realize you’ve made a mistake. At that moment, you have two choices: You can swallow your pride and “pull a few nails,” or you can foolishly continue your course, hoping the problem will go away. Most of the time the problem will only get worse. …When you realize you’ve made a mistake, the best thing you can do is tear it down and start over.

-Joshua Harris

It is in the unknown that fellowship with my Lord is sweetest. It is in the unknown that God's mercy is most beautifully manifested. It is in the unknown that our faith is refined and comes forth shining more brightly.

-Unknown

Never did the Church so much prosper and so truly thrive as when she was baptized in blood. The ship of the Church never sails so gloriously along as when the bloody spray of her martyrs falls upon her deck.

-C.H. Spurgeon

Why did you do all this for me?' he asked. 'I don't deserve it. I've never done anything for you.' 

'You have been my friend,' replied Charlotte. 'That in itself is a tremendous thing.' 

-E.B. White

He is your friend who pushes you nearer to God.

-Abraham Kuyper

Prayer is the greatest of all forces, because it honours God

and brings Him into active aid.

-E.M. Bounds

A Christian home should be a place of peace, and there can be no peace where there is no self-denial.

-Elisabeth Elliot

Because in the end, any book that comes the closest to the themes of good and evil in Scripture will always ring closest to our own hearts. The triumph of Ultimate Good is the theme of eternity. And God has written eternity on the hearts of men.

-Schuyler McConkey

April Quotes

Find updates about my puppies HERE.

Doctrine is important, but to fight over the smallest things as the world perishes without the gospel is tragic; a waste of gifts and strength.

-Paul Washer

The heart set to do the Father's will need never fear defeat. His promises of guidance may be fully counted upon. Does it make sense to believe that the Shepherd would care less about getting His sheep where He wants them to go than they care about getting there?

-Elisabeth Elliot

Friendship is the nearest thing we know to what religion is. God is love. And to make religion akin to Friendship is simply to give it the highest expression conceivable by man. 

-Henry Drummond

No man ever really finds out what he believes in until he begins to instruct his children.

-Unknown

The mills of God grind slowly; yet the grind exceeding small; Though with patience He stands waiting, with exactness grinds he all.

-Fredrick Von Logau

If you do not listen to theology, that will not mean that you have no ideas about God. It will mean that you have a lot of wrong ones! 

-C.S. Lewis

We can stop pleading with God to show us the future, and start living and obeying like we are confident that He holds the future.

-Kevin DeYoung

We are masters of the unsaid words, but slaves of those we let slip out. 

-Winston Churchill

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

-C.S. Lewis

There is a vast difference between failing and becoming a failure. We become a failure when we give up—when we stop trying. But as long as we are working on those sinful habits, regardless of how often we fail, we have not become a failure, and we can expect to see progress.

-Jerry Bridges

Christianity preaches the infinite worth of that which is seemingly worthless and the infinite worthlessness of that which is seemingly so valued.

-Dietrich Bonhoeffer

The Bible is of such universal and perennial interest that it will call forth comments and sermons without number, to the end of time. This of itself is sufficient evidence of its divine origin and character. It is now more extensively studied than ever before, and goes on conquering and to conquer in the face of all enemies. It is inexhaustible. It never grows old, but increases in interest and value as time flows on. Human books have their day, but ‘the Word of the Lord endureth forever.’

-Philip Schaff

Either you be governed by God or by God you’ll be governed.

-Benjamin Franklin

In order to give thanks when the sky is falling, you have to remember that it’s Jesus’ sky, and that He never promised it wouldn’t fall. 

-R.C. Sproul

The beginning of anxiety is the end of faith; and the beginning of true faith is the end of anxiety. 

-George Müller

March Quotes

Better suffer anything than do wrong.

-C.H. Spurgeon

Do you want honest, upright, able men to guide our country's future? Those men are sitting in high chairs today in your dining room.

-Jenny Chancy

There are far, far better things ahead than any we leave behind.

–C.S. Lewis

God never witholds from His child that which His love and wisdom call good. God's refusals are always merciful -- "severe mercies" at times but mercies all the same. God never denies us our hearts desire except to give us something better.

-Elizabeth Elliott

If God is for us, then the opposition, which inevitably comes against us, is ultimately of no account. 

-Alistair Begg

Why would we want fame, when God promises us glory? Why would we be seeking the wealth of the world when the wealth of heaven is ours? Why would we run for a crown that will perish with time, when we're called to win a crown that is imperishable?

 -Paul Washer

He comes to the dry and thirsty land of the human heart in its wild and desperate struggles for survival. He comes to the wilderness of our lives, and a furrow at a time he reclaims the land, restoring something of the Paradise that has been lost. He comes to the weary heart to give it rest. To the lonely heart to give it friendship. To the wounded heart to give it healing. To the sad heart to give it joy. And if no joy, at least the companionship of someone who has known what it's like to be sad, wounded, lonely and weary. 

-Ken Gire

True faith rests upon the character of God and asks no further proof than the moral perfections of the One who cannot lie.

-A.W.Tozer

Lord, I give up all my own purposes and plans, all my own desires and hopes and ambitions, and accept Thy will for my life. I give myself, my life, my all utterly to Thee, to be Thine forever. I hand over to Thy keeping all my friendships; all the people whom I love are to take a second place in my heart. Fill me and seal me with Thy Holy Spirit. Work out Thy whole will in my life, at any cost, now and forever. 

-Betty Stam

Psalm 56:3 says, “When I am afraid, I put my trust in you.” 

Notice: it does not say, “I never struggle with fear.” Fear strikes, and the battle begins. So the Bible does not assume that true believers will have no anxieties. Instead, the Bible tells us how to fight when they strike. 

-John Piper

Godly households are the greatest martial assets of the Kingdom of God. Establishing and maintaining them is a matter of spiritual warfare. 

-Andrew C. Romanowitz

The day is gone from us--and is with You. We leave it in Your hands. Whatever we have done that was not according to Your will--may You graciously forgive. The things that pleased You--may You bless. 

-J.R. Miller

Look for yourself and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin and decay. But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in.

-C.S. Lewis

How do you pick up the threads of an old life? How do you go on, when in your heart, you begin to understand, there is no going back? There are some things that time cannot mend.

-J.R.R. Tolkien

May your convictions be deep, your love real, your desires earnest.

-C.H. Spurgeon

January Quotes

We need to stay sound in doctrine, to stay safe in our morals. 

-Unknown

No matter happens, or what someone does to you, God's plan for your life can never be ruined...because God is in control.

-Unknown

When you’re in the furnace, you’re beyond the reach of those who are trying to harm you. You’re tried by fire, but you come out as pure gold.

-Dr. Bob Jones Senior

There is nothing like Christianity to make all men equal, to level such distinctions—but it levels by lifting to a lofty tableland, accessible only to humility. Only he who is humble can rise. 

-George MacDonald

There are some things you can only say to the Lord because he's the only one that can bear that much reality. 

-Jerram Barrs

God created the world out of nothing, and as long as we are nothing, He can make something out of us.

-Martin Luther

We are sinfully lost people and we have a scandalously merciful Savior.

-Unknown

Silence is pure and holy. It draws people together because only those who are comfortable with each other can sit without speaking.

-Nicholas Sparks

Good leaders must first become good servants. 

-Robert Greenleaf

Accountability is more than going to a brother or sister in the Lord and confessing failure. Accountability is going to them in the middle of a battle, before we’ve fallen, and asking for their help. 

-Paul Speed

A true friend unbosoms freely, advises justly, assists readily, adventures boldly, takes all patiently, defends courageously, and continues a friend unchangeably.

-William Penn

As our knowledge of [God] and his infinite, transcendent value increases, we find that our esteem of ourselves as one of his beloved ones will grow as well.

-Johnson

We develop patience as we trust that God denies us what we think is good only because He has something better for us--both now and in the future.

-Joshua Harris

The evidence … the raw-bone, Biblical evidence that there was one time in your life that you repented unto salvation, is that you continue repenting until today, and continue growing in repentance.

-Paul Washer

You do not know what you are going to do; the only thing you know is that God knows what He’s doing.

-Oswald Chambers

Surrender=Freedom

One of my posts was featured on Amy's blog this week. I had originally written it for her newsletter, but that was discontinued some time ago, so she kindly shared it on her blog. You can check it out HERE. :) 

My post for this week was written specifically for my Bible study group. Of the three Communities that our group participates in (prayer, Scripture memorization, and Scripture reading), I am the moderator of the Scripture reading community. And for the purposes of encouraging one another to stay in the Word, I write out a (sometimes short ;) encouragement post on a monthly basis. Several of those posts I've shared here already. And today's post provides yet another reason to faithfully read Scripture: to teach us to surrender. 

*****

We read Scripture to bring our minds into line with God’s Word. So often we tend to take control of every single detail of our lives that we forget Who’s really ruling the events of this universe. I’m not saying that we release all responsibility for everything we do, that would also be wrong. Surrender is a mental practice more than anything. It’s a willingness to take responsibility for what we do, do the best in everything we do, but yet release the results and future of it to God’s care. It’s a purposeful, conscious decision to submit to God’s ordering of our lives knowing that He can use the sinful and the righteous to fulfill His design for each of us.

Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. (John 12:24)

Sometimes we surrender big things…careers, jobs, performance opportunities, relationships, finances, fears, etc. And sometimes surrender is needed for the smallest things, too: your daily schedule, that phone call, that social outing, the spoken word, the to-do list that didn’t get done. We surrender to find freedom, because holding tightly to things that aren’t ours to control will only hurt us and others. Surrender is a reminder to us that God gave us a will and charged us with responsibility in this life, but He’s still God. He’s the one on the throne. Surrender doesn’t change God; it changes us. It reminds us that we’re not in control of everything, that we don’t have to be either. The world doesn’t rest on our shoulders. It held in the hands of Jesus. Surrender reminds us that it’s God who works in us, and at the end of the day, it’s God who makes and will make all things good. Surrender reminds us of our position under Christ.

Then Jesus told his disciples, "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. (Matthew 16:24-25)

Surrender is not giving up. Sometimes it means fighting for what’s right even when there isn’t any hope in sight. Surrender means yielding everything you have to Christ and letting Him create the end result. Sometimes that means burning yourself out in doing what God has commanded you to do, and then standing aside and praying that the Holy Spirit shows you the results.

Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. (Philippians 2:12b-13)

Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. (Philippians 3:12) 

Perhaps one of the best visible ways (though certainly not the only way) we surrender is through forgiveness. Forgiveness is releasing a person from the debt they owed you. A debt they couldn’t repay. Forgiveness means that you don’t bring up the offense to yourself, to that person, or to others. It means releasing that person from their bondage to you (whether or not they acknowledge it) and not expecting “payment”.

Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. (Colossians 3:12-13)

But whether surrender is shown through forgiveness or whether it’s a prayer in the middle of the night, surrender is a giving up of ourselves to Christ. After all, we are called to be “little Christs”, and He not only demonstrated surrender to His Father’s will, but He also demonstrated surrender when He said “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do”. In that surrender, He found victory. No, He created the victory that we would live in. We read Scripture to bring our hearts and minds into surrender. In the words of life we find that the Holy Spirit is the one who brings our wills into line with God’s will. In surrender you find freedom, you find victory, because you’re not in control. God is.

For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith. (1 John 5:4)

And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed, saying, "My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will." (Matthew 26:39) 

September Quotes

Faith is believing you will receive mercy, while knowing you deserve justice.

-Unknown

We did not choose this battle, but it is come.

-Pendragon (the movie)

When our will goes hand in hand with God’s then are we fellow workers with him in the affairs of the universe—not mere discoverers of his ways, watching at the outskirts of things, but laborers with him at the heart of them.

-George McDonald

I have a great need for Christ: I have a great Christ for my need. 

-Charles Spurgeon

There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must take it because conscience tells him it is right. 

-Martin Luther King Jr.

The path you take with your feet should never contradict the conviction of your heart.

-Joshua Harris

Captain, my religious belief teaches me to feel as safe in battle as in bed. God has fixed the time for my death. I do not concern myself about that, but to be always ready, no matter when it may overtake me....That is the way all men should live, and then all would be equally brave. 

-Stonewall Jackson

...there is only one thing that can wash the blood from our hands, the blood from His. 

-R.C. Sproul Jr.

Forgiveness is the oil that keeps the machinery of the Christian home and church running smoothly. In a world where even those who have been declared perfect in Christ sin, there is much to forgive. Christians who must work together closely find themselves denting each others' fenders, now and then taking out a taillight or two, and at times even having head-on collisions. Under such conditions, forgiveness is what keeps things from breaking down completely.

-Jay Adams

A thorough knowledge of the Bible is worth more than a college education.

-Theodore Roosevelt

Christ went more willingly to the cross than we do to the throne of grace. 

-Thomas Watson

Living becomes an awesome business when you realise that you spend every moment of your life in the sight and company of an omniscient, omnipresent Creator. 

-J.I. Packer

The Five Women of Matthew 1

I began reading Matthew yesterday, and the first chapter opens with the geneology of Christ. (Joseph's side of the geneology, anyway. Mary's line can be found in Luke 3.) Sometimes I think we forget to really read geneologies because they can be a bit tedious to get through, but Matthew's account includes five people--five women, to be exact--who aren't always remembered.

Tamar is the first mentioned in Matthew 1:3. Her story is told in Genesis 38, where she attempted to take her future and inheritance into her own hands by living immorally. But regardless of a Canaanite woman's sin and deception, she and her twin sons are listed in the line of Christ.

Rahab is listed next by Matthew. Many of us are familar with her story: a prostitute who cares for two of Israel's spies, and is later brought into the nation of Israel for her faithfulness to guard God's people. It is likely that she also learned to love and serve the one true God. She, too, is listed in the Davidic and Messianic line.

Ruth's story takes a whole book of our Bible, and in it we find the account of a Moabitess woman who forsakes her past life--one that included serving false gods. Leaving behind all she's ever known, she embraces the land, people, customs, culture, and God of the Israelites. And for her faithfulness and loyalty to her people and God, she is blessed to marry into the line of Christ, as well.

Bathsheba is not listed as clearly, for she is only called "the wife of Uriah". Likely we are familiar with her story, as well. While the Bible doesn't tell us how much of a willing participant she was, she exposed herself to and participated in immoral behavior and actions with King David. And because of their sin, Bathsheba's rightful husband was murdered and her first son through David died. But through her second son, Solomon, the Messianic line was continued.

Mary, the mother of Jesus, is the last woman to be listed in the geneology. Another familiar character and story, she was the virgin chosen of God to usher in His one and only Son. She bore the shame and disgrace that was placed on her for appearing to have a child out of wedlock. Yet, as a Jewish girl, a redeemed sinner, she bore the One who would become the Savior of the world.

This list is comprised of many opposites: immorality and purity, Gentiles and Jews, prostitutes and virgins, idolatry and singlehearted service to God, reputable and unreputable, false gods and the one true God, rich and poor. But each one (including all the others listed in this geneology) was evidence of the divine grace of God, the working of God's mercy--even before He had sent the One who would be the fulfillment of that grace and mercy.

And when He came--the Messiah, the greater David, the last Adam, the Son of God yet Son of Man--He did not despise His lowly beginnings, even though He was despised of His own town. No, He came to be the Savior of them all. The Savior of those past, present, and future. "Of the four mentioned two—Rahab and Ruth—are foreigners, and three—Thamar, Rahab and Bathsheba—were stained with sin. The purpose of the Evangelist in recording their names may be to shew that He who came to save “that which was lost,” the Friend of sinners, does not scorn such descent" (Cambridge Bible Commentary).

He was born of sinners, was the Friend of sinners, and died among sinners. He saved the immoral and redeemed the pure. He was sent to His lost sheep of Israel, yet witnessed to the Gentiles. He ate meals with the unreputable, and stood before those of noble birth. He called the rich to follow Him, yet blessed the poor for giving Him all they had. He was born of a virgin, but brought redemption to the immoral.

None of the five women mentioned in Matthew's geneology were perfect, far from it, but God chose to take them, broken and sinful as they were, and use them to bring about the Righteousness they all needed. The first four listed for us all lived with the unfulfilled promise of a Messiah, the God-Man who would fulfill the sacrificial system with with one sacrifice. It took hundreds of years of waiting--never seeing that promise fulfilled, never seeing the hope of Israel, never seeing complete justice and redemption offered to a sick land, never knowing the perfect satisfaction of a Holy God--until one day, Immanuel, "God with us", was born to the fifth woman listed.

The Savior who emptied Himself for us by shedding His blood on the cross is now that same Savior who is seated in exaltation and glory at the right hand of His Father. One day, perhaps alongside all of these women and the rest of the saints who have passed on before us, we too will bow before the name of Jesus, confessing that He is Lord, praising Him for reconciling all things to Himself, and living in the peace brought about by the blood of His cross.

August Quotes

If God is all you have...you have it all.

-Unknown

Sometimes a majority only means that all the fools are on the same side.

-General Douglas MacArthur

What God calls us to do He gives us the strength to accomplish, the grace to live or die for His glory....God does not just have a purpose for your days, but a purpose for your life.

-Pendragon (movie)

When you feel like you’re drowning in life, don’t worry. Your Lifeguard walks on water.

-Unknown

God is most glorified in us, when we are most satisfied in Him. 

-John Piper

Just keep being sensitive to God's nudging, attentive to His call, obedient to His commands, and pursue Him with reckless abandonment, and He will definitely reward and bless you above all you could ever ask or think.

-E. Mielke

Hell has many gates, though heaven has but one. 

-C.H. Spurgeon

…the strongest characters are as weak as water the moment He withdraws His upholding hand.

-A.W. Pink

He who thinks of his Savior as far away can have made little progress in the need of him; and he who does not need much cannot know much, any more than he who is not forgiven much can love much.

-George McDonald

My mother spoke of Christ to my father, by her feminine and childlike virtues, and, after having borne his violence without a murmur or complaint, gained him at the close of his life to Christ. 

-Augustine of Hippo

I preached as never sure to preach again, And as a dying man to dying men. 

-Richard Baxter

The Christian life is very much like climbing a hill of ice. You cannot slide up; you have to cut every step with an ice axe; only with incessant labor in cutting and chipping can you make any progress; you need a guide to help you, and you are not safe unless you are fastened to the guide, for you may slip into a crevasse. Nobody ever slides up, but if great care be not taken they will slide down, slide back, or in other words backslide. This is very easily done. If you want to know how to backslide, the answer is leave off going forward and you will slide backward, cease going upward and you will go downward of necessity, for stand still you never can. 

-Charles Spurgeon

July Quotes

Don’t put a question mark where God put a period.

-Unknown

God does not call men to futility. Those who follow him are part of a master plan. But some tasks take more than one generation to accomplish....I know that he will give me the grace to see this through. My faith is in the One who calls and my confidence is doing what He lays before me to do. The results must be in His hands, for this task is beyond my strength.

-Pendragon, movie

Contentment is a choice. True joy is not the result of having everything I want, but of gratefully receiving exactly what God has given me....If we’re not content with what we have, we will never be content with what we think we want....The deepest needs and longings of our hearts cannot be filled by any human being, but only by God Himself....The key to joyous living is to embrace the will of God and to receive with gratitude whatever He has given us.

-Nancy Leigh DeMoss

Yes, the work was very hard, possibly the hardest that human muscles are ever called on to perform in this toiling world; but again we say that David Trevarrow did not think so, for he had been born to the work and bred to it, and was blissfully ignorant of work of a lighter kind, so that, although his brows frowned at the obstinate rock, his compressed lips smiled, and his thoughts were pleasant and far away.

-R.M. Ballantyne, "Deep Down"

Every sinner has a future; every saint has a past.

-Unknown

Of the lesser of two evils, choose neither.

-Charles Spurgeon 

O that writer and reader may be fully assured of God’s promises and embrace them: living on them, walking by faith in them, rejoicing over them, for He is faithful who has promised. Heaven and earth shall pass away before one word of His shall fail.

-A.W. Pink, "Elijah"

Nine-tenths of the difficulties are overcome when our hearts are ready to do the Lord’s will. 

-George Mueller

If we let ourselves, we shall always be waiting for some distraction or other to end before we can really get down to our work. The only people who achieve much are those who want knowledge so badly that they seek it while the conditions are still unfavorable. Favorable conditions never come. 

-C. S. Lewis

Lord, whatever you want, wherever you want it, and whenever you want it, that’s what I want.

-Richard Baxter

To him that obeys well, the truth comes easy; to him who does not obey, it comes not at all, or comes in forms of fear and dismay. The true, that is the obedient man, cannot help seeing the truth, for it is the very business of his being—the natural concern of his soul.

-George MacDonald, "The Laird's Inheritance"

He who created us without our help will not save us without our consent. 

-Augustine of Hippo