Christian Quotes

What can we do to satisfy the heart of our Father in heaven? The answer is near thee, even in thy mouth. Vacate the throne room of your heart and enthrone Jesus there. Set Him in the focus of your heart’s attention and stop wanting to be a hero. Make Him your all in all and try yourself to become less and less. Dedicate your entire life to His honor alone and shift the motives of your life from self to God. Let the reason back of your daily conduct be Christ and His glory, not yourself, nor your family nor your country nor your church. In all things let Him have the preeminence. —A. W. Tozer, Born After Midnight, p. 70

The church is saddened by our recent loss. One of our most valued parishioners has passed on — Mr. Someone Else. The death of Mr. Else creates a vacancy which will be quite diffi cult to fi ll. This is so, of course, because Someone Else has been with us for many years. During each of those years, he did far more than a normal person’s share of the work, the giving, and the commitment involved to make a church function. Many of our people cannot even imagine a time when Someone Else was not with us!
Whenever a task was to be done, his name was at the top of so many people’s lists. They’d often even say, “Someone Else will do it.” Whenever there was a need for a volunteer effort of any kind, individuals were certain that Someone Else would be ready and waiting to step forward.
Also, it was just common knowledge that this man was one of the most committed donors in our church family. Any time a financial need was announced, people just naturally assumed that Someone Else would take care of the need. Someone Else was truly a wonderful person; of course, if people are honest, they will acknowledge that far too much was expected of him. And so, we sadly realize that Someone Else is gone, and we cannot depend on him any longer. When you are asked, now and in the future, to increase your commitment, your willingness, and your giving, please remember that Someone Else can no longer fi ll that gap — it’s up to you!

The focus of the Gospel is Jesus. There will always be a tug in Christian preaching and teaching to talk about our own experience—and a modest amount of this makes such speaking credible and interesting. But personal experiences can soon and subtly become self-centered preaching. Personal experience is like salt: a little is tasteful, a lot is noxious. –Frederick D. Bruner in The Christbook

If a minister has light without heat, and entertains his hearers with learned discourses, without a savour of the power of godliness, or any appearance of fervency of spirit, and zeal for God and the good of souls, he may gratify itching ears, and fill the heads of his people with empty notions; but it will not be very likely to reach their souls. And if, on the other hand, he be driven on with a fierce and intemperate zeal, and vehement heat, without light, he will be likely to kindle the like unhallowed flame in his people, and to fire their corrupt passions and affections; but will make them never the better, nor lead them a step towards heaven, but drive them apace the other way. –Jonathan Edwards, Some Thoughts Concerning the Revival in the Great Awakening

All sin comes from not putting supreme value on the glory of God–this is the very essence of sin…. We have exchanged and dishonored His glory again and again. We have trusted ourselves. We have taken credit for His gifts. We have turned away from the path of His commandments because we thought we knew better. In all this we have held the glory of the Lord in contempt. The exceeding evil of sin is not the harm it does to us or to others (though that is great!). The wickedness of sin is owing to the implicit disdain for God. When David committed adultery with Bathsheba, and even had her husband killed, what did God say to him through the prophet Nathan? He did not remind the king that marriage is inviolable or that human life is sacred. He said, “You have despised me” (2 Samuel 12:10). –John Piper, Desiring God

Do you know what it is to live purposefully? Is there an urgent sense of mission or some compelling thrust within you which makes life add up to the sheer adventure that God always intended life to be?

Or are you simply engaged in the struggle for existence and survival? Worse still, have you been caught up into the rat race of competetive existence? Haunted by the fear of being overtaken by others at the next bend in the road? Breathlessly trying to keep up with events that travel faster than your capacity to cope with them?

If so, there is good news awaiting you, good news about a treasury of purpose and truth and wisdom to be found in the person of Christ, for living purposefully means trading our poverty for Christ’s wealth…our weakness for Christ’s strength. We exchange the bankruptcy of the fallen Adam for all the fullness of the Life of Christ, and we discover the sheer adventure of allowing Jesus Christ to be God in our own experience, for God He is! –Major W. Ian Thomas in The Indwelling Life of Christ

The man who has God for his treasure has all things in One. Many ordinary treasures may be denied him, 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, for having the Source of all things he has in One all satisfaction, all pleasure, all delight. Whatever he may lose he has actually lost nothing, for he now has it all in One, and he has it purely, legitimately and forever. –A. W. Tozer in The Pursuit of God

Orthodoxy, or right opinion, is, at best, a very slender part of religion. Though right tempers cannot subsist without right opinions, yet right opinions may subsist without right tempers. There may be a right opinion of God without either love or one right temper toward Him. Satan is a proof of this. –John Wesley

Time will convince even the blindest and most frivolous of us that happiness is no more to be found in the places we usually look than it is to be dug out of the earth. But the man who knows the secret of prayer lives at the top of human happiness. –William Law

Poverty-stricken as the Church is today in many things, she is most stricken here, in the place of prayer. We have many organizers, but few agonizers; many players and payers, few pray-ers; many singers, few clingers; lots of pastors, few wrestlers; many fears, few tears; much fashion, little passion; many interferers, few intercessors; many writers, but few fighters. Failing here, we fail everywhere. –Leonard Ravenhill