"Spreading the gospel is bearing witness. It's like one poor beggar telling another poor beggar where he can get food."
— D.T. Niles
Source: "To Give Them Life"
Views: 558
"Ah, Lord, who hast created all, / How hast Thou made Thee weak and small, / That Thou must choose Thy infant bed / Where ass and ox but lately fed! … Ah dearest Jesus, Holy Child, / Make Thee a bed, soft, undefiled, / Within my heart, that it may be / A quiet chamber kept for Thee."
— Martin Luther
Source: "Vom Himmel hoch, da komm ich her" (1535), tr. Catherine Winkworth, Lyra Germanica, first series
Humility, salvation
Views: 599
"The stiff and wooden quality about our religious lives is a result of our lack of holy desire. Complacency is a deadly foe of all spiritual growth. Acute desire must be present or there will be no manifestation of Christ to His people. He waits to be wanted. Too bad that with many of us He waits so long, so very long, in vain."
— A.W. Tozer
Source: The Pursuit of God, ch. 1 "Following Hard after God"
Time, spirituality, grace
Views: 554
"If we are going to grow in grace, we must stay aware of being both sinners and loved children in Christ. We need a high and due sense of our sin before God and a deep and profound sense of our union with and acceptance in Christ. In the end, it’s the joy and wonder of the gospel that will change you permanently."
— Timothy Keller
Source: “Blemishes in Christian Character, Part 3: Change and Grace” (timothykeller.com, 2013)
Gospel, failure, grace
Views: 521
"Finally, since as God only he could not suffer, and as man only could not overcome death, he united the human nature with the divine, that he might subject the weakness of the one to death as an expiation of sin, and by the power of the other, maintaining a struggle with death, might gain us the victory. Those, therefore, who rob Christ of divinity or humanity either detract from his majesty and glory, or obscure his goodness."
— John Calvin
Source: Institutes of the Christian Religion, II.12.3 (tr. Henry Beveridge)
The Incarnation
Views: 599
"The Church has a dual responsibility to the world around us. On the one hand, we must live, serve, and witness in the world; on the other hand, we must avoid being defiled by the world. Therefore, we cannot escape the world in order to maintain holiness, nor can we sacrifice holiness to please the world."
— John Stott
Source: Radical Disciples: Some Neglected Aspects of Our Call