"Like the eye which sees everything in front of it and never sees itself, faith is occupied with the Object upon which it rests and pays no attention to itself at all. While we are looking at God we do not see ourselves—blessed riddance. The man who has struggled to purify himself and has had nothing but repeated failures will experience real relief when he stops tinkering with his soul and looks away to the perfect One. While he looks at Christ the very things he has so long been trying to do will be getting done within him. It will be God working in him to will and to do."
— A.W. Tozer
Source: The Pursuit of God, ch. 7 "The Gaze of the Soul"
Searching for oneself
Views: 445
"God does ten thousand things in your life, but you may only see three."
— John Piper
Source: God's Providence
Seeing, things
Views: 461
"If God causes you to suffer much, it is a sign that He has great designs for you, and that He certainly intends to make you a saint."
— Ignatius of Loyola
Source: Attributed to Ignatius of Loyola (not in the Spiritual Exercises; original source unconfirmed)
Suffering, Design, Saints
Views: 457
"I feel pressed in spirit to do something for God. Every body is diligent, but I am idle; all employed in their proper work, but I tossed in uncertainty; I want nothing but grace; I want to be perfectly holy, and to save myself and those that hear me. I have hitherto lived to little purpose, more like a clod than a servant of God; now let me burn out for God."
— Henry Martyn
Source: Journals and Letters of the Rev. Henry Martyn (1837), vol. 1, journal entry of May 17, 1806
Mission
Views: 408
"Timothy Lin was born in 1911 into the family of an Anglican pastor in Zhejiang and was born again at nineteen. Studying theology in Nanjing, he protested when the seminary used the "historical critical method" to deny the Bible, and left in 1934. During the war with Japan he ran the Bethel orphanage in Shanghai; when he was leading the students to flee a Japanese attack, his wife and daughter were killed by gunfire and he himself broke his neck, yet his faith in God never changed. He later taught at several seminaries in the United States, served as one of the Old Testament translators of the New American Standard Bible, and was president of China Evangelical Seminary in Taipei from 1980 to 1991."
"There is no attribute of God more comforting to His children than the doctrine of Divine Sovereignty. … On the other hand, there is no doctrine more hated by worldlings."
— Charles H. Spurgeon
Source: "Divine Sovereignty," Sermon No. 77, New Park Street Pulpit, vol. 2 (1856)