Jude 1:3
Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints.
A cheap Christianity, without a cross, will prove in the end a useless Christianity, without a crown.
– J.C. Ryle
I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has strengthened me, because He considered me faithful, putting me into service…” (1 Timothy 1:12)
Ministry takes place when divine resources meet human needs through loving channels to the glory of God.
–Warren Wiersbe, On Being A Servant of Christ
“We seek not for extraordinary excitements, those spurious attendants of genuine revivals, but we do seek for the pouring-out of the Spirit of God. There is a secret operation which we do not understand; it is like the wind, we know not whence it cometh nor whither it goeth; yet, though we understand it not, we can and do perceive its divine effect. It is this breath of Heaven which we want. The Spirit is blowing upon our churches now with his genial breath, but it is as a soft evening gale. Oh, that there would come a mighty rushing wind that should carry everything before it, so that even the dry bones of the Valley of Vision might be filled with life and be made to stand up before the Lord, an exceeding great army. This is the lack of the times, the grand want of our country. May this come as a blessing from the Most High.”
— C. H. Spurgeon, in Lectures Delivered Before The Young Men’s Christian Association in Exeter Hall From November 1858 to February 1859
To penetrate deeper in the experience of Jesus Christ, it is required that you begin to abandon your whole existence, giving it up to God. . . You must utterly believe that the circumstances of your life, that is, every minute of your life, as well as the whole course of your life—anything, yes, everything that happens—have all come to you by His will and by His permission. You must utterly believe that everything that has happened to you is from God and is exactly what you need.
–Jeanne Guyon, Experiencing the Depths of Jesus Christ, p32.
“The message of the Cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God.”
(1 Cor 1:18)
God made us to gravitate toward Him, to acknowledge with joy and obedience that He is the center of all, that He alone is God. The heart of our wretched rebellion is that each of us wants to be number one…Our self-centeredness is deep. It is so brutally idolatrous that it tries to domesticate God Himself…We are impotent when it comes to dealing with our sin and being reconciled to God, but where we are impotent God is powerful…The Gospel is not simply good advice, nor is it good news about God’s power. The Gospel is God’s power to all who believe.
–D.A. Carson, The Cross and Christian Ministry
“To me to live is Christ”
(Apostle Paul, Philippians 1:21)
To be a Christian is nothing less than to have the glorified Christ living in us in actual presence, possession and power. It is to have Him as the Life of our life in such a way and to such a degree that we can even say as Paul did, “To me to live is Christ.” To be a Christian is to grow up into Christ in all things: it is to have that divine seed which was planted in our innermost spirit blossom out into a growing conformity to His perfect Life. To be a Christian is to have Christ the Life of our minds, our hearts, our will, so that it is Christ thinking through us, living through us, willing through us. It is increasingly to have no life but the Life of Christ within us filling us with ever-increasing measure.
–Ruth Paxson, Life On The Highest Plane
“O, Jerusalem, Jerusalem…”
Jesus, Luke 13:34
The vision of the house churches in China today is not only to saturate our own country with the life
and presence of the Lord Jesus Christ, but also to impact all remaining Muslim, Buddhist and Hindu nations with the Gospel…It is as though Hudson Taylor (19th century pioneer missionary to inland China) handed a flaming torch to the Chinese church and asked us to continue the race towards the finish line.
–Paul Xu Yongze, Back to Jerusalem
“The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our sons forever…”
(Deuteronomy 29:29)
To admit that there is One who lies beyond us, Who exists outside all our categories, Who will not be
dismissed with a name, Who will not appear before the bar of our reason, nor submit to our curious inquiries: this requires a great deal of humility, more than most of us possess, so we save face by thinking God down to our level, or at least down to where we can manage Him.
–A.W. Tozer, The Knowledge of the Holy
The LORD your God wins victory after victory and is always with you. He celebrates and sings because of you, and he will refresh your life with his love.
(Zephaniah 3:17, CEV)
“This love of God to His Son must serve, o my soul, as the glass in which you are to learn how Jesus loves you. As one of His redeemed ones, you are His delight, and all His desire is to you with the longing of a love which is stronger than death and which many waters cannot quench. His heart yearns after you, seeking your fellowship and your love…His heart yearns after you, seeking your fellowship and your love…His life is bound up in yours; you are to Him inexpressibly more indispensable and precious than you can ever know.”
–Andrew Murray, Abide in Christ
“You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, be on your guard so that you are not carried away by the error of unprincipled men and fall from your own steadfastness, but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory, both now and to the day of eternity. Amen.”
(2 Peter 3:17,18)
A church is truly relevant when it seeks first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. It becomes irrelevant when the tangential worries (packaging, PR, what brand of coffee is served in the foyer, etc.) take precedence over living and preaching the biblical gospel.”
–Brett McCracken, Hipster Christianity: When Church and Cool Collide
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