“Unless we are willing to pay the price, and sacrifice time and attention and what appear legitimate or necessary duties, for the sake of the heavenly gifts we need not look for a large experience of the power of the heavenly world in our work”
– Andrew Murray
“We have the Bible in our hands; but how little we know of its teaching! And how little are we governed by it! We go on, from week to week, year to year, with things which have no foundation whatever in its pages- yea, with things utterly opposed to its teaching; and, all the while, we boast of having the Scriptures, just like the Jews of old, who made their boast of having the oracles of God, while those very oracles condemned themselves and their ways, and left them without a single plea.”
– C.H. Mackintosh
“Blessed are those who mourn,
for they will be comforted”
Matthew 5:4
“Every additional Beatitude deepens the breach between the disciples and the people. The disciples’ call becomes more and more visible. Those who mourn are those who are prepared to renounce and live without everything the world calls happiness and peace. They are those who cannot be brought into accord with the world, who cannot conform to the world. They mourn over the world, its guilt, its fate, and its happiness…. No one understands people better than Jesus’ community. No one loves people more than Jesus’ disciples․that is why they stand apart, why they mourn; it is meaningful and lovely that Luther translates the Greek word for what is blessed with “to bear suffering.” The important part is the bearing. The community of disciples does not shake off suffering, as if they had nothing to do with it. Instead they bear it. In doing so, they give witness to their connection with the people around them. At the same time this indicates that they do not arbitrarily seek suffering, that they do not withdraw into willful contempt for the world. Instead, they bear what is laid upon them and what happens to them in discipleship for the sake of Jesus Christ. Finally, disciples will not be weakened by suffering, worn down, and embittered until they are broken. Instead, they bear suffering, by the power of him who supports them. The disciples bear the suffering laid on them only by the power of him who bears all suffering on the cross. As bearers of suffering, they stand in communion with the Crucified. They stand as strangers in the power of him who was so alien to the world that it crucified him”
– Dietrich Bonhoeffer
the greatest need in the Church today is a body of men who are
absolutely devoted, every selfish purpose and plan given up, to the one great end of magnifying the Lord Jesus Christ in the midst of the nation
“Probably the greatest need in the Church today is a body of men who are
absolutely devoted, every selfish purpose and plan given up, to the one great end of magnifying the Lord Jesus Christ in the midst of the nation.”
– Wilbur M. Smith
“Do not seek to empty your cup as a way to avoid sin, but rather seek to fill it up with the Spirit of life, so there is no longer room for sin.”
– John Owen
Wisdom of the Ages 