Quote of the Day

If we refuse to forgive, we have stepped into dangerous waters.  First, refusing to forgive is to put ourselves in the place of God, as though vengeance were our prerogative, not his.  Second, unforgiveness says God's wrath is insufficient.  For the unbeliever, we are saying that an eternity in hell is not enough, they need our slap in the face or cold shoulder to "even the scales" of justice.  For the believer, we are saying that Christ's humiliation and death are not enough.  In other words, we shake our fists at God and say, "Your standards may have been satisfied, but my standard is higher!"  Finally, refusing to forgive is the highest form of arrogance.  Here we stand forgiven.  And as we bask in the forgiveness of a perfectly holy and righteous God, we turn to our brother and say, "My sins are forgivable, but yours are not."  In other words, we act as though the sins of others are too significant to forgive while simultaneously believing that ours are not significant enough to matter.

Voddie Baucham Jr.

Quote of the Day

They were living to themselves: self, with its hopes, and promises, and dreams, still had hold of them; but the Lord began to fulfill their prayers. They had asked for contrition, and He sent them sorrow; they had asked for purity, and He sent them thrilling anguish; they had asked to be meek, and He had broken their hearts; they has asked to be dead to the world, and He slew all their living hopes; they had asked to be made like unto Him, and He placed them in the furnace, sitting by "as a refiner of silver," till they should reflect His image; they had asked to lay hold of His cross, and when He had reached it out to them, it lacerated their hands. They had asked they knew not what, nor how; but He had taken them at their word, and granted them all their petitions. They were hardly willing to follow so far, or to draw so nigh to Him. They had upon them an awe and fear, as Jacob at Bethel, or Eliphaz in the night visions, or as the apostles when they thought they had seen the spirit, and knew not that it was Jesus. They could almost pray Him to depart from them, or to hide His awefulness. They found it easier to obey than to suffer--to do than to give up--to bear the cross than to hang upon it: but they cannot go back, for they have come too near the unseen cross, and its virtues have pierced too deeply within them. He is fulfilling to them his promise, "And I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto me.

But now, at last, their turn is come. Before, they had only heard of the mystery, but now they feel it. He has fastened on them His look of love, as He did on Mary and Peter, and they cannot but choose to follow. Little by little, from time to time, by flitting gleams the mystery of His cross shines upon them. They behold Him lifted up--they gaze upon the glory which rays forth from the wound of His holy passion; and as they gaze, they advance, and are changed into His likeness, and His name shines out through them, for he dwells in them. They live alone with Him above, in unspeakable fellowship; willing to lack what others own, and to be unlike all, so that they are only like him.

"Such are they in all ages who follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth. Had they chosen for themselves, or their friends chosen for them, they would have chosen otherwise. They would have been brighter here, but less glorious in His kingdom. They would have had Lot's portion, not Abraham's. If they had halted anywhere--if He had taken off His hand, and let them stray back--what would they have lost? What forfeits in the morning of the resurrection? But He stayed them up, even against themselves. Many a time their foot had well-nigh slipped; but He, in mercy, held them up; now, even in this life, they know all he did was done well. It was good for them to suffer here, for they shall reign hereafter--to bear the cross below, for they shall wear the crown above; and that not their will but His was done on them.

 

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Quote of the Day

Whatever may be the grievous circumstances in which I am placed, or the injustices of others from which I am suffering, if my God says, 'Fear not', I ought surely to be brave and strong. If we can only get firmly fixed in our hearts the truth that the Lord's hand is in everything that happens to us, we have found a balm for all our woes, a remedy for all our ills. When friends fail us and grow cold, when enemies triumph and grow confident, when the smooth pathway upon which we have been travelling suddenly becomes rough, stony and steep - we are too apt to look askance at the visible second causes, and to forget that our God has forseen every trial, permitted every annoyance, and authorized each item of discipline...the soul that has learned the blessed secret of seeing God's hand in all that concerns it, cannot be a prey to fear; it looks beyond all second causes, straight into the heart and will of God, and rests content because He rules.

Susannah Spurgeon

Quote of the Day

The cross is laid on every Christian. It begins with the call to abandon the attachments of this world. It is that dying of the old man which is the result of his encounter with Christ. As we embark upon discipleship we surrender ourselves to Christ in union with His death -- we give over our lives to death. Since this happens at the beginning of the Christian life, the cross can never be merely a tragic ending to an otherwise happy religious life. When Christ calls a man, He bids him come and die. It may be a death like that of the first disciples who had to leave home and work to follow Him, or it may be a death like Luther's, who had to leave the monastery and go out into the world. But it is the same death every time -- death in Jesus Christ, the death of the old man at His call. That is why the rich young man was so loath to follow Jesus, for the cost of his following was the death of his will. In fact, every command of Jesus is a call to die, with all our affections and lusts. But we do not want to die, and therefore Jesus Christ and His call are necessarily our death and our life. 

  

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Quote of the Day

Jesus qualified His prayer:  "If it is Your will…."  Jesus did not "name it and claim it."…...I am astonished that, in light of the clear biblical record, anyone would have the audacity to suggest that it is wrong for the afflicted in body or soul to couch their prayers for deliverance in terms of "If it be Thy will…."  We are told that when affliction comes, God always wills healing, that He has nothing to do with suffering, and that all that we must do is claim the answer we seek by faith.  We are exhorted to claim God's yes before He speaks it.

Away with such distortions of biblical faith!  They are conceived in the mind of the Tempter, who would seduce us into exchanging faith for magic.  No amount of pious verbiage can transform such falsehood into sound doctrine.  We must accept the fact that God sometimes says no.  Sometimes He calls us to suffer and die even if we want to claim the contrary..

R. C. Sproul

Quote of the Day

You must not be discouraged at the slowness of recovery.  Look up to Him who giveth liberally for faith to be resigned to His divine will, and trust Him for that measure of health which will most glorify Him and advance to the greatest extent your own real happiness.  We are sometimes suffered to be in a state of perplexity, that our faith may be tried and grow stronger.  "All things work together for good" to God's children.  See if you cannot spend a short time after dark in looking out of your window into space, and meditating upon heaven, with all its joys unspeakable and full of glory; and think of what the Savior relinquished in glory when he came to earth, and of his sufferings for us; and seek to realize, with the apostle, that the afflictions of the present life are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.  Try to look up and be cheerful, and not desponding.  Trust our kind Heavenly Father, and by the eye of faith see that all things with you are right and for your best interest.  The clouds come, pass over us, and are followed by bright sunshine; so, in God's moral dealings with us, he permits us to have trouble awhile.  But let us, even in the most trying dispensations of His providence, be cheered by the brightness which is a little ahead.

Thomas(Stonewall) Jackson

 

At a time when his second wife(his first wife died) was ill and away from home recovering

Quote of the Day

February 14th.  Stonewall Jackson to his wife:  Your delightful letter of six pages received a welcome reception this evening.  I am thankful to see that our kind Heavenly Father is again restoring mother to health.  I felt uneasy about her, and thought that Joseph had better make a visit home.  I have made the restoration of mother's health a subject of prayer; but then we know that our dear ones are mortal, and that God does not always answer prayer according to our erring feelings.  I think that if, when we see ourselves in a glass, we should consider that all of us that is visible must turn to corruption and dust, we would learn more justly to appreciate the relative importance of the body that perishes and the soul that is immortal.

Quote of the Day

One reason we are so harried and hurried is that we make yesterday and tomorrow our business, when all that legitimately concerns us is today. If we really have too much to do, there are some items on the agenda which God did not put there. Let us submit the list to Him and ask Him to indicate which items we must delete. There is always time to do the will of God. If we are too busy to do that, we are too busy. 

 

Elisabeth Elliot

Quote of the Day

The will of God is not something you add to your life. It’s a course you choose. You either line yourself up with the Son of God…or you capitulate to the principle which governs the rest of the world. 

 

Elisabeth Elliot

Quote of the Day

Does it make sense to pray for guidance about the future if we are not obeying in the thing that lies before us today? How many momentous events in Scripture depended on one person's seemingly small act of obedience! Rest assured: Do what God tells you to do now, and, depend upon it, you will be shown what to do next. 

  

Elisabeth Elliot

Quote of the Day

The Screwtape Letters by C. S. Lewis tell of an older demon, Screwtape, writing to a younger demon,  Wormwood, about how to be effective in spiritually ruining people.  In his first letter Screwtape said, 'Your man has been accustomed, ever since he was a boy, to have a dozen incompatible philosophies dancing about together inside his head.  He doesn't think of doctrines as primarily 'true' or 'false,' but as 'academic' or 'practical.' Jargon, not argument, is your best ally in keeping him from the Church. Demons know that true science and reason will not contribute to their cause, which is deception.  Speculations, not facts, must fill men's minds.  All 'good' demons will use that strategy because it obscures biblical truth by focusing on temporal concerns.

John Macarthur

Quote of the Day

God's Will is only revealed to us step by step.  He reveals more as we obey what we know.  Surrender means that we are prepared to follow God's guidance, wherever or however He guides, no matter what the cost.

Eric Liddell