Quote of the Day

In the blessed Redeemer's service, not one thing is required, that is not first bestowed; not a service for which strength is not given, nor a grace tha thas not been promised.  We serve a Master, who gives us all for naught:  and we repay him only with his own.

- Caroline Fry Wilson

From the book containing her autobiography and Letters

Quote of the Day

I have been afraid to be too sanguine, lest another blow should come, but, that is wrong.  Thankfulness should not be kept in check by mistrust;  seeing that if disappointment do come, I have had proof that strength and guidance will abundantly come with it.   

  

Caroline Wilson

Quote of the Day

The grace that does not change my life will not save my soul. 

 Charles Spurgeon

Quote of the Day

The grace that does not change my life will not save my soul.

 Charles Spurgeon

Quote of the Day

Many have a certain imagination of faith. They think no farther than that faith is a thing which is in their own power to have, as do other natural works which men do. . . . But the right faith springeth not of man's fantasy, neither is it in any man's power to obtain it; but it is altogether the pure gift of God without deserving and merits, yea, without our seeking for it, even faith is God's gift and grace. . . . Faith rooteth herself in the hearts of the elect.

Is it not. . . . perverse blindness to teach how a man can do nothing of his own self, and yet presumptuously take upon them the greatest and highest work of God, even to make faith in themselves of their own power, and of their own false imaginations and thoughts?

Therefore, I say, we must despair of ourselves and pray to God to give us faith.

William Tyndale

Quote of the Day

Remember this; or you may fall into error by fixing your minds so much upon the faith which is the channel of salvation as to forget the grace which is the fountain and source even of faith itself. Faith is the work of God's grace in us. No man can say that Jesus is the Christ but by the Holy Ghost. "No man cometh unto me," saith Jesus, "except the Father which hath sent me draw him." So that faith, which is coming to Christ, is the result of divine drawing. Grace is the first and last moving cause of salvation; and faith, essential as it is, is only an important part of the machinery which grace employs. We are saved "through faith," but salvation is "by grace." Sound forth those words as with the archangel's trumpet: "By grace are ye saved." What glad tidings for the undeserving!…...Still, I again remind you that faith is only the channel or aqueduct, and not the fountainhead, and we must not look so much to it as to exalt it above the divine source of all blessing which lies in the grace of God. Never make a Christ out of your faith, nor think of as if it were the independent source of your salvation. Our life is found in "looking unto Jesus," not in looking to our own faith. By faith all things become possible to us; yet the power is not in the faith, but in the God upon whom faith relies. Grace is the powerful engine, and faith is the chain by which the carriage of the soul is attached to the great motive power. The righteousness of faith is not the moral excellence of faith, but the righteousness of Jesus Christ which faith grasps and appropriates. The peace within the soul is not derived from the contemplation of our own faith; but it comes to us from Him who is our peace, the hem of whose garment faith touches, and virtue comes out of Him into the soul.…... Think more of Him to whom you look than of the look itself. You must look away even from your own looking, and see nothing but Jesus, and the grace of God revealed in Him.

 

Charles Spurgeon

Quote of the Day

People do not drift toward holiness. Apart from grace-driven effort people do not gravitate toward godliness, prayer, obedience to Scripture, faith or delight in the Lord. We drift toward compromise and call it tolerance; toward disobedience and call it freedom; toward superstition and call it faith. We cherish the non-discipline of lost self-control and call it relaxation; we slouch toward prayerlessness and delude ourselves into thinking we have escaped legalism; we slide toward godlessness and convince ourselves we have been liberated.

D. A. Carson

Quote of the Day

So many burdened lives along the way!

My load seems lighter than the most I see,

And oft I wonder if I could be brave,

Patient and sweet if they were laid on me.

But God has never said that He would give

Another's grace without another's thorn;

What matter, since for every day of mine

Sufficient grace for me comes with the morn?

And though the future brings some heavier cross

I need not cloud the present with my fears;

I know the grace that is enough today

Will be sufficient still through all the years.

 

Annie Johnson Flint

Quote of the Day

"Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." - Mt6:34

"My grace is sufficient for thee. "- 2Co12:9

Evil shall pass with the day that brought it,

As the sea is stayed by the barrier land;

When the Giver of Good shall say, "No farther,"

And bid the foeman restrain his hand;

But the grace of the Lord outstays the evil,

Outlasts the darkness, outruns the morn,

Outwatches the stars in their nightly vigil,

And the foe that returns with the day re-born,

As he left it unwearied, shall find it unworn.

 

Annie Johnson Flint

Quote of the Day

If and when a horror turns up you will then be given Grace to help you. I don't think one is usually given it in advance. "Give us our daily bread" (not an annuity for life) applies to spiritual gifts too; the little daily support for the daily trial. Life has to be taken day by day and hour by hour.

C. S. Lewis

Quote of the Day

It is by no means pleasant when reading an interesting article in your magazine to

find yourself pulled up short with the ominous words, “to be continued.” Yet they are

words of good cheer if applied to other matters. What a comfort to remember that the

Lord’s mercy and lovingkindness is to be continued! Much as we have experienced in

the long years of our pilgrimage, we have by no means outlived eternal love.

Providential goodness is an endless chain, a stream which follows the pilgrim, a

wheel perpetually revolving, a star for ever shining, and leading us to the place

where he is who was once a babe in Bethlehem. All the volumes which record the

doings of divine grace are but part of a series to be continued.

 

Charles Spurgeon

Quote of the Day

 As Christianity spread, and the Church became more secularized, this realization of the costliness of grace gradually faded.  The world was Christianized, and grace became its common property…..The justification of the sinner in the world degenerated into the justification of sin and the world.  Costly grace was turned into cheap grace without discipleship…….It is under the influence of this kind of 'grace' that the world has been made 'Christian,' but at the cost of secularizing the Christian religion as never before…The Christian life comes to mean nothing more than living in the world and as the world, in being no different form the world, in fact, in being prohibited from being different from the world for the sake of grace.   The upshot of it all is that my only duty as a Christian is to leave the world for an hour or so on a Sunday morning and go to church to be assured that my sins are all forgiven.  I need no longer try to follow Christ, for cheap grace, the bitterest foe of discipleship, which true discipleship must loathe and detest, has freed me from that.  Grace as the data for our calculations means grace at the cheapest price, but grace as the answer to the sum means costly grace.  It is terrifying to realize what use can be made of a genuine evangelical doctrine.  In both cases we have the identical formula - 'justification by faith alone.' Yet the misuse of the formula leads to the complete destruction of its very essence.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Quote of the Day

One question frequently stops Christians in their tracks: "If the Gospel alone saves, then what about the heathen in Africa who never heard?" Can God justly convict a man who hasn't heard about Jesus? Some people hear the Gospel and reject it, but most never hear it. How can God condemn them? Christians are ill-equipped to respond because they don't really understand something vital about sin and mercy. Sin brings guilt. Mercy is a gift. Anyone who is a sinner receives punishment he deserves. Anyone who is saved receives mercy he does not deserve and which is not owed him. Think of this question: How could the sheriff send anyone to jail if he didn't offer him a pardon first? The answer is simple. If he's guilty, the sheriff is justified in throwing him in jail. There is no obligation to offer a pardon to a guilty man. The same is true of God. He can justly convict a man who has broken His law even though the sinner has heard nothing about God's pardon in Jesus. God owes no one salvation. He can offer it to whomever He wishes. That's why it's called grace.

 

Gregory Koukl

Quote of the Day

There may be circumstances in your earthly lot which at this moment are peculiarly trying.  You look around and wonder how this or that circumstance will terminate.  At present it looks very dark--clouds and mists hang over it, and you fear lest these clouds may break, not in showers upon your head, but burst forth in the lightning flash and the thunder stroke!  But all things are put in subjection under Christ's feet!  That which you dread cannot take place except by His sovereign will--nor can it move any further except by His supreme disposal.  Then make yourself quiet.  He will not allow you to be harmed.  That frowning providence shall only execute His sovereign purposes, and it shall be among those all things which, according to His promise, shall work together for your good.  None of our trials come upon us by chance!  They are all appointed in weight and measure--are all designed to fulfill a certain end.  And however painful they may at present be, yet they are intended for your good.   When the trial comes upon you, what a help it would be for you if you could view it thus, “This trial is sent for my good.  It does not spring out of the dust.  The Lord Himself is the supreme disposer of it.  It is very painful to bear; but let me believe that He has appointed me this peculiar trial, along with every other circumstance.  He will bring about His own will therein, and either remove the trial, or give me patience under it, and submission to it.

 

J. C. Philpot

Quote of the Day

I used to ask myself the question, - 'Am I afraid to die? If I should drop down dead in my room, can I say that I should joyfully close my eyes?' Well, it often happened happened that I could not honestly say so.  Is used to feel that death would be a very solemn thing.  'Ah, then!' I said, 'I have never believed in Christ, for if I had put my trust in the Lord Jesus, I should not be afraid to die, but I should be quite confident.'  I do not doubt that many a person is saying, 'I cannot follow Christ, because I am afraid to die; I cannot believe that Jesus Christ will save me, because the thought of death makes me tremble.' Ah, poor soul, there are many of God's blessed ones, who through fear of death have been much of their lifetime subject to bondage!  ...I know that, when he gets more grace he will rejoice at the thought of death; but I do know that there are many quite safe, who will die rejoicing in Christ, who now, in the prospect of death, feel afraid of it.  My aged grandfather once preached a sermon which I have not yet forgotten.  He was preaching from the text, 'The God of all grace,' and he somewhat interested the assembly, after describing the different kinds of grace that God gave, by saying at the end of each period, 'But there is one kind of grace that you do not want.'  After each part of his theme, there came the like sentence, 'But there is one kind of grace you do not want.'  And then he wound up by saying, 'You don't want dying grace in living moments, but you shall have dying grace when you need it.  When you are in the condition to require it, you shall have grace enough if you put your trust in Christ.'  In a party of friends, we were discussing the question whether, if the days of martyrdom should come, we were prepared to be burned.  I said, 'I must frankly tell you that, speaking as I feel to-day, I am not prepared to be burned; but I do believe that, if there were a stake at Smithfield, and I knew that I was to be burned there at one o'clock, I should have grace enough to be burned there when one o'clock came.'

 

C. H. Spurgeon

Quote of the Day

1. Father, long before creation

Thou hadst chosen us in love,

And that love so deep, so moving,

Draws us close to Christ above.

Still it keeps us, still it keeps us

Firmly fixed in Christ alone.

2. Though the world may change its fashion,

Yet our God is e'er the same;

His compassion and His covenant

Through all ages will remain.

God's own children,

God's own children

Must forever praise His name.

3. God's compassion is my story,

Is my boasting all the day;

Mercy free and never failing

Moves my will, directs my way.

God so loved us,

God so loved us

That His only Son He gave.

4. Loving Father now before Thee

We will ever praise Thy love,

And our songs will sound unceasing

'Til we reach our home above,

Giving glory,

giving glory

To our God and to the Lamb.

Chinese Hymn written in c. 1952 during the Cultural Revolution, a time of brutal persecution for Chinese Christians.

Quote of the Day

It is not the level of our spirituality that we can depend on. It is God and nothing less than God, for the work is God's and the call is God's and everything is summoned by Him and to His purposes, the whole scene, the whole mess, the whole package - our bravery and our cowardice, our love and our selfishness, our strengths and our weaknesses. The God who could take a murderer like Moses and an adulterer like David and a traitor like Peter and make of them strong servants of His is a God who can also redeem savage Indians, using as instruments of His peace a conglomeration of sinners who sometimes look like heroes and sometimes like villains, for "we are no better than pots of earthenware to contain this treasure [the revelation of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ], and this proves that such transcendent power does not come from us, but is God's alone"(2 Cor. 4:7, NEB).

We are not always sure where the horizon is. We would not know which end is up were it not for the shimmering pathway of light falling on the white sea. The One who laid the earth's foundations and settled its dimensions knows where the lines are drawn. He gives all the light we need for trust and for obedience.

 

Elisabeth Elliot

Quote of the Day

True liberty consists only in the power of doing what we ought to will, and in not being constrained to do what we ought not to will.

 

Jonathan Edwards

Quote Of The Day

Cheap grace means grace as a doctrine, a principle, a system. It means forgiveness of sins proclaimed as a general truth, the love of God taught as the Christian "conception" of God. An intellectual assent to that idea is held to be of itself sufficient to secure remission of sins. The church which holds the correct doctrine of grace has, it is supposed, ipso facto a part of that grace. In such a Church the world finds a cheap covering for its sins; no contrition is required, still less any real desire to be delivered from sin. Cheap grace therefore amounts to a denial of the living Word of God, in fact, a denial of the Incarnation of the Word of God. Cheap grace means the justification of sin without the justification of the sinner. Grace alone does everything, they say, and so everything can remain as it was before. 

Dietrich Bonhoeffer