John Owen Quotes

If we do not abide in prayer, we will abide in temptation.

Satan's greatest success is in making people think they have plenty of time before they die to consider their eternal welfare.

The duties God requires of us are not in proportion to the strength we possess in ourselves. Rather, they are proportional to the resources available to us in Christ. We do not have the ability in ourselves to accomplish the least of God's tasks. This is the law of grace. When we recognize it is impossible for us to perform a duty in our own strength, we will discover the secret of its accomplishment.

If private revelations agree with Scripture, they are needless, and if they disagree, they are false.

We are never nearer Christ than when we find ourselves lost in a holy amazement at His unspeakable love.

The person who understands the evil in his own heart is the only person who is useful, fruitful, and solid in his beliefs and obedience. Others only delude themselves and thus upset families, churches, and all other relationships. In their self-pride and judgment of others, they show great inconsistency.

I do not understand how a man can be a true believer, in whom sin is not the greatest burden, sorrow and trouble.

Be killing sin or it will be killing you.

The growth of trees and plants takes place so slowly that it is not easily seen. Daily we notice little change. But, in course of time, we see that a great change has taken place. So it is with grace. Sanctification is a progressive, lifelong work (Prov 4:18). It is an amazing work of God's grace and it is a work to be prayed for (Rom 8:27).

Let our hearts admit, “I am poor and weak. Satan is too subtle, too cunning, too powerful; he watches constantly for advantages over my soul. The world presses in upon me with all sorts of pressures, pleas, and pretences. My own corruption is violent, tumultuous, enticing, and entangling. As it conceives sin, it wars within me and against me. Occasions and opportunities for temptation are innumerable. No wonder I do not know how deeply involved I have been with sin. Therefore, on God alone will I rely for my keeping. I will continually look to Him.

Fill your affections with the cross of Christ that there may be no room for sin.

If the Word does not dwell with power in us, it will not pass with power from us.

To those to whom Christ is the hope of future glory, he is also the life of present grace.

The more I see of the glory of Christ, the more the painted beauties of this world will wither in my eyes.

The greatest sorrow and burden you can lay on the Father, the greatest unkindness you can do to him is not to believe that he loves you.

Every time we say we believe in the Holy Spirit, we mean we believe that there is a living God able and willing to enter human personality and change it.

Christ did not die for any upon condition, if they do believe; but He died for all God's elect, that they should believe.

When the Holy Spirit sanctifies believers, he does a complete work in them. He puts into their minds, wills and hearts a gracious, supernatural principle which fills them with a holy desire to live to God. The whole life and being of holiness lies in this. This is the new creation.

We shall not benefit from reading the Old Testament unless we look for and meditate on the glory of Christ in its pages.

We must not be concerned only with that which troubles us, but with all that troubles God.

We can have no power from Christ unless we live in a persuasion that we have none of our own.

He who prays as he ought will endeavor to live as he prays.

Because he is; that is, because he is an infinitely glorious, good, wise, holy, powerful, righteous, self-subsisting , self-sufficient , and all-sufficient being; the fountain and author of all being and good; the first cause, last end, and sovereign Lord of all; therefore, he is to be worshipped: therefore, are we to admire, adore, and love him; to praise, to trust and to fear him.

The foundation of true holiness and true Christian worship is the doctrine of the gospel, what we are to believe. So when Christian doctrine is neglected, forsaken, or corrupted, true holiness and worship will also be neglected, forsaken, and corrupted.

Christ's blood is the great sovereign remedy for sin-sick souls.