Sinclair B. Ferguson Quotes - Page 3

True faith takes its character and quality from its object. Its strength therefore depends on the character of Christ. Even those of us who have weak faith have the same strong Christ as others!

We are far too good at analyzing what is wrong with the culture and far too myopic at analyzing what is wrong in the church.

This, then, is the foundation of sanctification in Reformed theology. It is rooted, not in humanity and their achievement of holiness or sanctification, but in what God has done in Christ, and for us in union with him. Rather than view Christians first and foremost in the microcosmic context of their own progress, the Reformed doctrine first of all sets them in the macrocosm of God's activity in redemptive history. It is seeing oneself in this context that enables the individual Christian to grow in true holiness.

The real test that I believe that God is love is that tragedies don't separate me from the conviction that God is love.

Don't tell me that you have a Reformed Church in the tradition of Calvin until you have the preaching of the Word every day of the week, devote Wednesday's to prayer and have the church gather together for prayer.

The conviction that Christian doctrine matters for Christian living is one of the most important growth points of the Christian life.

God's guidance will require patience on our part. His leading is not usually a direct assurance, a revelation, but His sovereign controlling of the circumstances of our lives, with the Word of God as our rule. It is therefore, inevitable that the unfolding of His purposes will take time - sometimes a very long time.

If you are justified, you can no more be unjustified than Christ can be pulled down from heaven.

It's the centrality of the Word and not the person who preaches it that's important.

The foundation of worship in the heart is not emotional...it is theological.

God's promises are not fortune cookies. We do not use them in order to get a spiritual "fix" for the day.

We [should not] make the mistake of thinking that marriage will provide the ultimate satisfaction for which we all hunger. To assume so would be to be guilty of blasphemy. Only God satisfies the hungry heart. Marriage is but one of the channels He uses to enable us to taste how deeply satisfying His thirst-quenching grace can be.

No one can will the will to will what it will not will!

Jesus has a special, compassionate concern for those who are broken and needy.

Twentieth-century man needs to be reminded at times that work is not the result of the Fall. Man was made to work, because the God who made him was a 'working God.' Man was made to be creative, with his mind and his hands. Work is part of the dignity of his existence.

Those who are most conscious of forgiveness are invariably those who have been most acutely convicted of their sin.

It is God who gives us the spirit of worship (Psalm 133:3), and it is what we know of God that produces this spirit of worship. We might say that worship is simply theology, doctrine, what we think about God, going into top gear! Instead of merely thinking about Him, we tell Him, in prayer and praise and song, how great and glorious we believe Him to be!

Regeneration, however it is described, is a divine activity in us, in which we are not the actors but the recipients.

God made everything else but man "after its kind"' - that is, according to the purpose and destiny he envisaged for it. But he made man in His own image. Man is patterned on God! He was made to represent God - in created, human form.

Failure to deal with the presence of sin can often be traced back to spiritual amnesia – forgetting our new, true, real identity. As a believer, I am someone who has been delivered from the dominion of sin and who therefore is free and motivated to fight against the remnants of sin in my heart. You must know, rest in, think through, and act upon your new identity – you are in Christ

You do not become a master musician by playing just as you please, by imagining that learning the scales is sheer legalism and bondage! No, true freedom in any area of life is the consequence of regular discipline. It is no less true of the life of prayer.

If you desire anything less for yourself than absolute obedience to God, a life of total devotion to the Lord, a life of absolute sin-less-ness - if you desire anything less, you are fighting against God's desire for you.

The goal of theology is the worship of God. The posture of theology is on one's knees. The mode of theology is repentance.

Christianity is Christ because there isn't anything else. There is no atonement that somehow can be detached from who the Lord Jesus is. There is no grace that can be attached to you transferred from Him. All there is, is Christ and your soul.

The notion that we are children of God, his own sons and daughters, lies at the heart of all Christian theology, and is the mainspring of all Christian living.