Christian Quotes - Page 233

It is often the case, as all the saints know, that fellowship with the Father and the Son is most vivid and sweet, and Christian joy is greatest, when the cross is heaviest.

Do you wish to grow in grace and be a holy Christian? Then never forget the value of prayer.

Why do you increase your bonds? Take hold of your life before your light grows dark and you seek help and do not find it. This life has been given to you for repentance; do not waste it in vain pursuits.

Afflictions for God's sake are dearer to Him than any prayer or sacrifice.

...like a magnetic compass turning north, I always tried to head in the direction of the better, which is the direction to God. ...the directions that appeared to lead away from Christianity led me deeper into it.

Consider six or eight hours a day sacred to the Lord and His work, and let nothing hinder your giving this time (to language study and practice) till you can preach fluently and intelligibly.

Do not let the forces of evil take over to make this a Christian America.

Christian education is a bomb with a long fuse - it takes a while to go off.

Religion is the fruit of the Spirit, a Christian character, a true life.

The test of Christian character should be that a man is a joy-bearing agent to the world.

Christians are supposed not merely to endure change, nor even to profit by it, but to cause it.

There is no longer a Christian mind.

. . . the Christian Mind has succumbed to the secular drift with a degree of weakness unmatched in Christian History.

Christian obedience, by its very nature, has a heroic character.

Only the Christian religion, which in its essence is communicated by the eternal child of God, keeps alive in its believers the lifelong awareness of their being children, and therefore of having to ask and give thanks for things.

Christians should ultimately do everything that we do with excellence. There's a story about repairs in the Sistine Chapel ... when some repair work was being done the craftsmen saw that the work on the other side of the plaster, the part not visible to the human eye was done with the same kind of craftsmanship that was done on what was visible and observable. And the explanation for that is that the work that Christians do is not just for human consumption, but it is also for the eyes of God.

Since the hour when Christ despoiled Hades, men have danced in triumph over death.

The recovery of spiritual sight and the healing of physical blindness have much in common. Some of those whose bodily eyes were blind received their sight at once, like the man who heard and immediately saw and was healed. Others recovered their sight gradually as in the case of the man, who, before he was completely cured, said, “I see men as trees, walking”. It is the same with those whose spiritual eyes were healed.

'Now we are the sons of God'. This is the starting point of adoption. However, 'it does not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is' (I Jn. 3:2). This is the perfection of adoption of sons and renewal which God bestowed on us in Christ, and of which John says in his Gospel that, 'Christ gave power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name: which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God' (Jn. 1:12-13).

They either attach themselves to God's will, which results in their continuous progress, improvement and advancement, or they oppose God's will, are justly subjected to what He permits, and sink wretchedly from bad to worse.

Who should listen to discussions of theology? Those for whom it is a serious undertaking, not just another subject like any other for entertaining small-talk, after the races, the theater, songs, food, and sex: for there are people who count chatter on theology and clever deployment of arguments as one of their amusements.

Can anyone be a father without beginning to be one? Yes, one who did not begin his existence. What begins to exist begins to be a father - God the Father did not begin at all. He is Father in the true sense, because He is not a son as well. Just as the Son is son in the true sense, because He is not a father as well. In our case, the word 'father' cannot be truly appropriate, because we must be fathers and sons.

What is the right time [to discuss theology]? Whenever we are free from the mire and noise without, and our commanding faculty is not confused by illusory, wandering images, leading us, as it were, to mix fine script with ugly scrawling, or sweet-smelling scent with slime. We need actually 'to be still' (Ps. 46:10) in order to know God, and when we receive the opportunity, 'to judge uprightly' (Ps. 75:2) in theology.

Do not delay in coming to grace, but hasten, lest the robber outstrip you, lest the adulterer pass you by, lest the insatiate be satisfied before you, lest the murderer seize the blessing first, or the publican or the fornicator, or any of these violent ones who take the Kingdom of heaven by force (cf. Mt. 11:12). For it suffers violence willingly, and is tyrannized over through goodness.

As far as we can reach, He Who Is, and God, are the special names of His Essence; and of these especially He Who Is, not only because when He spoke to Moses in the mount, and Moses asked what His Name was, this was what He called Himself, bidding him say to the people 'I Am has sent me' (Ex. 3:14), but also because we find that this Name is the more strictly appropriate.