Christian Quotations of the Day
for July, 1996
Commemoration of John & Henry Venn, Priests, Evangelical Divines, 1813, 1873
The truth is that the only key to the Christian life is the life of Christ; that the only solution to the many problems that thicken round our lives as we live them is to be found in the study of His life as He lived it; and that we shall never begin to understand what we ourselves are until we have begun to understand what He is.
... R. H. J. Steuart
Lord, remove every barrier the enemy has put in place, so that the only barrier which remains is the cross itself.
... Jon Reid
[With thanks to Greg Tyler, Aiken, South Carolina]
Feast of Thomas the Apostle
Good when He gives, supremely good;
Nor less when He denies:
Afflictions, from His sovereign hand,
Are blessings in disguise.
... Brother Lawrence, The Practice of the Presence of God
[With thanks to Glen Mc Wherter]
The childish idea that prayer is a handle by which we can take hold of God and obtain whatever we desire, leads to easy disillusionment with both what we had thought to be God and what we had thought to be prayer.
... Robert L. Short
But what is worship? What ought to result from it? What is the point and peak and heart and centre of it? Is it the offering we bring to God of praise and adoration, of thanksgiving and sacrifice, our praise, our sacrifice to Him? That has its place, not legitimate only, but imperative. And yet to put that in the foreground is to make the service fundamentally man-centered and subjective, which, face to face with God, is surely almost unthinkably unseemly. Or is the ideal we should hold before us that other extreme, so ardently pressed on us these days, that, face to face with the Lord God Almighty, High and Holy, it is for us to forget ourselves and -- leaving behind our petty little human joys and needs and sins and risings above thanksgiving and petition and confession -- to lose ourselves in an awed adoration of God's naked and essential being, blessing and praising Him, not even for what he has done for us, and been for us, but for what, in Himself, He is. To me, that seems not an advance, but a pathetic throw-back to the primitive of Brahmanism. We shall not learn to know God better, nor how to worship Him more worthily, by careful rubbing out from memory every wonder of Christ's revelation of Him. [Excerpt continued tomorrow.]
... A. J. Gossip, Experience Worketh Hope
Feast of Thomas More, Scholar & Martyr, &
John Fisher, Bishop & Martyr, 1535
The redeemed in Heaven crying continually, "Unto Him that loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood," give, say the scriptures, an adoration which, in depth and fullness, no angel of them all can ever equal. Yet even then, we have not reached the centre. For when we worship, we are in God's presence, and it is what He says and does to us that is the all-important thing, not what we say and do toward Him. Since He is here and speaking to us, face to face, it is for us, in a hush of spirit, to listen for and to His voice, reproving counseling, encouraging, revealing His most blessed will for us; and, with diligence, to set about immediate obedience. This and this, upon which He has laid His hand, must go; and this and this to which He calls us must be at once begun. And here and now I start to it. That is the heart of worship, its very core and essence.
... A. J. Gossip, Experience Worketh Hope
The test of life are to make, not break us. Trouble may demolish a man's business but build up his character. The blow at the outward man may be the greatest blessing to the inner man. If God, then, puts or permits anything hard in our lives, be sure that the real peril, the real trouble, is that we shall lose if we flinch or rebel.
... Maltbie D. Babcock
I do not know a warning that I judge more necessary to be given to those who are called this day, than to charge them not to trade too much with their natural gifts, and abilities, and learning. These are talents in their kind; but it is the Spirit that must manage all that learning they have, or it will prejudice them, and you also. I have known some good men who have been so addicted to their study, that they have thought the last day of the week sufficient to prepare for their ministry, though they employ all the rest of the week in other studies. But you business is to trade with your spiritual abilities... A man may preach a very good sermon, who is otherwise himself; but he will never make a good minister of Jesus Christ, whose mind and heart [are] not always in the work. Spiritual gifts will require continual ruminating on the things of the Gospel in our minds.
... John Owen, An Ordination Sermon
Ten thousand difficulties do not make one doubt.
... John Henry Cardinal Newman
Picture God as saying to you, "My son, why is it that day by day you rise,
and pray, and genuflect, and even strike the ground with your forehead, nay
sometimes even shed tears, while you say to Me: 'My Father, give me wealth!'
If I were to give it to you, you would think yourself of some importance,
you would fancy that you had gained something very great. Because you asked
for it, you have it. But take care to make good use of it. Before you had
it, you were humble; now that you have begun to be rich you despise the
poor. What kind of a good is that which only makes you worse? For worse
you are, since you were bad already. And that it would make you worse you
knew not; hence you asked it of Me. I gave it to you, and I proved you; you
have found -- and you have found out! Ask of Me better things than these,
greater things than these. Ask of Me spiritual things. Ask of Me Myself!"
... St. Augustine
Feast of Benedict of Nursia, Father of Western Monasticism, c.550
In a Christian community, everything depends upon whether each individual is
an indispensable link in a chain. Only when even the smallest link is
securely interlocked is the chain unbreakable. A community which allows
unemployed members to exist within it will perish because of them. It will
be well, therefore, if every member receives a definite task to perform for
the community, that he may know in hours of doubt that he, too, is not
useless and unusable. Every Christian community must realize that not only
do the weak need the strong, but also that the strong cannot exist without
the weak. The elimination of the weak is the death of the fellowship.
... Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together
... Also see comments on this book in Bookworms
Though the light and comfort of the outward world keeps even the worst men from any constant strong sensibility of that wrathful, fiery, dark and self-tormenting nature that is the very essence of every fallen unregenerate soul, yet every man in the world has more or less frequent and strong intimations given him that so it is with him in the inmost ground of his soul. How many inventions are some people forced to have recourse to in order to keep off a certain inward uneasiness, which they are afraid of and know not whence it comes? Alas, it is because there is a fallen spirit, a dark, aching fire, within them, which has never had its proper relief and is trying to discover itself and calling out for help at every cessation of worldly joy.
... William Law, Christian Regeneration
Here is the Truth in a little creed,
Enough for all the roads we go:
In Love is all the law we need,
In Christ is all the God we know.
... Edwin Markham
Feast of John Keble, Priest, Poet, Tractarian, 1866
We are born knowing nothing and with much striving we learn but a little; yet all the while we are bound by laws that hearken to no plea of ignorance, and measure out their rewards and punishments with calm indifference. In such a state, humility is the virtue of men, and their only defense; to walk humbly with God, never doubting, whatever befall, that His will is good, and that His law is right.
... Paul Elmer More, Pages from an Oxford Diary
Commemoration of Swithun, Bishop of Winchester, c.862
Commemoration of Bonaventure, Franciscan Friar, Bishop, Peacemaker, 1274
The Christ of God was not then first crucified when the Jews brought Him to the Cross; but Adam and Eve were His first real murderers; for the death which happened to them in the day when they did eat of the earthly tree was the death of the Christ of God or the divine life in their souls. For Christ had never come into the world as a second Adam to redeem it, had He not been originally the life and perfection and glory of the first Adam.
... William Law, The Spirit of Love
Commemoration of Osmund, Bishop of Salisbury, 1099
What does this desire and this inability of ours proclaim to us but that there was once in man a genuine happiness, of which nothing now survives but the mark and the empty outline; and this he vainly tries to fill from everything that lies around him, seeking from things that are not there the help that he does not get from those that are present? Yet they are quite incapable of filling the gap, because this infinite gulf can only be filled by an infinite and immutable object -- that is, God, Himself. He alone is man's veritable good, and since man has deserted Him it is a strange thing that there is nothing in nature that has not been capable of taking His place for man: stars, sky, earth, elements, plants, cabbages, leeks, animals, insects, calves, serpents, fever, plague, war, famine, vices, adultery, incest. And since he has lost the true good, everything can equally appear to him as such -- even his own destruction, though that is so contrary at once to God, to reason, and to nature.
... Blaise Pascal, Pensée
However high be your endeavors, unless you renounce and subjugate your own will -- unless you forget yourself and all that pertains to yourself -- not one step will you advance on the road to perfection.
... John of the Cross
Above all, it is not necessary that we should have any unexpected, extraordinary experiences in meditation. This can happen, but if it does not, it is not a sign that the meditation period has been useless. Not only at the beginning, but repeatedly, there will be times when we feel a great spiritual dryness and apathy, an aversion, even an inability to meditate. We dare not be balked by such experiences. Above all, we must not allow them to keep us from adhering to our meditation period with great patience and fidelity.
It is, therefore, not good for us to take too seriously the many untoward experiences we have with ourselves in meditation. It is here that our old vanity and our illicit claims upon God may creep in by a pious detour, as if it were our right to have nothing but elevating and fruitful experiences, and as if the discovery of our own inner poverty were quite beneath our dignity. With that attitude, we shall make no progress.
... Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together
... Also see comments on this book in Bookworms
Feast of Gregory, Bishop of Nyssa, & his sister Macrina, Teachers, c.394 & c.379
It is a singularly unpleasant thought that a book about Holy Communion is more likely to produce disagreement and controversy than one written on almost any other Christian subject. It seems a truly terrible thing that this Sacred Appointment, which was surely meant to unite, in actual practice divides Christians more sharply than any other part of their worship. Christians of various denominations may, and frequently do, work together on social projects, they may study the Scripture together, and they may ... pray together. But the moment attendance at the Lord's Table is suggested, up go the denominational barriers... I would make a strong plea that we do not exclude from the Lord's Table in our Church those who are undoubtedly sincere Christians. I cannot believe that to communicate together with our Lord should be regarded as the consummation, the final pinnacle, of the whole vast work of Reunion. Suppose it is the means and not the end. We might feel far more sharply the sin of our divisions and of our exclusiveness if we came humbly together to receive the Body and Blood of our Lord, and in that reception we might find such a quickening of our common devotion to Him that the divisions between us might be found not nearly so insuperable as we supposed.
... J. B. Phillips, Appointment with God
Commemoration of Bartolomè de las Casas, Apostle to the Indies, 1566
God hath work to do in this world; and to desert it because of its difficulties and entanglements, is to cast off His authority. It is not enough that we be just, that we be righteous, and walk with God in holiness; but we must also serve our generation, as David did before he fell asleep. God hath a work to do; and not to help Him is to oppose Him.
... John Owen
Mass evangelism undoubtedly has its place; parochial missions can make their contribution; a specially gifted evangelist can proclaim his message; the specialist Christian can make his contribution in factory, in politics and in teaching; all these are genuine contributions to the evangelistic activity of the Christian Church: but in the last analysis it is the worshipping community, that part of the Body of Christ that worships, lives and proclaims the Gospel in all its activities in any given neighborhood, which is the real evangelising agent used by the Spirit of God. It is here amongst the people, that the Church must worship and live its life. If it is faithful both to God and to its Gospel, it will be used to hold forth the Word of light to the conversion of those that see and hear. But if its light is hid, then wherewith shall the neighborhood be lighted?
... Bryan Green, The Practice of Evangelism
Feast of Mary Magdalen, Apostle to the Apostles
We are so farre off from condemning any of their labours that traveiled before us in this kinds, either in this land or beyond sea, ... that we acknowledge them to have been raised up of God, ... and that they deserve to be had of us and of posteritie in everlasting remembrance... Therefore blessed be they, and most honoured be their name, that breake the yce and give the onset upon that which helpeth forward to the saving of soules. Now what can be more available thereto, than to deliver Gods booke unto the Gods people in a tongue which they understand? ... So if we, building upon their foundation that went before us, and being holpen by their labours, doe endeavor to make that better which they left so good; no man, we are sure, has cause to mislike us; they, we persuade ourselves, if they were alive, would thank us. For is the Kingdom of God become words or syllables? Why should we be in bondage to them if we may be free? [Some antique spelling fixed -- Ed.]
... Miles Smith, preface to the King James Bible
Commemoration of Bridget of Sweden, Abbess of Vadstena, 1373
The witness has never failed. Repeatedly, the light has shone forth in the darkness, held aloft by hands that perished in the destruction of the institution that failed. Christians tend to defend the institution of their own creation with tenacity. It is institutional Christianity that has often shackled the Church... Many of the missionary institutions of the Church are expendable. They should always be treated as expendable.
... Leonard M. Outerbridge, The Lost Churches of China
Commemoration of Thomas à Kempis, priest, spiritual writer, 1471
Men stand much upon the title of 'orthodox', by which is usually understood, not believing the doctrine of Christ or His apostles, but such opinions as are in vogue among such a party, such systems of divinity as have been compiled in haste by those whom we have in admiration; and whatever is not consonant to these little bodies of divinity, tho' possibly it agree well enough with the Word of God, is error and heresy; and whoever maintains it can hardly pass for a Christian among some angry and perverse people. I do not intend to plead for any error, but I would not have Christianity chiefly measured by matters of opinion. I know no such error and heresy as a wicked life... Of the two, I have more hopes of him that denies the divinity of Christ and lives otherwise soberly and righteously and godly in the world, than of the man who owns Christ to be the Son of God and lives like a child of the devil.
... John Tillotson, Sermons
Feast of James the Apostle
It is not in our life that God's help and presence must still be proved, but rather God's presence and help have been demonstrated for us in the life of Jesus Christ. It is, in fact, more important for us to know what God did to Israel and to His Son Jesus Christ, than to seek what God intends for us today.
... Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Commemoration of Anne & Joachim, parents of the Blessed Virgin Mary
If the Holy Spirit can take over the subconscious with our consent and cooperation, then we have almighty Power working at the basis of our lives, then we can do anything we ought to do, go anywhere we ought to go, and be anything we ought to be. Life is supplied with a basic adequacy... The conscious mind determines the actions, the unconscious mind determines the reactions; and the reactions are just as important as the actions. Many Christians are Christians in their actions -- they don't lie, steal, commit adultery, or get drunk; but they react badly to what happens to them: they react in anger, bad temper, self-pity, jealousy, and envy... When the depths are upheld by the Holy Spirit, then the reaction is Christian.
... E. Stanley Jones, Conversion
Commemoration of Brooke Foss Westcott, Bishop of Durham, Teacher, 1901
As a good Christian should consider every place as holy, because God is there, so he should look upon every part of his life as a matter of holiness, because it is offered unto God. The profession of a clergyman is a holy profession, because it is a ministration in holy things, an attendance at the alter. But worldly business is to be made holy unto the Lord, by being done as a service unto Him, and in conformity to His Divine will.
... William Law, A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life
Commemoration of Johann Sebastian Bach, musician, 1750
Humility and love are precisely the graces which the men of the world can understand, if they do not comprehend doctrines. They are the graces about which there is no mystery, and they are within reach of all classes... [The poorest] Christian can every day find occasion for practicing love and humility.
... J. C. Ryle
Feast of Mary, Martha & Lazarus, Companions of Our Lord
There is a covenant, ... and God is faithful to His covenant. But the substance of that covenant is all pure mercy and grace. If men presume to claim for themselves, upon the basis of the covenant, some relationship with God other than that of the sinner needing God's grace, the covenant has been perverted. And when that has happened, God, in the sovereign freedom of His grace, destroy these pretensions, calls "No people" to be His people, breaks off natural branches and grafts in wild slips, filling them with the life that is His own life imparted to man. There is no law in His Kingdom save the law of pure grace. That is why they come from east and west to sit down with Abraham and Isaac, while the sons of the Kingdom are cast out; for the sons of the Kingdom have no place there unless they are willing to sit down with all whom the Lord of the feast shall call, and to receive His mercy in exactly the same way as the publicans and sinners.
... Lesslie Newbigin,
The Household of God
Commemoration of William Wilberforce, Social Reformer, 1833
Rejoice in God, O ye tongues; give the glory to the Lord, and the Lamb.
Nations, and languages, and every creature, in which is the breath of Life.
Let man and beast appear before him, and magnify his name together.
Let Noah and his company approach the throne of Grace, and do homage to the Ark of their Salvation.
Let Abraham present a Ram, and worship the God of his Redemption.
Let Jacob with his speckled Drove adore the good Shepherd of Israel.
...
Let Daniel come forth with a Lion, and praise God with all his might, through faith in Christ Jesus.
...
Let David bless with the bear --
The beginning of victory to the Lord --
to the Lord the perfection of excellence --
Hallelujah from the heart of God, and from the hand of the artist inimitable, and from the echo of the heavenly harp in sweetness magnifical and mighty.
... Christopher Smart, Jubilate Agno
Compilation Copyright, 1996-2008, by Robert McAnally Adams,
Curator, Christian Quotation of the Day.
Logo image Copyright 1996 by Shay Barsabe, "Simple
GIFs", by kind permission.