Familiarity with the form of religion, while we neglect its reality, has a fearfully deadening effect on the conscience. It brings up by degrees a thick crust of insensibility over the whole inner man. None seem to become so desperately hard as those who are continually repeating holy words and handling holy things, while their hearts are running after sin and the world.
~ J.C. Ryle (1816-1900)
We ask you, Master, be our helper and defender. Rescue those of our number in distress; raise up the fallen; assist the needy; heal the sick; turn back those of your people who stray; feed the hungry; release our captives; revive the weak; encourage those who lose heart. Let all the nations realize that you are the only God, that Jesus Christ is your Child, and that we are your people and the sheep of your pasture.
~ Prayer of Clement of Rome (c.96)
Jesus Christ is the center of everything, and the object of everything and he that does not know Him knows nothing of nature and nothing of himself.
~ Blaise Pascal (1623-1682)
Much of the feebleness, barrenness and paucity of religion results from the failure to have a scriptural and reasonable standard in religion, by which to shape character and measure results. We cannot possibly mark our advances in religion if there is no point to which we are definitely advancing. Always there must be something definite before the mind’s eye at which we are aiming and to which we are driving. Many Christians are disjointed and aimless because they have no pattern before them after which conduct and character are to be shaped. They just move on aimlessly, their minds in a cloudy state, no pattern in view, no point in sight, no standard after which they are striving. There is no standard by which to value and gauge their efforts. No magnet is there to fill their eyes, quicken their steps, and to draw them and keep them steady. In religion, we must not only go on. We must know where we are going. This is all important. It is essential that in going on in religious experience, we have something definite in view, and strike out for that one point.
~ E.M. Bounds (1835-1913)
True Christianity is not merely the believing a certain set of dry abstract propositions: it is to live in daily personal communication with an actual living person – Jesus the Son of God.
~ J.C. Ryle (1816-1900)
If you have ever given much thought to this present world in which we live, you have some idea of the power of interpretation. The world is a stable fact, quite unchanged by the passing of years, but how different is modern man’s view of the world from the view our fathers held. The world is for all of us not only what it is; it is what we believe it to be, and a tremendous load of wealth or woe rides on the soundness of our interpretation! In the earlier days, when Christianity exercised a dominant influence over American thinking, men conceded this world to be a battleground. Man, so our fathers held, had to choose sides. He could not be neutral-for him it must be life or death, heaven or hell! In our day, the interpretation has changed completely. We are not here to fight, but to frolic! We are not in a hostile foreign land; we are at home! It now becomes the bounden duty of every Christian to reexamine his spiritual philosophy in the light of the Bible. So much depends on this that we cannot afford to be careless about it!
~ A.W. Tozer (1897-1963)
“Then they told him, and said: “We went to the land where you sent us. It truly flows with milk and honey…'”
~ Number 13:27 (NKJV)
The promised land of Canaan was truly an amazing place. Yet it was filled with a mighty and powerful people. It would not come to the Israelites easily, but it would come to them surely for the Lord God had determined it for the good of His people. Anywhere God sends us will be a place filled with milk and honey. God is good and faithful. And the manifestations of His love, grace and mercy are realized in the wonderful blessings His people receive from His kind hand. Though the Christian life may not always be easy, our trials are for our good and eventually lead us to our spiritual and eternal land flowing with God’s milk and honey.
~ apl
“The wicked are overthrown and are no more, But the house of the righteous will stand.”
Proverbs 12:7
The contrast between the wicked and the righteous found in this Proverb is obvious. On that great and awful Day, a final reckoning will occur when the Lord of heaven and earth lays down His final judgment and those who are found wallowing in wickedness will be overthrown and eternally condemned. While those who have taken their shelter in the household of Faith, in the covering of Christ, will stand with Him and enjoy His everlasting blessing forever more. Pray for God’s mercy upon your soul and the souls of others.
A Prayer Life 