Great Quotes on Prayer

When we depend on man, we get what man can do; when we depend on prayer, we get what God can do. -unknown

Men may spurn our appeals, reject our message, oppose our arguments, despise our persons, but they are helpless against our prayers. -Sidlow Baxter

If we want to see mighty wonders of divine power and grace wrought in the place of weakness, failure and disappointment, let us answer God’s standing challenge, “Call unto Me, and I will answer thee, and show thee great and mighty things which thou knowest not!” –J. Hudson Taylor

Great Quotes

Rest

We do not labor to rest. That is a contradiction. We labor to enter into rest, we make it our resolute purpose, we go about it in dead earnest. But when we have ceased from our works and entered, then we rest. We make an effort to reach a vacation spot but after we arrive we rest. The Savior invites us to His rest, and we are not to live in a tense strain, holding on to it for dear life for fear “it” will slip from us. We do not keep Him, He keeps us. We are His guest, not His host, we sit at His table and we need never go away. –Vance Havner

I will never be able to out-smart the Lord.  I can give up trying.

I will never be able to hide anything from the Lord.  I can give up trying.

I will never be able to second-guess the Lord.  I can give up trying.

My ABSOLUTE WONDERFUL OPTION: (in Christ Jesus)

Completely surrender everything about myself and my circumstances to Him...
Then simply, follow the One who loves me without condition and knows what is best for me.
–Rich Davis

Great Quotes

"The Lord Jesus received is holiness begun; the Lord Jesus cherished is holiness advancing; the Lord Jesus counted upon as never absent would be holiness complete . . . . Hudson Taylor

Quite often self-complacency is shattered by some terrible fall or by repeated failure until we come to see that we have no more claim to possess goodness than a room to possess light. These things are not our own, but received from Jesus and enjoyed only in proportion as we abide in Him and He in us. I am not good, but Jesus is in me the source of goodness. I am not humble, but Jesus dwells within me, bringing every proud thought and imagination into captivity to Himself. I am not strong, but I receive Him who is made unto me wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. In absolute dependence of the Savior, we exemplify that growing sense of need that is one of the sure signs of the humble and contrite heart that God will not despise. -F.B. Meyer

If you think that there is anyone in the world so good that God could do something for that person's sake, you don't know sin; and if you think there is anything that God will not do for you for His sake and for His name, you don't know God! -A.W. Tozer

Deep Wells

Through sources like books, recordings, and the internet we have the wonderful opportunity of receiving truth from the lives of many of God’s servants. I have had the privilege of drinking from many deep wells throughout my Christian life. These wells contain the living water of the Holy Spirit and have been placed by God within men and women who have walked with Him and known His heart. From people like A. B. Simpson, F.B. Meyer, Moody, Spurgeon, Marshal, and Elliot, I received encouragement, edification, instruction, exhortation, and inspiration. From time to time I post brief insights from their ministries under the heading Great Quotes.

Although I don’t always acknowledge how these men and women of God have influenced my life and my writing, you can be assured that they have inspired me and have had a great impact upon my work. My last posting, Four Enemies of Faith, is an example of this. This topic originated, not with me, but with the quotes of two people I have read often. The first was by A.W. Tozer, and the second by E. Stanley Jones. I’d like to share those two powerful quotes with you in this posting.

Unbelief says: Some other time, but not now; some other place, but not here; some other people, but not us. Faith says: Anything He did anywhere else He will do here; anything He did any other time He is willing to do now; anything He ever did for other people He is willing to do for us! -A.W. Tozer, The Tozer Pulpit, Volume One

A minister took the first step to victory when he arose and said in a meeting: “‘I can’t’ and ‘tomorrow’ are the twin evils of my life, crippling me and my ministry. ‘I can’t do things,’ or ‘I can’t do them today’—these are the paralyzing hands laid on me.” He was on his way to victory in the honest segregation of these enemies and in the recognizing of them as such. –E. Stanley Jones, Abundant Living

Great Quotes

As a follow up to the eight part series on the cross, today’s posting features excerpts from an article written by A.W. Tozer on the subject of The Old Cross and the New.

All unannounced and mostly undetected there has come in modern times a new cross into popular evangelical circles. It is like the old cross, but different: the likenesses are superficial; the differences, fundamental.

…The new cross does not slay the sinner, it redirects him. It gears him into a cleaner and jollier way of living and saves his self-respect. To the self-assertive it says, "Come and assert yourself for Christ." To the egotist it says, "Come and do your boasting in the Lord." To the thrill-seeker it says, "Come and enjoy the thrill of Christian fellowship." The Christian message is slanted in the direction of the current vogue in order to make it acceptable to the public.

…The old cross is a symbol of death…The man in Roman times who took up his cross and started down the road had already said good-by to his friends. He was not coming back. He was going out to have it ended. The cross made no compromise, modified nothing, spared nothing; it slew all of the man, completely and for good.

 …The faith of Christ does not parallel the world, it intersects it. In coming to Christ we do not bring our old life up onto a higher plane; we leave it at the cross. The corn of wheat must fall into the ground and die…God offers life, but not an improved old life. The life He offers is life out of death. It stands always on the far side of the cross.

 What does this mean to the individual, the condemned man who would find life in Christ Jesus? How can this theology be translated into life? Simply, he must repent and believe. He must forsake his sins and then go on to forsake himself. Let him cover nothing, defend nothing, excuse nothing. ..

Having done this let him gaze with simple trust upon the risen Savior, and from Him will come life and rebirth and cleansing and power. The cross that ended the earthly life of Jesus now puts an end to the sinner; and the power that raised Christ from the dead now raises him to a new life along with Christ... Let us preach the old cross and we will know the old power.

—The Best of A. W. Tozer

Great Quotes

Let me learn—
That the way down is the way up,
That to be low is to be high,
That the broken heart is the healed heart,
That the contrite spirit is the rejoicing spirit,
That the repenting soul is the victorious soul,
That to have nothing is to possess all,
That to bear the cross is to wear the crown,
That to give is to receive,
That the valley is the place of vision.
-Puritan Prayer

More is being planned for by God than had been prayed for by us.
-S.D. Gordon

If all my members are really at His disposal, why should I be put out if today’s appointment is some simple work for my hands or errands for my feet, instead of some seemingly more important doing of head or tongue?
-F.R. Havergal

Whatever He wills becomes great to us, however seemingly trifling…we have no right to measure its importance. On the other hand, whatever He would not have us do, however important we may think it, is as nought to us. How do you know what you may lose by neglecting this duty, which you think so trifling, or the blessing which its faithful performance may bring?
-Jean Nicolas Grou

 

Great Quotes: Jesus—Ever Near, Forever Glorious

Jesus, ever near me, ever looking on; seeing my intentions before He beholds my failures; knowing my desires before He sees my faults; cheering me to endeavor greater things, and yet accepting the least; inviting my poor service, and yet, above all, content with my poorer love. The humblest and the simplest, the weakest and the most encumbered, may love Him not less than the busiest and strongest, the most gifted and laborious. If our heart be clear before Him; if He be to our chief and sovereign choice, dear above all, and beyond all desired; then all else matters little. That which concerns us He will perfect in stillness and in power. –H.E. Manning

What is highest in this world is lowest in the other, and what is highest in that world is lowest in this. Gold is on top here; they pave the streets with it there. To serve is looked upon as ignoble here; there those that serve reign and the last are first. I never saw a girl unwilling to fling away paste diamonds when she could have real stones, and when a man understands what God can be to the soul, he is independent of things he used to care for most. – F.B. Meyer

 

Great Quotes:

Thankful For All Things

Never complain of your birth, your training, your employments, your hardships; never fancy that you could be something if only you had a different lot and sphere assigned you. God understands His own plan, and He knows what you want a great deal better than you do. The very things that you most deprecate, as fatal limitations or obstructions, are probably what you most want. What you call hindrances, obstacles, discouragements, are probably God’s opportunities. –H. Bushnell

Giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Ephesians 5:20 NKJV

Thankful In All Things

Everything that Satan says against you is an argument why Christ should love you the more. I saw something like this once. There was a blacksmith, one blow of whose hand would fell the strongest antagonist in his neighborhood—a strong, broad-shouldered, glorious man. He came home where his little child was ill. She held out her trembling, thin hands to him, and brought down his big head to her low level as she lay on the bed. Then I saw that what strength cannot do, weakness can; what the strongest man in the neighborhood could not do, the little child did; she could bring her father to the dust. So your weakness will bring Christ down to your very utter most need.  –F.B. Meyer

In everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. 1 Thessalonians 5:18 NKJV

Great Quotes

It is not the multitude of hard duties, it is not constraint and contention that advance us in our Christian course. On the contrary, it is the yielding of our wills without restriction and without choice, to tread cheerfully every day in the path in which Providence leads us, to seek nothing, to be discouraged by nothing, to see our duty in the present moment, to trust all else without reserve to the will and power of God.
-Fenelon

Whatsoever, wheresoever, whensoever You please!
-R.M. M’Cheyne

The trees of the Lord are full of sap. Psalm 104:16

Without sap the tree cannot flourish or even exist. Vitality is essential to a Christian. There must be life—a vital principle infused into us by God the Holy Spirit—or we cannot be trees of the Lord. What a secret thing the sap is! The roots go searching through the soil, but we cannot see them transform the mineral into the vegetable. This work is done down in the dark. Our root is Christ Jesus, and our life is hid in Him. This is the secret of the Lord. In the Christian, the divine life is always full of energy.
-C.H. Spurgeon

Great Quotes

We would never know the music of the harp if the strings were left untouched or enjoy the juice of the grape if it were not trodden in the wine-press. We would never discover the sweet perfume of cinnamon if it were not pressed and beaten or feel the warmth of fire if the coals were not utterly consumed. The wisdom and power of the great Workman are discovered by the trials through which His vessels of mercy are permitted to pass.
-C. H. Spurgeon

Have we not seen Thy shining garment’s hem
Floating at dawn across the golden skies,
Through thin blue veils at noon, bright majesties,
Seen starry hosts delight to gem
The splendor that shall be Thy diadem?
-Amy Carmichael