Think of the guilt of sin, that you may be humbled. Think of the power of sin, that you may seek strength against it. Think not of the matter of sin...lest you be more and more entangled.
The house built on the sand may oftentimes be built higher, have more fair parapets and battlements, windows and ornaments, than that which is built upon the rock; yet all gifts and privileges equal not one grace.
The person who never meditates with delight on the glory of Christ in the Scriptures now will not have any real desire to see that glory in heaven. What sort of faith and love do people have who find time to think about many other things but make no time for meditating on this glorious subject?
Topics: Meditation Source: Meditation on the Glory of Christ, 1684, ch. 3.
We cannot enjoy peace in this world unless we are ready to yield to the will of God in respect of death. Our times are in His hand, at His sovereign disposal. We must accept that as best.
Topics: Peace, Death Source: Meditation on the Glory of Christ, 1684, Preface.
Your state is not at all to be measured by the opposition that sin makes to you, but by the opposition you make to it.
The choicest believers, who are assuredly freed from the condemning power of sin, ought yet to make it their business all their days to [put to death] the indwelling power of sin.
When someone acts weak, negligent, or casual in a duty - performing it carelessly or lifelessly, without any genuine satisfaction, joy, or interest - he has already entered into the spirit that will lead him into trouble. How many we see today who have departed from warmhearted service and have become negligent, careless, and indifferent in their prayer life or in the reading of the Scriptures. For each one who escapes this peril, a hundred others will be ensnared. Then it may be too late to acknowledge, "I neglected private prayer," or "I did not meditate on God's Word," or "I did not hear what I should have listened to."
All thing I thought I knew; but now confess, the more I know I know, I know the less.