 Holiness is not something we are called upon to do in order that we may become something; it is something we are to do because of what we already are. Topics: Holiness |
| Love is not just a sentiment. Love is a great controlling passion and it always expresses itself in terms of obedience. Topics: Love, Obedience |
| Human will-power alone is not enough. Will-power is excellent and we should always be using it; but it is not enough. A desire to live a good life is not enough. Obviously we should all have that desire, but it will not guarantee success. So let me put it thus: Hold on to your principles of morality and ethics, use your willpower to the limit, pay great heed to every noble, uplifting desire that is in you; but realize that these things alone are not enough, that they will never bring you to the desired place. We have to realize that all our best is totally inadequate, that a spiritual battle must be fought in a spiritual manner. Topics: Morality |
| The divine Instructor has taken us under his wing and he is putting us through our exercises so that hands which hang down can be lifted up, and feet are straightened out, and a lame man is helped to walk. The Instructor is saying such things as, now "Keep moving, don't let yourself get stiff, keep the joints moving, keep them as supple as you can. Topics: Perseverance |
| Prayer, in many ways, is the supreme expression of our faith in God. Topics: Prayer |
| Always respond to every impulse to pray. The impulse to pray may come when you are reading or when you are battling with a text. I would make an absolute law of this always obey such an impulse. Topics: Prayer |
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| Give yourself to it,[the call to prayer] yield to it; and you will find not only that you have not been wasting time with respect to the matter with which you are dealing but that actually it has helped you greatly in that respect. You will experience an ease and a facility in understanding what you were reading, in thinking, in ordering matter for a sermon, in writing, in everything which is quite astonishing. Such a call to prayer must never be regarded as a distraction; always respond to it immediately, and thank God if it happens to you frequently. Topics: Prayer |
| We should go into His presence as a child goes to his father. We do it with reverence and godly fear, of course, but we should go with a childlike confidence and simplicity. Topics: Prayer |
| The work of preaching is the highest and greatest and most glorious calling to which anyone can ever be called. Topics: Preaching |
| What is the chief end of preaching? I like to think it is this: It is to give men and women a sense of God and His presence. Topics: Preaching |
| There is all the difference in the world between preaching merely from human understanding and energy, and preaching in the conscious smile of God. Topics: Preaching |
| Be natural; forget yourself; be so absorbed in what you are doing and in the realisation of the presence of God, and in the glory and the greatness of the Truth that you are preaching, and the occasion that brings you together, that you forget yourself completely. That is the right condition; that is the only place of safety; that is the only way in which you can honour God. Self is the greatest enemy of the preacher, more so than in the case of any other man in society. And the only way to deal with self is to be so taken up with, and so enraptured by, the glory of what you are doing, that you forget yourself altogether. Topics: Preaching |
