Category: Quotes

    All of God’s revealed truths are sealed until they are opened to us through obedience. You will never open them through philosophy or thinking. But once you obey, a flash of light comes immediately.
    …If you obey God in the first thing He shows you, then He instantly opens up the next truth to you. You could read volumes on the work of the Holy Spirit, when five minutes of total, uncompromising obedience would make things as clear as sunlight. Don’t say, “I suppose I will understand these things someday!” You can understand them now. And it is not study that brings understanding to you, but obedience.
    Even the smallest bit of obedience opens heaven, and the deepest truths of God immediately become yours. Yet God will never reveal more truth about Himself to you, until you have obeyed what you know already.
–Oswald Chambers

Don’t ask God what He wants you to do next, until you have obeyed Him in all you know He wants you to do now.
Obey each newly revealed truth, so that God continues to open new truths to you day-by-day.

As Elton Trueblood has observed, all the major symbols that Jesus used had a severe, even offensive quality:

“Count the cost,” Jesus said, giving fair warning to any who dared follow him.
–Philip Yancey

Jesus makes it clear – to follow Him will cost you dearly.
It requires a change in how you think, how you speak, and how you act.
But it is worth it.
Give all of you over to all of Him!
You won’t be disappointed.
Instead you will discover abundant life.

Do not place much confidence in weak and mortal man, helpful and friendly though he be; and do not grieve too much if he sometimes opposes and contradicts you. Those who are with us today may be against us tomorrow, and vice versa, for men change with the wind. Place all your trust in God; let Him be your fear and your love. He will answer for you; He will do what is best for you.
–Thomas à Kempis

Amen. So Be It Truth!

My God, without merit on my part, of His pure and free mercy, has given to me, an unworthy, condemned, and contemptible creature, all the riches of justification and salvation in Christ, so that I no longer am in want of anything, except of faith to believe that this is so. For such a Father then, who has overwhelmed me with these inestimable riches of His, why should I not freely, cheerfully, and with my whole heart and from voluntary zeal, do all that I know will be pleasing to Him, and acceptable in His sight? I will therefore give myself, as a sort of Christ, to my neighbour, as Christ has given Himself to me; and will do nothing in this life, except what I see will be needful, advantageous, and wholesome for my neighbour, since by faith I abound in all good things in Christ.
–Martin Luther

This quote from Martin Luther is straight from God’s Word which tells us…
Love your neighbor as yourself.
Consider others as more important than yourself.
Do nothing with your freedom that would cause someone else to stumble in their walk with God.

Therefore, because of how Jesus served us and has blessed us so much, we are to embrace this final sentence of Luther’s quote so very closely:
I will give myself to my neighbors (my fellow man) as Christ has given Himself for me – willing to be an absolute servant to them – and I will do nothing in this life except what is helpful to others.
Wow, that is a tall order. But it is my calling.

A prayer for us to repeat numerous times throughout today:

Father, I want to know You.
But my cowardly heart fears to give up its toys. I cannot part with them without inward bleeding, and I do not try to hide from You the terror of the parting. I come trembling, but I do come. Please dig out from my heart all those things which I have cherished so long and which have become a very part of my living self, so that You may enter and dwell there without a rival. Then shall You make the place of Your feet glorious [as I come to bow before You as Lord]. Then shall my heart have no need of the sun to shine in it, for You will be the light of it, and there shall be no night there.
In Jesus’ name.
Amen.
–A. W. Tozer

Amen and Amen.