The Christian Life

This life, therefore, is not righteousness, but growth in righteousness
not health but healing,
not being but becoming,
not rest but exercise,
We are not yet what we shall be, but we are growing toward it;
the process is not yet finished but it is going on;
this is not the end but it is the road.
All does not yet gleam in glory but all is being purified.

-Martin Luther, quoted in Instruments in the Redeemer's Hands by Paul David Tripp

The Glories of Christ

John Flavel, a preacher who preceded the great American preacher Jonathan Edwards by about fifty years wrote a series of sermons entitled The Fountain of Life Opened Up in 1671. In the opening letter, he writes:

My dear and hounoured friends

If my pen were both able, and at leisure, to get glory in paper, it would be but a paper glory when I had gotten it; but if by displaying the transcendent excellency of Jesus Christ, I may win glory to Him from you, to whom I humbly offer them, or from any other into whose hands providence shall cast them, that will be glory indeed, and an occasion of glorifying God for all eternity...

Alas! I write His praises but by moon light; I cannot praise Him so much as by halves. Indeed, no tongue but His own (as Nazianzen said of Basil) is sufficient to undertake that task. What shall I say of Christ? The excelling glory of that object dazzles all apprehension, swallows up all expression. When we have borrowed metaphors from every creature that has any excellencey or lovely property in it, till we have stript the whole creation bare of all its ornaments, and clothed Christi with all that glory; when we have even worn out our tongues, in ascribing praises to Him, alas! we have done nothing, when all is done.

$3 worth of God

The Voice of the Martyrs printed this in a previous issue of the August issue of their magazine. It really reflects how many Christians view our Lord. I hope that we desire more than this:

I would like to buy $3 worth of God, please. Not enough to explode my soul or disturb my sleep, but just enough to equal a cup of warm milk or snooze in the sunshine. I don't want enough of God to make me love a black man or pick beets with a migrant. I want ecstasy not tranformation. I want warmth of the womb, not a new birth. I want a pound of the Eternal in a paper sack. I would like $3 worth of God, please.

-Wilbur Rees

Quote of the Week

I have decided to start a new weekly post: "The Quote of the Week". Each Sunday (Lord willing and assuming I am able), I will post a thoughtful quote from wise and mature Christians both past and present that will hopefully encourage thought within the minds of other Christians seeking to grow in their knowledge of God.

The quote that I would like to begin this with is one from David Brainerd, a missionary to Native Americans in the 1700's who died early within his life:

'tis good to begin and end with God."

-David Brainerd

Sacrifice

A dear friend sent me this quote from David Livingstone:

"Can that be called a sacrifice which is simply paid back as a small part of a great debt owing to our God, which we can never repay? Is that a sacrifice which brings its own blest reward in healthful activity, the consciousness of doing good, peace of mind, and a bright hope of a glorious destiny hereafter? Away with the word in such a view, and with such a thought! It is emphatically no sacrifice. Say rather it is a privilege." - David Livingston, in a last will and testament to college men commissioning them to Africa.

Pondering this, I pray that I would not consider the small areas that I suffer and am discomforted as a sacrifice, but a privilege. It is only my pride that would consider these things as sacrificial. For when we consider something as a sacrifice we focus on ourselves and what we are doing. Instead, when we give our lives as a sacrifice, our focus should be shifted to our Savior. For, what sacrifice could I ever make to compare with that of my Savior?

When I consider His greater sacrifice, I can only consider it a privilege to suffer with Him and for Him.

Quotes

Few things help me more than quotes. They are generally short and easy to remember while still conveying a staggering or weighty truth. They can be life-changing or simply enterntaining. But either way, I love quotes on all sorts of things- faith, life, prayer, etc. Here are a few of my favorites:

"God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him."
-John Piper

"God helps those who humble themselves."
-C.J. Mahaney

"Humor is emotional chaos remembered in tranquility."
-James Thurber

"It's better to be silent and thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt."
-Abraham Lincoln

“Beware in prayer, above everything, of limiting God, not only by unbelief, but by fancying that you know what He can do.”
-Andrew Murray

“It is not because things are good that we are to thank the Lord, but because He is good.”
-Hannah Whitall Smith

"In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. But in practice, there is."
-Yogi Berra

"Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth."
-Sherlock Holmes

"I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them."
-Ian L. Fleming

"I think it's wrong that only one company makes the game Monopoly."
-Steven Wright

Do you have any favorite quotes?