“I simply argue that the cross should be raised again at the center of the marketplace as well as on the steeple of the church. I am recovering the claim that Jesus was not crucified in a cathedral between two candles but on a cross between two thieves; on the town’s garbage heap; at a crossroad so cosmopolitan they had to write his title in Hebrew and Latin and Greek, at the kind of place where cynics talk smut, and thieves curse, and soldiers gamble. Because that is where he died. And that is what he died for. And that is what he died about. That is where churchmen ought to be and what churchmen ought to be about.” – George MacLeod, quoted by Richard C. Halverson, Perspective, 6 January 1988.

“For every one hundred men who can stand adversity there is only one who can withstand prosperity.” – Thomas Carlyle

“God would never permit any evil if he could not bring good out of evil.” – Thomas Watson

What will it cost to be a true Christian? “it will cost him his self-righteousness. He must cast away all pride and high thoughts, and conceit of his own goodness. He must be content to go to heaven as a poor sinner, saved only by free grace, and owing all to the merit and righteousness of another.” – J. C. Ryle

“Courage is about doing what you’re afraid to do. There can be no courage unless you’re scared.” – Eddie Rickenbacker

“The religion of some people is constrained, like the cold bath when used, not for pleasure, but from necessity for health, into which one goes with reluctance, and is glad when able to get out. But religion to the true believer is like water to a fish; it is his element; he lives in it and could not live out of it.” – John Newton

“We know how God would act if he were in our place — he has been in our place.” – A.W. Tozer

“God’s sovereignty does not negate our responsibility to pray, but rather makes it possible for us to pray with confidence.” – Jerry Bridges

“Missions is not the ultimate goal of the church. Worship is. Missions exists because worship doesn’t.” – John Piper

“You cannot slander human nature; it is worse than words can paint it.” – Charles H. Spurgeon

“Now faith cometh not of our free-will; but is the gift of God, given us by grace, ere there be any will in our hearts to do the law of God. And why God giveth …it not every man, I can give no reckoning of his judgments. But well I know, I never deserved it, nor prepared myself unto it; but ran another way clean contrary in my blindness, and sought not that way; but he sought me, and found me out, and showed it me, and therewith drew me to him. And I bow the knees of my heart unto God night and day, that he will show it all other men; and I suffer all that I can, to be a servant to open their eyes. For well I know they cannot see of themselves, before God hath prevented them with his grace.” – William Tyndale

“When we become too glib in prayer we are most surely talking to ourselves.” – A.W. Tozer

“When we see that the whole sum of our salvation, and every single part of it, are comprehended in Christ, we must beware of deriving even the minutest portion of it from any other quarter.” – John Calvin

“Unbelief is actually perverted faith, for it puts its trust, not in the living God but in dying men. The unbeliever denies the self-sufficiency of God and usurps attributes that are not his. This dual sin dishonors God and ultimately destroys the soul of man.” – A. W. Tozer

“There is no greater discovery than seeing God as the author of your destiny.” – Ravi Zacharias

“When the devil accuses us and says, ‘You are a sinner and therefore damned,’ we should answer, ‘Because you say I am a sinner, I will be righteous and saved.’ ‘No,’ says the devil, ‘you will be damned.’ And I reply, ‘No, for I fly to Christ, who gave himself for my sins. Satan, you will not prevail against me when you try to terrify me by setting forth the greatness of my sins and try to bring me into heaviness, distrust, despair, hatred, contempt and blasphemy against God. On the contrary, when you say I am a sinner, you give me armor and weapons against yourself, so that with your own sword I may cut your throat and tread you under my feet, for Christ died for sinners. . . . As often as you object that I am a sinner, so often you remind me of the benefit of Christ my Redeemer, on whose shoulders, and not on mine, lie all my sins. So when you say I am a sinner, you do not terrify me but comfort me immeasurably.’” – Martin Luther, commenting on Galatians 1:4, “. . . the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins.”

Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us — for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree.” Galatians 3:13

“To the Jews, this was absolute blasphemy: a cursed Messiah on a cursed cross. No wonder the cross was such a stumbling block to them! To put it in the most shocking and yet perhaps the most accurate way, the apostolic message was about a God-damned Messiah.” – Philip Graham Ryken, Galatians (Phillipsburg, 2005), page 115.

“The main condition of spiritual life, according to 1 John 1, is fellowship with God; and the prerequisite for communion with God is ‘walking in the light,’ which may be defined as an honest heart awareness of the truth about the condition of one’s life and the truth of God’s grace, which both covers sin and provides a dynamic of sanctifying transformation. Live orthodoxy is found not among those who wave the flag of commitment to biblicism but among those who live in this focused spotlight of applied biblical truth.” – Richard F. Lovelace, Dynamics of Spiritual Life (Downers Grove, 1979), page 284.

“God frees us from our bankruptcy only by paying our debts on Christ’s cross. More than that. He has not only cancelled the debt, but also destroyed the document on which it was recorded.” – John R. W. Stott, The Cross of Christ (Downers Grove, 1986), page 234.