“Either Scripture will be the lens through which you view the world or the world (science, politics, worldview, etc) will be the lens through which you view Scripture. Ultimately one or the other will be your authority.” – Rachel Miller

“If your god never disagrees with you, you might just be worshiping an idealized version of yourself.” – Tim Keller

“Salvation comes from the Trinity, happens through the Trinity, and brings us home to the Trinity.” – Fred Sanders

“The world has ever opposed the church and always will. The struggle between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent is not only perennial but perpetual… It is more than time that the church be reminded that militancy is of its essence. When a church ceases to be militant it also ceases to be a church of Jesus Christ. The church on earth is glorious, not in spite of its militancy, but precisely because of it.” – R. B. Kuiper, The Glorious Body of Christ, 14, 33.

Note: The author is using a historical theological term known as the distinction between the “church militant” and “church triumphant” and as such is not advocating violence.

“The violent take it by force.” Matthew 11:12—The “violent” are men of eager, impetuous zeal, who grasp the kingdom of heaven—i.e., its peace, and pardon, and blessedness—with as much eagerness as men would snatch and carry off as their own the spoil of a conquered city. Their new life is, in the prophet’s language, “given them as a prey” (Jeremiah 21:9; Jeremiah 45:5). There is no thought of hostile purpose in the words. Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers

“Believer, when you are on your knees, remember you are going to a King. Let your petitions be large.” – C. H. Spurgeon

“The only reason I can give under heaven why I’m a Christian is because I’m a gift of the Father to the Son, not because of anything I’ve ever done or could do.” – R.C. Sproul

“When you pray for unconverted people, you do so on the assumption that it is in God’s power to bring them to faith.” – J. I. Packer

“No man shall be in heaven but he that sees himself fully qualified for hell.” – Robert Traill

“I would never have been saved if I could have helped it.” – C. H. Spurgeon

“Our salvation depends on God’s covenant, rooted in eternity, foreshadowed in the Mosaic liturgy, fulfilled in Christ, enduring forever. No wonder Hebrews calls it ‘so great a salvation’ (Heb. 2:3).” – Sinclair Ferguson

“A congregation who prays for their pastors will be a better-fed congregation than those who do not.” – Alistair Begg

“Since Jesus is God, then He’s got to be great enough to have some reasons to let you go through things you can’t understand.” – Unknown Continue reading →

“If we do not preach about sin and God’s judgment on it, we cannot present Christ as Savior from sin and the wrath of God. And if we are silent about these things, and preach a Christ who saves only from self and the sorrows of this world, we are not preaching the Christ of the Bible. We are, in effect bearing false witness and preaching a false Christ. Our message is ‘another gospel, which is not another.’ Such preaching may soothe some, but it will help nobody; for a Christ who is not seen and sought as a Savior from sin will not be found to save from self or from anything else. An imaginary Christ will not bring a real salvation; and a half-truth presented as the whole truth is a complete untruth.” – J.I. Packer

“We’ve all been made in God’s image to know Him, but we’ve sinned and separated ourselves from God. Because He is such a good God, He will punish us for our sins, and in His amazing love He sent His only Son to live the life of perfect trust in Him that we all should have lived. We have no reason not to live that life, but none of us has lived it. Jesus lived it for us, and He died on the cross as a substitute, a vicarious sacrifice, taking all of God’s right wrath against us for our sins, bearing it completely, exhausting it. Then God raised Him from the dead, showing that the Father accepted the sacrifice of the Son. All of us who repent and believe are those for whom He has died, and for whom forgiveness is available.” – Mark Dever

“We are not sent into the pulpit to show our wit and eloquence, but to set the consciences of men on fire.” – Solomon Stoddard

“The dammed think they are good. The saved know they are wicked. The damned believe the kingdom of God is for those worthy of it. The saved know the kingdom of God is for those who realize how unworthy they are. The damned believe eternal life is earned. The saved know it is a gift. The damned seek God’s commendation. The saved seek His forgiveness.”- John MacArthur

“Divine election may be defined as that loving and merciful decision by God the Father to bestow eternal life upon some, but not all, hell-deserving sinners. This decision was made before the foundation of the world and was based not upon any act of will or works of men and women, but solely upon God’s sovereign good pleasure. One does not enter the ranks of the elect by meeting a condition, be it faith or repentance. One enters the ranks of the elect by virtue of God’s free and altogether gracious choice, as a result of which he enables us to repent and believe. Thus, election is both sovereign and unconditional.’ – Sam Storms

“Our worst days are never so bad that you are beyond the reach of God’s grace. And your best days are never so good that you are beyond the need of God’s grace.” – Jerry Bridges

“The weakest faith gets the same strong Christ as does the strongest faith.” – Sinclair Ferguson

“However painful it may be to open up your life there is no safety in staying superficial.” – Brian Chesemore

If we stand at a distance we are missing out on the great privilege purchased by the gospel: fellowship with God.

A Bible-teaching church will help you avoid sin. But sin will definitely make you avoid a BIble-teaching church.

“All our sins are sunk in his precious blood as in a deep sea, so that, even if sought for, they can no more be found.” – John Newton

“He was cut down in his prime, but for our sin, not his (Isa. 53).” – Christopher Ash

“There is no such thing as an unnecessary member of your church (1 Cor. 12:7).”

“I do believe that we slander Christ when we think we are to draw the people by something else but the preaching of Christ crucified.” – C. H. Spurgeon

“Let me revel in this one thought: before God made the heavens and the earth, He set His love upon me.” C. H. Spurgeon

“People learn how to read the Bible from how their pastor preaches the Bible.”

“Think against your feelings; unmask the unbelief they have nourished; let evangelical thinking correct emotional thinking.” – J.I. Packer

“We shall not adjust our Bible to the age; but before we have done with it, by God’s grace, we shall adjust the age to the Bible.” Spurgeon

“The humble athlete is modest in victory and gracious in defeat.”

“All shall work together for good: everything is needful that he sends; nothing can be needful that he withholds.” – John Newton

“When facing the apparent denial of my request, God gave me the opportunity to honor him by trusting His Word.” – C. H. Spurgeon

“The Sovereign Lord has spared you ten thousand more losses than he has sent you. Let every moment be a thousand thanks.” – John Piper

“Life, death, hell and world’s unknown may hang on the preaching and hearing of a sermon.” Spurgeon (So please pray for your pastor)

“The gospel is the announcement of concrete, historical, divine accomplishment. Because the gospel is objective, it is unchanging—it doesn’t depend upon us, our circumstances, how we feel or how we perform.”

“Sin never does what it promises. Does it promise pleasure? Be sure it will bring pain and remorse.” – Alec Motyer

“Evil tastes good, but evil always leads to nausea and vomiting.” – Christopher Ash

“The world: Your biggest problem is without. The solution is within. The Bible: Your biggest problem is within. The solution is without.” – Matt Smethurst

“There is unspeakable comfort in knowing that God is constantly taking knowledge of me in love and watching over me for my good.” – J.I. Packer

“Our deepest, strongest, purest affections should be reserved for God himself, and he gave us singing to help us express them.” – Bob Kauflin

“Leave it all in the hands that were wounded for you.” – Elisabeth Elliot

“There is tremendous relief in knowing that His love to me is based at every point on prior knowledge of the worst about me.” – J.I. Packer

“It is easy to be oblivious of the thousand evidences of his care.” – Elisabeth Elliot

“Everything is necessary that God sends our way; nothing can be necessary that he withholds.” – John Newton

“No marriage can survive without forgiveness. Marriage is a long term commitment between two sinners.” Elisabeth Elliot

“Studying the Bible will yield more joy in this life and the next than all the things that lure us from it.” John Piper

“Think against your feelings; argue yourself out of the gloom they have spread; look up from your problems to the God of the gospel.” – J. I. Packer

“Sunday is the best day of the week because we celebrate the risen Christ of the cross in the local church, the dearest place on earth.” – C J Mahaney

“The gospel cannot be preached and heard enough, for it cannot be grasped well enough.” – Martin Luther

“Man asserts himself against God and puts himself where only God deserves to be.” -John Stott

“God sacrifices himself for man and puts himself where only man deserves to be.” – John Stott

“Instead of inflicting upon us the judgment we deserved, God in Christ endured it in our place.” – John Stott

“Known to the Lord from the beginning were all your sins. Nevertheless, He still loved you.” – Charles Spurgeon

“The greatest sorrow you can lay on the Father, the greatest unkindness you can do to him is not to believe that he loves you.” John Owen

“The Spirit does not take his pupils beyond the cross, but ever more deeply into it.” – J. Knox Chamblin

“The debt was so great, that while man alone owed it, only God could pay it.” – Anselm

“Your best days are never so good that you are beyond the need of God’s grace. Your worst days are never so bad that you are beyond the reach of God’s grace.” – Jerry Bridges

“When you get to heaven, you will not complain of the way by which the Lord brought you.” – John Newton

“Most Christians neglect their Bible not out of conscious disloyalty to Jesus, but because of failure to plan a time to read it.” – John Piper

“One of the most counter-cultural things you can do is become an engaged member of a faithful local church.” – David Mathis

For many years I have been blessed by Jerry Bridges’ writing ministry. Here are some of his quotes I put together. Enjoy!

“Don’t believe everything you think. You cannot be trusted to tell yourself the truth. Stay in The Word.”

“My observation of Christendom is that most of us tend to base our personal relationship with God on our performance instead of on His grace.  If we’ve performed well—whatever ‘well’ is in our opinion—then we expect God to bless us.  If we haven’t done so well, our expectations are reduced accordingly.  In this sense, we live by works rather than by grace.  We are saved by grace, but we are living by the ‘sweat’ of our own performance.

Moreover, we are always challenging ourselves and one another to ‘try harder’. We seem to believe success in the Christian life is basically up to us; our commitment, our discipline, and our zeal, with some help from God along the way. The realization that my daily relationship with God is based on the infinite merit of Christ instead of on my own performance is very freeing and joyous experience. But it is not meant to be a one-time experience; the truth needs to be reaffirmed daily.” – Jerry Bridges, Transforming Grace

“If God’s blessings were dependent on our performance, they would be meager indeed. Even our best works are shot through with sin – with varying degrees of impure motives and lots of imperfect performance. We’re always, to some degree, looking out for ourselves, guarding our flanks, protecting our egos. It’s because we don’t realize the utter depravity of the principle of sin remaining in us and staining everything we do that we entertain any notion of earning God’s blessings through our obedience. And because we don’t fully grasp that Jesus paid the penalty for all our sins, we despair of God’s blessing when we’ve failed to live up to even our own desires to please God.

“Your worst days are never so bad that you’re beyond the reach of God’s grace. And your best days are never so good that you’re beyond the need of God’s grace.” – Jerry Bridges, Holiness Day by Day: Transformational Thoughts for Your Spiritual Journey

“Not only has the debt (of our sins) been fully paid, there is no possibility of ever going into debt again.”  Jerry Bridges

“One of the best kept secrets among Christians today is this: Jesus paid it all. I mean all. He not only purchased your forgiveness of sins and your ticket to heaven, He purchased every blessing and every answer to prayer you will ever receive. Every one of them – no exceptions.” – Jerry Bridges, Holiness Day by Day: Transformational Thoughts for Your Spiritual Journey

“Why is this such a well-kept secret? The core issue is that we don’t believe we’re still spiritually ‘bankrupt.’ Having come into God’s kingdom by grace alone solely on the merit of Another, we’re now trying to pay our own way by our performance. We declared only temporary bankruptcy; we’re now trying to live by good works rather than by grace.” – Jerry Bridges, Holiness Day by Day: Transformational Thoughts for Your Spiritual Journey

“The atonement was God’s extending favor to people who deserved not favor but wrath. The atonement was God’s bridging the awful ‘Grand Canyon’ of sin to reach people who were in rebellion against Him. And He did this at infinite cost to Himself by sending Jesus to die in our place.” – Jerry Bridges, Transforming Grace: Living Confidently in God’s Unfailing Love

“Our good works are not truly good unless they’re motivated by a love for God and a desire to glorify Him. But we cannot have such a Godward motivation if we think we must earn God’s favor by our obedience or if we fear we may forfeit His favor by disobedience. Such a works-oriented motivation is essentially self-serving, prompted more by what we think we gain or lose than by a grateful response to the grace He has already given us through Jesus Christ.” – Jerry Bridges, Holiness Day by Day: Transformational Thoughts for Your Spiritual Journey

“Most of us probably entertain either of these attitudes on different days. On a good day (as we perceive it), we tend toward self-righteous Pharisaism. On a not-so-good day, we allow ourselves to wallow in a sense of failure and guilt. Either way we’ve moved away from the gospel of God’s grace, trying to relate to God directly on the basis of our performance rather than through Christ.” – Jerry Bridges, Holiness Day by Day: Transformational Thoughts for Your Spiritual Journey

“Have you ever thought about the wonderful truth that Christ lived His perfect life in your place and on your behalf? Has it yet gripped you that when God looks at you today He sees you clothed in the perfect, sinless obedience of His Son? And that when He says, ‘This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased’ (Matthew 3:17; 17:5), He includes you in that warm embrace? The extent to which we truly understand this is the extent to which we will begin to enjoy those unsearchable riches that are found in Christ.” – Jerry Bridges, Holiness Day by Day: Transformational Thoughts for Your Spiritual Journey

“Reflect on these words from John Brown, a nineteenth-century Scottish pastor and theologian: Nothing is so well fitted to put the fear of God, which will preserve men from offending him, into the heart, as an enlightened view of the cross of Christ. There shine spotless holiness, inflexible justice, incomprehensible wisdom, omnipotent power, holy love. None of these excellencies darken or eclipse the other, but every one of them rather gives a lustre to the rest. They mingle their beams, and shine with united eternal splendour: the just Judge, the merciful Father, the wise Governor. Nowhere does justice appear so awful, mercy so amiable, or wisdom so profound.” – Jerry Bridges, The Joy of Fearing God

“Because we have a natural tendency to look within ourselves for the basis of God’s approval or disapproval, we must make a conscious daily effort to look outside ourselves to the righteousness of Christ, then to stand in the present reality of our justification.” – Jerry Bridges, The Bookends of the Christian Life

“All of us have a natural drift toward a performance-based relationship with God. We know we’re saved by grace through faith – not by works (Ephesians 2:8-9), but we somehow get the idea that we earn blessings by our works. After throwing overboard our works as a means to salvation, we want to drag them back on board as a means of maintaining favor with God. Instead of seeing our own righteousness as table scraps to be dumped, we see it as leftovers to be used later to earn answers to prayer. We need to remind ourselves every day that God’s blessings and answers to prayer come to us not on the basis of our works, but on the basis of the infinite merit of Jesus Christ.” – Jerry Bridges, Holiness Day by Day: Transformational Thoughts for Your Spiritual Journey

“C. Samuel Storms has so aptly written, Grace ceases to be grace if God is compelled to bestow it in the presence of human merit. . . . Grace ceases to be grace if God is compelled to withdraw it in the presence of human demerit. . . . [Grace] is treating a person without the slightest reference to desert whatsoever, but solely according to the infinite goodness and sovereign purpose of God.” – Jerry Bridges, Transforming Grace: Living Confidently in God’s Unfailing Love

“In the person of Christ God beholds a holiness which abides His closest scrutiny, yea, which rejoices and satisfies His heart; and whatever Christ is before God, He is for His people.” – Jerry Bridges, Holiness Day by Day: Transformational Thoughts for Your Spiritual Journey

“Jesus paid it all. I mean all. He not only purchased your forgiveness of sins and your ticket to heaven, He purchased every blessing and every answer to prayer you will ever receive.” – Jerry Bridges, Transforming Grace: Living Confidently in God’s Unfailing Love

“The realization that my daily relationship with God is based on the infinite merit of Christ instead of on my own performance is a very freeing and joyous experience. But it is not meant to be a one-time experience; the truth needs to be reaffirmed daily.” – Jerry Bridges, Transforming Grace: Living Confidently in God’s Unfailing Love

“The problem with self righteousness is that it seems almost impossible to recognize in ourselves. We will own up to almost any other sin. but not the sin of self-righteousness. When we have this attitude, though, we deprive ourselves of the joy of living in the grace of God. Because you see, grace is only for sinners.” – Jerry Bridges

“In a sermon entitled “God’s Providence,” C. H. Spurgeon said, “Napoleon once heard it said, that man proposes and God disposes. ‘Ah,’ said Napoleon, ‘but I propose and dispose too.’ How do you think he proposed and disposed? He proposed to go and take Russia; he proposed to make all Europe his. He proposed to destroy that power, and how did he come back again? How had he disposed it? He came back solitary and alone, his mighty army perished and wasted, having well-nigh eaten and devoured one another through hunger. Man proposes and God disposes.” – Jerry Bridges, Trusting God: Even When Life Hurts

“All my labors are marred by sin and imperfection. As I think of every act I have ever done for God, I can only cry out, ‘Oh, God, forgive the iniquity of my holy things.’” – Jerry Bridges, The Transforming Power Of The Gospel

“God does not believe for us, but through His Spirit He creates spiritual life in us so that we can believe. Faith is the gift of God. It’s part of the whole salvation package that God gives to us through the work of Christ for us and the work of the Holy Spirit in us. It’s not our contribution, so to speak, to God’s great plan of salvation. God does it all. It’s part of the unsearchable riches of Christ.” – Jerry Bridges, Holiness Day by Day: Transformational Thoughts for Your Spiritual Journey

“The solution to staying on the right side of the fine line between using and abusing grace is repentance. The road to repentance is godly sorrow (2 Corinthians 7:10). Godly sorrow is developed when we focus on the true nature of sin as an offense against God rather than something that makes us feel guilty.” – Jerry Bridges

“The sin of worldliness is a preoccupation with the things of this temporal life. It’s accepting and going along with the views and practices of society around us without discerning if they are biblical. I believe that the key to our tendencies toward worldliness lies primarily in the two words ‘going along’. We simply go along with the values and practices of society.” – Jerry Bridges, Respectable Sins: Confronting the Sins We Tolerate

“W. S. Plumer said, “We never see sin aright until we see it as against God…All sin is against God in this sense: that it is His law that is broken, His authority that is despised, His government that is set at naught…Pharaoh and Balaam, Saul and Judas each said, ‘I have sinned’; but the returning prodigal said, ‘I have sinned against heaven and before thee’; and David said, ‘Against Thee, Thee only have I sinned.” – Jerry Bridges, The Pursuit of Holiness

it does not precede it authoritatively, but it does and must precede it in an advisory capacity and as a counselor. The HCSB translates Proverbs 26:16 as follows: “In his own eyes, a slacker is wiser than seven men who can answer sensibly.” Similarly, though God alone in his Word has authority over how a Christian should conduct himself, that same Christian does well to consult the seven wise men. He does foolishly when he does not. In our teaching and preaching also we must not be slackers, we must consult the wise men of historical theology. We also must not be historical snobs and take the really incredible position that our day is the wisest of all theologically. Really? Yes, we have advantages, but we also have incredible disadvantages. One of them is our modern tendency to historical snobbery.”

– Sam Waldron, Dean of Covenant Baptist Theological Seminary, Pastor of Grace Reformed Baptist Church of Owensboro, KY

“Denominations are good, not bad, because they allow each church to follow Jesus according to conscience, and they keep strife between Christians of different convictions at bay… Keep clear fences but keep them low, and shake hands over them often.” – Mark Dever

“If you are drawn into a controversy, use very hard arguments and very soft words.” – C.H. Spurgeon

“On every university campus I visit, somebody stands up and says that God is an evil God to allow all this evil into our world. This person typically says, ‘A plane crashes: Thirty people die, and twenty people live. What kind of a God would arbitrarily choose some to live and some to die?’”
I continued, “but when we play God and determine whether a child within a mother’s womb should live, we argue for that as a moral right. So when human beings are given the privilege of playing God, it’s called a moral right. When God plays God, we call it an immoral act. Can you justify this for me?”
That was the end of the conversation.” – Ravi Zacharias

“I am convinced that God saved me by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. I did nothing to merit this salvation. There is nothing in me that turned God’s eye in my direction. There is no vestige of goodness that compelled him to look my way. I was not seeking him when he began seeking me. It was all of his grace without even the smallest bit of my merit. I added nothing to my salvation but the sin that made it necessary.” – Tim Challies

“Are you too bad to receive grace? How could you be too bad to receive what is for the bad?” – David Powlison

“To my “non-radical” Muslim friends—and I have a few—please, gentlemen, where are the full, documented, compelling articles not only condemning, but demonstrating with devastating insight the non-Islamic nature, of the actions of ISIS and Boko Haram? If these acts of terror, murder, and simply Satanic evil, were being purpetrated in the name of Christianity, the web would be full of condemnations along with strong biblical argumentation demonstrating the inconsistency of the actions with fundamental Biblical norms. I think this is fulfilling one of my constant observations of the current situation within worldwide Islam: the various groups appeal to an inherently insufficient core of revelation/law/documents to decide these debates. The Qur’an is too obtuse, too lacking in historical and cultural context, to speak with any level of clarity to all but a small number of issues; the hadith can be understood to teach almost anything, depending on which hadith traditions you emphasize and how you interpret them. So we are left with the unabashed face of evil in the men of ISIS and Boko Haram, men acting at a level beneath that of animals, demonically inspired promoters of evil, screaming the name of Allah as they shed blood, rape, and pillage, and yet we do not see other Islamic nations stepping in to protect those who are suffering so terribly at the hands of those they would say, in some settings, are acting “unIslamically.”” – Dr. James White Continue reading →