The first great and primary business

“The first great and primary business to which I ought to attend every day is to have my soul happy in the Lord. The first thing to be concerned about is… how I might get my soul into a happy state, and how my inner man might be nourished… the most important thing is to give myself to the reading of the word of God and to meditation on it, that thus my heart might be comforted, encouraged, warned, reproved, instructed; and that thus, while meditating, my heart might be brought into experimental communion with the Lord.”

– George Mueller

What stirs the world’s opposition…

“Jesus was not revolutionary because he said we should love God and each other. Moses said that first. So did Buddha, Confucius, and countless other religious leaders we’ve never heard of. Madonna, Oprah, Dr. Phil, the Dali Lama, and probably a lot of Christian leaders will tell us that the point of religion is to get us to love each other. “God loves you” doesn’t stir the world’s opposition. However, start talking about God’s absolute authority, holiness, Christ’s substitutionary atonement, justification by faith apart from works, the necessity of new birth, repentance, baptism, Communion, and the future judgment, and the mood in the room changes considerably.”

~Michael Horton

Miscellaneous Quotes (47)

“God doesn’t need your good works; your neighbor does.” – Martin Luther

“The Reformation leveled the playing field and revealed the janitor is as holy as the Pope.” – Jeff Rose

“[The elect] are gathered into Christ’s flock by a call not immediately at birth, and not all at the same time, but according as it pleases God to dispense His grace to them. But before they are gathered unto that supreme Shepherd, they wander scattered in the wilderness common to all; and they do not differ at all from others except that they are protected by God’s special mercy from rushing headlong into the final ruin of death.” – John Calvin, Institutes, 3.24.10.

“In his unregenerate state man never adequately realizes his utterly hopeless condition. He imagines he is able to reform himself and turn to God if he chooses.” – Lorraine Boettner

“There are no loose threads in the providence of God, no stitches are dropped, no events are left to chance. The great clock of the universe keeps good time, and the whole machinery of providence moves with unerring punctuality.” – C. H. Spurgeon

“There is nothing that keeps wicked men at any one moment out of hell, but the mere pleasure of God.” – Jonathan Edwards

“The human heart has so many crannies where vanity hides, so many holes where falsehood lurks, is so decked out with deceiving hypocrisy, that it often dupes itself.” – John Calvin, A Calvin Treasury. Christianity Today, v. 37, n. 4.

“We must learn where our personal weaknesses lie. Once they are identified, we must be ruthless in dealing with them. Earlier generations called this the “mortification of the flesh,” that is, pronouncing the death sentence upon sin and putting that sentence into daily effect by killing all that sets itself against God’s purpose in our lives.” – Alistair Begg, Made For His Pleasure, Moody Press, 1996, p. 33.

“Sin cannot dethrone God. That is what sin aims to do, but it misses its mark. Sin brings guilt to a man, but it does not bring him one ounce of sovereignty. God rules even when men imagine they are defying Him.” – Tom Wells

“Take this rule: whatever weakens your reason, impairs the tenderness of your conscience, obscures your sense of God, or takes off the relish of spiritual things; in short, whatever increases the strength and authority of your body over mind, that thing is sin to you, however innocent it may be in itself.” – Susanna Wesley: The Complete Writings, ed. by Charles Wallace Jr, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 109.
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