Martyn Lloyd-Jones was one of the most influential preachers of the century. A few weeks before he died, someone asked him how, after decades of fruitful ministry and extraordinary activity, he was coping now he was suffering such serious weakness it took much of his energy to move from his bed to his armchair and back. He replied in the words of Luke 10:20: ‘Do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.’ In other words, do not tie your joy, your sense of wellbeing, to power in ministry. Your ministry can be taken from you. Tie your joy to the fact that you are known and loved by God; tie it to your salvation; tie it to the sublime truth that your name is written in heaven. That can never be taken from you. Lloyd-Jones added: ‘I am perfectly content.’ – From A Call to Spiritual Reformation by D.A. Carson

“You will never make yourself feel that you are a sinner, because there is a mechanism in you as a result of sin that will always be defending you against every accusation. We are all on very good terms with ourselves, and we can always put up a good case for ourselves. Even if we try to make ourselves feel that we are sinners, we will never do it. There is only one way to know that we are sinners, and that is to have some dim, glimmering conception of God.” – Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Seeking the Face of God: Nine Reflections on the Psalms (Crossway, 2005), 34

John Owen on the earnestness required of those who intend to kill sin and walk happily with God:

“Get up, watch, pray, fast, meditate, offer violence to your lusts and corruptions; fear not, startle not at their crying or importunities to be spared; press unto the throne of grace by prayers, supplications, importunities, restless requests. This is the way to take the kingdom of heaven. These things are not peace, they are not assurance; but they are part of the means God hath appointed for the attainment of them.” – Works, 6.567-68; quoted in Sinclair Ferguson, John Owen on the Christian Life (Banner of Truth, 1987), 111
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“Why do bad things happen to good people? That only happened once, and He volunteered.” – R.C. Sproul, Jr.

“A man may study because his brain is hungry for knowledge, even Bible knowledge. But he prays because his soul is hungry for God.” – Leonard Ravenhill

“Do not then spend the strength of your zeal for your religion in censuring others. The man that is most busy in censuring others is always least employed in examining himself.” – Thomas Lye

“There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry: “Mine!” – Abraham Kuyper

“No one can sum up all God is able to accomplish through one solitary life, wholly yielded, adjusted, and obedient to Him.” – D.L. Moody

“While the Law defines righteousness, only grace delivers it. The Law was never intended to be a means of obtaining grace; it was given to demonstrate to men that grace was desperately needed.” – Bob Deffinbaugh

“He is much happier that is always content, though he has ever so little, than he that is always coveting, though he has ever so much.” – Matthew Henry

“As base a thing as money often is, yet it can be transmuted into everlasting treasure… It can keep a missionary actively winning lost men to the light of the gospel and thus transmute itself into heavenly values. Any temporal possession can be turned into everlasting wealth. Whatever is given to Christ is immediately touched with immortality.” – A. W. Tozer

“The Christian who has stopped repenting has stopped growing.” – A.W. Pink

Dane Ortland: This side of several months pondering Bavinck’s writings on justification, here’s my best attempt at a single (run-on) sentence articulating his view: “Justification, the outstanding blessing of salvation, is the Triune God’s counterintuitive gift of forensic acquittal and right status, an end-time decision announced now in the middle of history, consisting of Christ’s own righteous obedience freely imputed to sinners united to Christ through self-divesting and Christ-riveted faith.”

“Breathe in me, O Holy Spirit, that my thoughts may all be holy. Act in me, O Holy Spirit, that my work, too, may be holy. Draw my heart, O Holy Spirit, that I love but what is holy. Strengthen me, O Holy Spirit, to defend all that is holy. Guard me, then, O Holy Spirit, that I always may be holy.” – Augustine

Hudson Taylor was a British missionary to China. When he died in 1905, his Bible was found with a slip of paper as a bookmark. On that paper was written a prayer that Hudson prayed every day. It read:

Lord Jesus make Thyself to me
A living bright reality
More present to faith’s vision keen
Than any outward object seen
More near, more intimately nigh
Than e’en the sweetest earthly tie
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“One proof of the inspiration of the Bible is that it has withstood such poor preaching.” – A.T. Robertson

“Never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God.” – Corrie ten Boom

Luther, to Erasmus, in Bondage of the Will: “For even I, by the grace of God, am not such a fool or so mad as to have been willing to maintain and defend this cause for so long, with so much zeal and constancy (which you call obstinacy) amid so many dangers to life, so much hatred, so many treacheries, in short, amid the fury of men and demons, simply for the sake of money (which I neither possess nor desire), or popularity (which I could not obtain if I wished, in a world so incensed against me), or physical safety (of which I cannot for a moment be certain)… When nothing else can be done, we prefer to be battered by temporal tumult, rejoicing in the grace of God, for the sake of the Word of God, which must be asserted with an invincible and incorruptible mind, rather than to be shattered by eternal tumult under the wrath of God, with intolerable torment.” – Luther’s Works

“Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value.” – Albert Einstein

“The devil has more knowledge than any of us, and yet is no better for it.” – J.C. Ryle

Tim Keller pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church explains the difference between all world religions and Christianity: “At the end of The Abolition of Man, C. S. Lewis demonstrates how the major religions agree on certain moral absolutes. Christians find that in today’s culture wars, they often are on the same side with believing Jews, Muslims, and Hindus. The Christian preacher seems to be saying, “Be moral,” along with exponents of other philosophies.
But when we ask, “Why be moral?” the other systems say, “In order to find God,” while Christianity says, “Because God has found you.” The Christian gospel is that we are not saved by moral living, we are saved for it. We are saved by grace alone, but that grace will inevitably issue a moral life.”

“If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were precisely those who thought most of the next. . . . It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this” (C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, chapter 10).

“The object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid.” – The Autobiography, vol. 16 of The Collected Works of G. K. Chesterton (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1988), 212.

“Since God has a Son of his own, and such a Son, how wonderful God’s love in adopting us! We needed a Father, but he did not need sons.” – Thomas Watson

“God has this funny idea about church… He thinks it’s about HIM.” – Max Lucado

“No verse of Scripture yields its meaning to lazy people.” – A.W. Pink

“You can’t open your eyes in this universe without seeing a theater of divine revelation.” – R.C. Sproul

“One of the first ways you can tell that you are moving beyond temptation into a pattern of sin is if you find yourself in a time of prayerlessness. That isn’t just a “spiritual maturity issue”—it’s a gospel issue. You are recreated through the gospel with a nature that longs for communion with God. The Spirit within you cries out, “Abba! Father!” (Rom. 8:15; Gal. 4:6). Prayer is exactly how you experience the sympathy of your high priest who has triumphed over your temptation. After all, you are not the only one praying when you pray. The Spirit himself prays through you, and as he does so, he works to align your will and desires with those of Christ Jesus (Rom. 8:26–27). If you are reluctant to pray, it just might be that you, like Adam and Israel before you, are hiding in the vegetation, ashamed to hear the rustling of the leaves that signals he is here.” – Russell Moore, Tempted and Tried: Temptation and the Triumph of Christ, p. 171.

“Too many are willing to sit at God’s table, but not work in his field.” – Vance Havner

“Morality may damn as well as vice. A vessel may be sunk with gold as well as with dung.” – Thomas Watson

“You are required to believe, to preach, and to teach what the Bible says is true, not what you want the Bible to say is true.” – R.C. Sproul, Chosen by God, p. 12.

“Grace is not a reward for faith; faith is the inevitable result of grace.” Unknown

“Man fell by a desire to be independent of God, and now man wishes to be equally independent of God in returning to him.” – T.C. Hammond