Faith with Works Is Alive

Posted on February 27, 2015 by Matt Jury under Alexander Maclaren

When we act on a belief, the belief grows.

Alexander Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture: Second Corinthians, Galatians, and Philippians… p. 384

The Cross of Love

Posted on February 26, 2015 by Matt Jury under Andrew Murray

The cross of Christ does not make God love us. It is the outcome of His love to us.

Andrew Murray, With Christ in the School of Prayer, p. 51

The Prayer God Answers Quickly

Posted on February 25, 2015 by Matt Jury under Roy Hession

There is no prayer that God is so swift to answer as the prayer that He might break us.

Roy Hession, The Calvary Road, p. 49

Why We Get So Little out of the Bible

Posted on February 24, 2015 by Matt Jury under H. A. Ironside

Unquestioningly, the paramount reason why we get, as a rule, so little out of God’s Word, is because of the appalling lack of self-judgment and brokenness before its Author, so prevalent on every hand.

H. A. Ironside, Notes on the Minor Prophets, pp. 273-274

There Are No Shortcuts in Ministry

Posted on February 23, 2015 by Matt Jury under J. Oswald Sanders

It should be understood that there is no shortcut to an influential ministry for God…. There may be shortcuts to ecclesiastical eminence or administrative authority, but not to a spiritual ministry.

J. Oswald Sanders, Enjoying Intimacy with God (Chicago: Moody Press, 1980), 119.

In Grace Alone

Posted on February 22, 2015 by Matt Jury under Music, Video

Making Music with Broken Reeds

Posted on February 20, 2015 by Matt Jury under Donald Grey Barnhouse

It is possible for God to take a second best (or a sixty-fourth best!) and make it into something very wonderful when it is accepted as being the present condition in which a man finds himself, and when he moves toward God to develop it to the fullness of its possibilities in blessing and submission to His will, there cannot fail to be a great blessing. One of the glories of God in Christ is that He is able to make music from bruised reeds, and set smoking flax on fire (Matthew 12.20).

Donald Grey Barnhouse, The Invisible War, p. 192

Mere Man Wouldn’t Write the Bible

Posted on February 19, 2015 by Matt Jury under Lewis Sperry Chafer

The Bible is not such a book a man would write if he could, or could write if he would.

Lewis Sperry Chafer (1871 – 1952)

Easily Bored with Spiritual Things

Posted on February 18, 2015 by Matt Jury under Jim Berg

The greatest sign that believers are not illuminated is that there is no delight and savor of spiritual things. They can logically defend their salvation… but they have never seen the beauty and glory of their salvation…. most believers are easily bored with spiritual things. That is never the condition of a believer who has seen a particular truth with illuminated eyes.

Jim Berg, Created for His Glory, pp. 98-99

Rudderless in a Sea of Conflicting Ideas

Posted on February 17, 2015 by Matt Jury under John Owen

Without ‘absolutes’ revealed from without by God Himself, we are left rudderless in a sea of conflicting ideas about manners, justice, and right and wrong, issuing from a multitude of self-opinionated thinkers. We could never know who God is, how He is to be worshipped, or wherein true happiness lies. If virtue is sought … as a road to temporal happiness, the striving and the progress starts and ends in self — but selfishness is itself a vice! No attitude of mind which does not acknowledge dependence upon Almighty God and seek to glorify Him has any element of good or virtue in it.

John Owen, Biblical Theology, p. xl