If you open your mouth in the dark, you will speak while in the wrong mood – darkness is the time to listen.
It is not so true that “prayer changes things” as that prayer changes me and I change things.
Jesus Christ’s life was an absolute failure from every standpoint but God’s. But what seemed failure from man’s standpoint was a tremendous triumph from God’s, because God’s purpose is never man’s purpose.
You must be willing to be placed on the altar and go through the fire; willing to experience what the altar represents – burning, purification, and separation for only one purpose – the elimination of every desire and affection not grounded in or directed toward God. But you don’t eliminate it, God does.
As surely as we receive blessings from Him, He will pour out blessings through us. But whenever the blessings are not being poured out in the same measure they are received, there is a defect in our relationship with Him.
Never run before God gives you His direction.
The great enemy to the Lord Jesus Christ in the present day is the conception of practical work that has not come from the New Testament, but from the systems of the world in which endless energy and activities are insisted upon, but no private life with God.
Wait for God’s timing and He will do it without any heartache or disappointment. When it is a question of the providential will of God, wait for God to move. Peter did not wait for God. He predicted in his own mind where the test would come, and it came where he did not expect it. “I will lay down my life for Your sake.” Peter’s statement was honest but ignorant.
Man is not God but hath God’s end to serve, A master to obey, a course to take, Somewhat to cast off, somewhat to become. Grant this, then man must pass from old to new, From vain to real, from mistake to fact, From what once seemed good, to what now proves best. – Robert Browning.
The Christian who is truly intimate with Jesus will never draw attention to himself but will only show the evidence of a life where Jesus is completely in control.
To believe is to commit. In the area of intellectual learning I commit myself mentally, and reject anything not related to that belief. In the realm of personal belief I commit myself morally to my convictions and refuse to compromise. But in intimate personal belief I commit myself spiritually to Jesus Christ and make a determination to be dominated by Him alone.
O Lord, deliver me from this lust of always vindicating myself.” Such a need for constant vindication destroys our soul’s faith in God. Don’t say, “I must explain myself,” or, “I must get people to understand.” Our Lord never explained anything – He left the misunderstandings or misconceptions of others to correct themselves.
The only possible way to have full understanding of the teachings of Jesus is through the light of the Spirit of God shining inside us.
These three things always work together – moral intelligence, the spontaneous originality of the Holy Spirit, and the setting of a life lived in communion with God.
Why has God left us on the earth? Is it simply to be saved and sanctified? No, it is to be at work in service to Him. Am I willing to be broken bread and poured-out wine for Him? Am I willing to be of no value to this age or this life except for one purpose and one alone – to be used to disciple men and women to the Lord Jesus Christ. My life of service to God is the way I say “thank you” to Him for His inexpressibly wonderful salvation.
What makes God so dear to us is not so much His big blessings to us, but the tiny things, because they show His amazing intimacy with us – He knows every detail of each of our individual lives.
If God can accomplish His purposes in this world through a broken heart, then why not thank Him for breaking yours?
Even the natural heart of the unsaved will serve if called upon to do so, but it takes a heart broken by conviction of sin, baptized by the Holy Spirit, and crushed into submission to God’s purpose to make a person’s life a holy example of God’s message.
Wait for the fruit to manifest itself and do not be guided by your own fancy.
The sign that the Holy Ghost is in us is that we realise, not that we are full, but that we are empty, there is a sense of absolute need.