Category: Quotes Worth Pondering

Quotes Worth Pondering – Jerry Bridges (The Pursuit of Holiness)

Posted on by Shay Reyner

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“We need to cultivate in our own hearts the same hatred of sin God has. Hatred of sin as sin, not just as something disquieting or defeating to ourselves, but as displeasing to God, lies at the root of all true holiness.”
“God wants us to walk in obedience—not victory. Obedience is oriented toward God; victory is oriented toward self.”
(Jerry Bridges – The Pursuit of Holiness)

Quotes Worth Pondering – Nancy Pearcey (Finding Truth)

Posted on by Shay Reyner

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“When a worldview exchanges the Creator for something in creation, it will also exchange a high view of humans made in God’s image for a lower view of humans made in the image of something in creation. Humans are not self-existent, self-sufficient, or self-defining. They did not create themselves. They are finite, dependent, contingent beings. As a result, they will always look outside themselves for their ultimate identity and meaning. They will define human nature by its relationship to the divine—however they define divinity. Those who do not get their identity from a transcendent Creator will get it from something in creation.”
(Nancy Pearcey – Finding Truth)

Quotes Worth Pondering – Tim Keller (Counterfeit Gods)

Posted on by Shay Reyner

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“When people say, ‘I know God forgives me, but I can’t forgive myself,’ they mean that they have failed an idol, whose approval is more important to them than God’s. Idols function like gods in our lives, and so if we make career or parental approval our god and we fail it, then the idol curses us in our hearts for the rest of our lives. We can’t shake the sense of failure.”
I am an idol worshipper. And so are you. John Calvin famously said “the human heart is a perpetual idol factory”. For this reason among many we must daily go to the cross, confess our waywardness, and seek the Lord’s approval rather than man’s. Don’t allow the idols in your life to keep you from knowing God. Put them to death as soon as they are produced by the factory of your heart.

Quotes Worth Pondering – A.W. Tozer (The Knowledge of the Holy)

Posted on by Shay Reyner

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“Until we have seen ourselves as God see us, we are not likely to be much disturbed over conditions around us as long as they do not get so far out of hand as to threaten our comfortable way of life. We have learned to live with unholiness and have come to look upon it as the natural and expected thing.”
Unholiness in our culture does not bother us the way that it should nor does unholiness in our lives bother us as it should. It would be like looking at Michelangelo’s David and watching someone splash paint on it and not caring that this pièce de résistance is being marred. “We are God’s workmanship created in Christ Jesus to do good works.”

Quotes Worth Pondering – C. S. Lewis (The Great Divorce)

Posted on by Shay Reyner

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“There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, “Thy will be done,” and those to whom God says, in the end, “Thy will be done.” All that are in Hell, choose it. Without that self-choice there could be no Hell. No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it. Those who seek find. Those who knock it is opened.”
(C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce)
A question that unbelievers often ask is this: How can a good and loving God send people to Hell?” The truth that C. S. Lewis points out is that He doesn’t have to. Those who end up in Hell choose to go there themselves. There is another option. It’s just that most people are not willing to choose Door #1. Door #2, on the outside, looks much more appealing. It is only once the door is opened that people begin to regret their choice. No one who has ever walked through Door #1 has ever regretted their choice.

Quotes Worth Pondering – Charles Colson

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“For most of us, life is messy and confusing, filled with paradoxes. We wake up in the night, worrying about our jobs, our kids, or the best laid plans, which suddenly unravel due to the pressures of living in our high-tech, fast-moving world. One day we seem to have things under control; the next day we get steamrollered by events. If you haven’t experienced this, please write me; you would be the first person I know to have life all together.”
Charles W. Colson, The Good Life
We have a tendency to put on a good front when in reality most of our lives are “messy and confusing, filled with paradoxes.” This is a good reminder that all of us are dealing with the messiness of life and that NOBODY has their entire act together. Some of us just do a better job of hiding our messiness than others.

Quotes Worth Pondering – Dane Ortlund

Posted on by Shay Reyner

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“Do not minimize your sin or excuse it away. Raise no defense. Simply take it to the one who is already at the right hand of the Father, advocating for you on the basis of His own wounds. Let your own unrighteousness, in all your darkness and despair, drive you to Jesus Christ, the righteous, in all His brightness and sufficiency.”
(Dane Ortlund – Gentle and Lowly)
We tend to forget that our Savior is our great Defender and Advocate – so that whenever the evil one would seek to condemn us for our continuing sinfulness, Jesus is right there with His nail scarred hands showing the Father that the penalty for our sin has been paid in full and that Satan has no argument that can convince the Lord otherwise.

Quotes Worth Pondering – C.S.Lewis

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“Do not be deceived, Wormwood. Our cause is never more in danger than when a human, no longer desiring, but still intending, to do our Enemy’s will, looks round upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys.”
(C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters)

We live in a time when it might look like “every trace of Him seems to have vanished.” And yet, the triumphant cry of believers is that God is STILL on His throne and STILL working all things together for our good and for His glory – therefore we joyfully obey!

Quotes Worth Pondering – John Newton

Posted on by Shay Reyner

QuotesWorthPonderingThe times look awfully dark indeed; and as the clouds grow thicker—the stupidity of the nation seems proportionally to increase. If the Lord had not a remnant here, I would have very formidable apprehensions. (John Newton, 1778)

Sounds like it could have been written today. Praise God for the remnant.

Quotes Worth Pondering – William Gurnall

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QuotesWorthPonderingFaith strips away the veil from the Christian’s eyes so he can see sin in its nakedness before satan disguises it with flattering costumes. Faith enables the soul to recognize not only the nature of sin void of all true pleasure, but also the temporal quality of its frivolous elation. Faith persuades us not to give up God’s sure mercies for satan’s transient thrills.

The Christian in Complete Armour

 

There is a lot to ponder in these sentences that help us to understand the practical side of what faith is. Too often we think that faith is belief without substance. Gurnall helps us to understand that our faith is to be exercised with every choice that we make.