Aware of Our Debts or Rights?

A spirit of self-assurance is a gospel-denying, self-deceiving, friendship-destroying mentality. It is natural to say to ourselves, “I’m doing my part. They should be grateful.” It is supernatural to say to ourselves, “I place myself under the judgment of the Word of God. I humble myself. Even if the other person is wrong, that gives me no right to assert myself. No matter what the other person does, no matter how much I am misunderstood and misjudged, I will remain in the fear of the Lord, I will entrust myself to God.” True friendship thrives when, before God, each one is more aware of his debts than his rights.

~Ray Ortlund, from the Gospel Coalition Blog

Happy Souls

I saw more clearly than ever, that the first great and primary business to which I ought to attend every day was, to have my soul happy in the Lord.
~George Mueller

God Is Enough!

Habakkuk 3:17-18 “Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the LORD; I will take joy in the God of my salvation.” In other words, when all the supports of human life and earthly happiness are taken away, God will be our delight, our joy. This experience is humanly impossible. No ordinary person can speak in truth like this. If God alone is enough to support joy when all else is lost, it is a miracle of grace.

~John Piper, When I Don't Desire God, p.25

When Thinking About God...

To think feebly of God [is] the supreme indignity.
~ Tozer, Born After Midnight, p. 27

The Power of God's Promise

Difficulties heaped on difficulties can never rise to the promise of God.
~ Charles Bridges, The Christian Ministry, p. 232

Do You Really Love God?

If we love not God because he is what he is, but only because he is profitable to us, in truth we love him not at all.
~ Jonathan Edwards, Original Sin

From "The Valley of Vision"

Thou art the end of all means, for if they lead me not to Thee, I go away empty.

Following Our Desires

In nature everything moves in the direction of its hungers. In the spiritual world it is not otherwise. We gravitate toward our inward longing, provided of course that those longings are strong enough to move us. Impotent dreaming will not do. The religious urge that is not followed by a corresponding act of the will in the direction of that urge is a waste of emotion.

~Tozer, The Size of the Soul, p. 18

Prayer for Illumination

O God, quicken to life every power within me, that I may lay hold on eternal things. Open my eyes that I may see; give me acute spiritual perception; enable me to taste Thee and know that Thou art good. Make heaven more real to me than any earthly thing has ever been.

~ A.W. Tozer

Hunger for God

The greatest enemy of hunger for God is not poison but apple pie. It is not the banquet of the wicked that dulls our appetite for heaven, but endless nibbling at the table of the world. It is not the X - rated video, but the prime - time dribble of triviality we drink in every night. For all the ill that Satan can do, when God describes what keeps us from the banquet table of his love, it is a piece of land, a yoke of oxen, and a wife (Luke 14:18 - 20). The greatest adversary of love to God is not his enemies but his gifts. And the most deadly appetites are not for the poison of evil, but for the simple pleasures of earth. For when these replace an appetite for God himself, the idolatry is scarcely recognizable, and almost incurable.

~ John Piper, A Hunger for God, p. 14

Psalm 42:1-5

1 As a deer pants for flowing streams,
so pants my soul for you, O God.
2 My soul thirsts for God,
for the living God.
When shall I come and appear before God?
3 My tears have been my food
day and night,
while they say to me all the day long,
“Where is your God?”
4 These things I remember,
as I pour out my soul:
how I would go with the throng
and lead them in procession to the house of God
with glad shouts and songs of praise,
a multitude keeping festival.
5 Why are you cast down, O my soul,
and why are you in turmoil within me?
Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,
my salvation and my God.

Don't Neglect the Father

No amount of activity in the Father's service will make up for the neglect of the Father Himself.

~ Robert Murray McCheyne

Isaiah 53:4-6

4 Surely he has borne our griefs
and carried our sorrows;
yet we esteemed him stricken,
smitten by God, and afflicted.
5 But he was wounded for our transgressions;
he was crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
and with his stripes we are healed.
6 All we like sheep have gone astray;
we have turned—every one—to his own way;
and the Lord has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.

Prayer to the Spirit

Spirit of God, descend upon my heart;
Wean it from earth; through all its pulses move;
Stoop to my weakness, mighty as Thou art;
And make me love Thee as I ought to love.

Hast Thou not bid me love Thee, God and King?
All, all Thine own, soul, heart and strength and mind.
I see Thy cross; there teach my heart to cling:
O let me seek Thee, and O let me find!

Teach me to love Thee as Thine angels love,
One holy passion filling all my frame;
The kindling of the heaven descended Dove,
My heart an altar, and Thy love the flame.

~ George Croly

What Love for God Is

Loving God in its essence is desiring, treasuring, delighting in, being satisfied in, cherishing, savoring, valuing, prizing, revering and admiring God Himself in and beyond His gifts.

~ John Piper

The Indescribable Love of God

From God’s other known attributes we may learn much about His love. We can know, for instance, that because God is self-existent, His love had no beginning; because He is eternal, His love can have no end; because He is infinite, it has no limit; because He is holy, it is the quintessence of all spotless purity; because He is immense, His love is an incomprehensibly vast, bottomless, shoreless sea before which we kneel in joyful silence and from which the loftiest eloquence retreats confused and abashed.

Yet if we would know God and for other’s sake tell what we know, we must try to speak of His love. All Christians have tried, but none has ever done it very well. I can no more do justice to that awesome and wonder-filled theme than a child can grasp a star. Still, by reaching toward the star the child may call attention to it and even indicate the direction one must look to see it. So, as I stretch my heart toward the high, shining love of God, someone who has not before known about it may be encouraged to look up and have hope.

~ Tozer, The Knowledge of the Holy, p. 98

Prayer from Piper

O Lord Jesus, I am by nature a rebel and find more pleasure in what you made than in you. I am sick and corrupt. O Christ, how plain it is to me now that I need something so much deeper and more powerful and more personal than the law. I know your law is good. But I am flesh, and powerless to obey. And so, Lord Jesus, I turn away from the law, to you. You are my only hope. I turn away from my own resources and bank on your blood and righteousness for acceptance, and on your help for holiness. I turn away from all earthly pleasures and take you, and you alone, as the all-satisfying joy of my life. I renounce Satan and all his ways and all his works. I repent of all the sins I know, and those you know and I don't.

And, O Lord, I pray that you would have mercy on me, and open the eyes of my heart to see you as you really are in all of your surpassing beauty. I pray that you would display your glory to me in the gospel. What I see and know of you now, I embrace with all my heart...and ask you to dwell mightily in me and make yourself the Victor in my life so that when I love my brothers and my enemies – as I intend to do with all my heart – the glory will go to you.

Amen.

~ John Piper, audio sermon, How the Spirit Does What the Law Could Not Do

Unimaginable Holiness

Neither the writer nor the reader of these words is qualified to appreciate the holiness of God. Quite literally a new channel must be cut through the desert of our minds to allow the sweet waters of truth that will heal our great sickness to flow in. We cannot grasp the true meaning of the divine holiness by thinking of someone or something very pure and then raising the concept to the highest degree we are capable of. God’s holiness is not simply the best we know infinitely bettered. We know nothing like the divine holiness. It stands apart, unique, unapproachable, incomprehensible and unattainable. The natural man is blind to it. He may fear God’s power and admire His wisdom, but His holiness he cannot even imagine.

~ Tozer, The Knowledge of the Holy, p. 104

Our Wonderful, Holy God

My God, how wonderful Thou art,
Thy majesty how bright!
How beautiful Thy mercy-seat,
In depths of burning light!

How dread are Thine eternal years,
O everlasting Lord,
By holy angels, day and night,
Incessantly adored!

O how I fear Thee, living God,
With deepest, tenderest fears;
And worship Thee with trembling hope,
And penitential tears.

Yet I may love Thee too, O Lord,
Almighty as Thou art;
For Thou hast stooped to ask of me
The love of my poor heart.

No earthly father loves like Thee,
No mother half so mild
Bears and forbears, as Thou hast done
With me, Thy sinful child.

How wonderful, how beautiful,
The sight of Thee will be,
Thine endless wisdom, boundless power,
And aweful purity!

~ Frederick Faber

Definition of Sin

The glory of God not honored, the holiness of God not reverenced, the greatness of God not admired, the power of God not praised, the truth of God not sought, the wisdom of God not esteemed, the beauty of God not treasured, the goodness of God not savored, the faithfulness of God not trusted, the commandments of God not obeyed, the justice of God not respected, the wrath of God not feared, the grace of God not cherished, the presence of God not prized, the person of God not loved—that is sin!

~ John Piper, audio sermon, The Greatest Thing in the World

God Is Big, We Are Small

Great God! Our lowliness takes heart to play
Beneath the shadow of Thy state;
The only comfort of our littleness
Is that Thou art so great.

~ Frederick W. Faber

Prayer from Tozer

O God, I have tasted Thy goodness, and it has both satisfied me and made me thirsty for more. I am painfully conscious of my need of further grace. I am ashamed of my lack of desire. O God, the Triune God, I want to want Thee; I long to be filled with longing; I thirst to be made more thirsty still. Show me Thy glory, I pray Thee, that so I may know Thee indeed. Begin in mercy a new work of love within me. Say to my soul, `Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away.' Then give me grace to rise and follow Thee up from this misty lowland where I have wandered so long. In Jesus' name, Amen.

~ Tozer, The Pursuit of God, p.20

Duty or Delight?

A perfect man would never act from sense of duty; he’d always want the right thing more than the wrong one. Duty is only a substitute for love (of God and of other people), like a crutch, which is a substitute for a leg. Most of us need the crutch at times; but of course it’s idiotic to use the crutch when our own legs (our own loves, tastes, habits, etc.) can do the journey on their own!

~ C.S. Lewis

Humility Before God

Humility pleases God wherever it is found, and the humble person will have God for his or her friend and helper always. Only the humble are completely sane, for they are the only ones who see clearly their own size and limitations. Egotists see things out of focus. To themselves they are large and God is correspondingly small, and that is a kind of moral insanity.

~ Tozer, This World: Playground or Battleground?, p.34

The Enjoyment of God

The enjoyment of God is the only happiness with which our souls can be satisfied. To go to heaven fully to enjoy God is infinitely better than the most pleasant accomodations here. Fathers and mothers, husbands or wives or children, or the company of earthly friends are but shadows; God is the substance. These are but the scattered beams; God is the sun. These are but streams; God is the ocean.

~ Jonathan Edwards

Loving God or His Gifts?

My indwelling sin stands in the way of my full satisfaction in God. It opposes and perverts my pursuit of God. It opposes by making other things look more desirable than God. And it perverts by making me think I am pursuing joy in God when, in fact, I am in love with his gifts.

~ John Piper, When I Don't Desire God, p. 14