Study Your Blessed Savior More and More

"Would you have more faith? Then seek to become more acquainted with Jesus Christ. Study your blessed Savior more and more, and strive to know more of the length and breadth and height of His love. Study Him in all His offices, as the Priest, the Physician, the Redeemer, the Advocate, the Friend, the Teacher, the Shepherd of His believing people.

Study Him as one who not only died for you—but is also living for you at the right hand of God; as one who not only shed His blood for you—but daily intercedes for you at the right hand of God; as one who is soon coming again for you, and will stand once more on this earth.

The miner who is fully persuaded that the rope which draws him up from the pit will not break, is drawn up without anxiety and alarm. The believer who is thoroughly acquainted with the fullness of Jesus Christ, is the believer who travels from grace to glory with the greatest comfort and peace."

--J.C. Ryle, Faith in Christ

HT: Of First Importance 

The War On Sin

A convicting question raised by Kevin DeYoung:

If the war on poverty is worth fighting, how much more the war on your own sin?

 [...]

There is a gap between our love for the gospel and our love for godliness. This must change. It's not pietism, legalism, or fundamentalism to take holiness seriously. It's the way of all those who have been called to a holy calling by a holy God.  

--Kevin DeYoung, The Hole in Our Holiness

Our Lives Are Directed by Our Hungers

A reminder that human desire or human hunger is not the problem, but what our sin causes us to hunger for:

From the beginning, then, Scripture affirms the reality and goodness of human hunger. Sin, of course, perverts our hunger, so that we seek to taste forbidden fruit rather than grasp the fruit of of the tree of life, but sin does not change the fundamental realities of human desire. Our hearts follow where our treasure is; if what we value above all is in heaven, we will desire Christ who is above, but if what we find most desirable are earthly things, our hearts will be focused on things below. Our lives are directed by our hungers, and we find rest only when we hunger for the One who opens His hand to satisfy the desire of every living thing more than we hunger for the things in His hand.

--Peter Leithart, Blessed Are the Hungry: Meditations on the Lord's Supper

The Bible Is a Humbling Book

Rich Mullins on why we were given the Scriptures (put in a way that only Rich could put it):

We were given the Scriptures not so that we could prove that we are right about everything, but we were given the Scriptures to humble us into realizing that God is right and the rest of us are just guessing...which is what makes the Bible so fun to read (especially if you're not a fundamentalist).

--Rich Mullins 

CT's Roundup of Post-Election Responses from Prominent Christian Voices

Christianity Today has a collection of quotes from different voices reflecting on the "new moral landscape" of post-election America.  You can read them here. 

We Shall Not Be Able to Strut Round Heaven Like Peacocks

A good reminder of our need for humility:

Christians are always uncomfortable in the presence of pride, for they sense its incongruity. We shall not be able to strut round heaven like peacocks. Heaven will be filled with the exploits of Christ and the praises of God. There will indeed be display in heaven. Not self-display, however, but rather a display of the incomparable wealth of God's grace, mercy, and kindness through Jesus Christ.

--John Stott

Humility in the Wrong Place

The ever quotable G.K. Chesterton:

What we suffer from today is humility in the wrong place.  Modesty has moved from the organ of ambition . . . [and] settled upon the organ of conviction, where it was never meant to be.  A man was meant to be doubtful about himself, but undoubting about the truth; this has been exactly reversed.  We are on the road to producing a race of men too mentally modest to believe in the multiplication table.

--G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

A Whole Church Aroused to Sacred Energy

"Great things are done by the Holy Spirit when a whole church is aroused to sacred energy."

--Charles Spurgeon

Knowing Ourselves

"Those do not commonly know themselves best who think best of themselves."

--Matthew Henry

The Pulpit Is for Preaching Christ

I'm thankful to Luke Allison for sharing this quote with me, which he found while researching Edward Mote.

You may not recognize Mote's name, but you probably know his hymn, "On Christ the Solid Rock I Stand." Mote was a 19th century Baptist pastor beloved by his congregation. And when his church offered to name their chapel after him, he refused, saying:

I do not want the chapel, I only want the pulpit; and when I cease to preach Christ, then turn me out of that.

HT: OneEternalDay

Faith Can Be Neither Empty, Nor Blind

"Without personal identification with Jesus Christ, cognitive specification of who he is remains empty; without cognitive specification of who Jesus Christ is, however, personal identification with him is blind."

--Miroslav Volf

Service Without Faith

"Till men have faith in Christ, their best services are but glorious sins."

--Thomas Brooks

When First Things Are Put First

A wise and helpful reminder from C.S. Lewis:

"When first things are put first, second things are not suppressed but increased."

The Root of All Error

"Ignorance of the Scriptures is the root of all error."

--J.C. Ryle

Great Quote, Great Picture - You Need to See Both for the Full Effect

Normally, I would just take a quote like the one I'm about to recommend and include it in the post (without making you have to go to another site to read it). But the picture that Kevin DeYoung included with this quote by the Puritan, Thomas Brooks, is too good not to point you to his blog to see both. Check them out here.

A Warning about Departing from the Truth

"The beginning of departure from the pure truth is like the letting out of waters - first a drop, and at last a torrent."

--J.C. Ryle

Glorying in the Gospel, Knowing the Plague Within

"The man that does not glory in the gospel can surely know little of the plague that is within him."

--J.C. Ryle

We Teach No New Thing

When the Roman Catholic Church accused the Reformers of teaching novelties and inventing new doctrines, Martin Luther's reply was simply this:

We teach no new thing, but we repeat and establish old things, which the apostles and all godly teachers have taught before us.

Oh, that more pastors today would be content with restoration rather than innovation!

The Lessons of the Cross

"The lessons of the cross are ones we never outgrow, for the further we go the deeper we get."

--Rebecca Pippert

HT: Of First Importance

Difficult and Untried

"The Christian faith has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult and left untried."

--G.K. Chesterton