by J.C. Ryle
"Holiness, Its Nature, Hindrances, Difficulties, and Roots" 1879
Some professors are always trying to keep in with the world. They are ingenious in discovering reasons for not separating decidedly, and in framing plausible excuses for attending questionable amusements, and keeping up questionable friendships.
One day you are told of their attending a Bible class; the next day perhaps you hear of their going to a ball!
One day they fast, or go to the Lord’s table and receive the sacrament; another day they go to the racecourse in the morning, and the opera at night!
One day they are almost in hysterics under the sermon of some sensational preacher; another day they are weeping over some novel!
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by Vance Havner
Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord. James 5:11.
The Lord turned the captivity of Job and blessed the latter end of his life more than the beginning, but all that is not the climax of the book. It is not an anticlimax but it is a sort of postscript. Job arrived at the peak when he saw God. After that, whether he got well or not, or whether or not he recovered his prosperity, was incidental. He had got through to God. The main purpose of God was not to explain Job’s suffering or suffering in general. Job got through to illumination, which is better than explanation.
God does not always restore our lost prosperity. Some of the greatest saints die in their poverty, their adversity and their boils. But if they have got through to God Himself, they have reached life’s greatest goal. What happens after that is incidental. They are ready to say:
“Now Thee alone I seek; Give what is best.”
Do not pine away in your adversity, seeking explanation or restoration of your former prosperity. Seek to know God and thenceforth enjoy Him forever, whatever happens to your belongings and your boils!
by Vance Havner
by A.W. Tozer
Then he said to them all: ‘If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it.’" Luke 9:23-24
All things are but shadows cast by the great Reality, God, and if we were to gain the whole world and miss God, we should have no more than a handful of shadows. With this great eternal truth before His mind–the absolute reality of God as the central fact of existence–Christ taught the necessity of separation from the world and of complete consecration to God as the only way to escape the shadows and obtain those riches that cannot pass away. The modern Christian who insists upon separation as a condition of true spirituality is not the old-fashioned narrow person he is currently declared to be. His religious philosophy is altogether sound and wholly in accord with the total sum of things in heaven and earth. God being who and what He is and things being what they are, complete consecration is the only way to peace for any of us. The drift among Christians today is definitely away from this truth. More and more, our religious leaders are coming to place confidence in shadows and are teaching others to do the same. And just so far as shadows are accepted as real, the one great Reality is ignored. It is hard to think how a greater tragedy could possibly come upon us.
by A.W. Tozer
by A.B. Simpson
Your life is hid—Colossians 3:3
Some Christians rise in larger proportion than is becoming. They can tell, and others can tell, how many souls they bring to Christ. Their labor seems to crystallize and become its own memorial.
Other Christians seem to blend so completely with their fellow workers that their individuality can scarcely be traced. Yet, this is the most Christlike ministry of all, for even the Master Himself does not appear in the work of the Church except as her hidden Life and ascended Head, and the Holy Spirit is lost in the vessels that He uses.
The vine does not bear the fruit, it is the little branches which bear all the clusters and seem to have all the honor of the vintage. Even the sap is unseen in its ceaseless flow. And so, the nearer we come to Christ the more we are willing to lose sight of ourselves, and let others be more prominent. We uphold them by the silent ministry of our love and prayer.
Lord, let me be like the veiled seraphim before the throne, who cover their faces and their feet, and hide themselves and their service while they fly to obey Thee.
by A.B. Simpson
by J.C. Ryle
