Do not pray for easy lives, pray to be better men and women. Do not pray for tasks equal to your strength, pray for strength equal to your tasks. ~Phillips Brooks (composer of "Oh Little Town of Bethlehem)

Faith is a decision. It is not a deduction from the facts around us. We would not look at the world of today and logically conclude that God loves us. It doesn’t always look as though He does. Faith is not an instinct. It certainly is not a feeling—feeling don’t help much when you’re in the lions’ den or hanging on a wooden Cross. Faith is not inferred from the happy things always work. It is an act of the will, a choice based on the unbreakable Word of a God who cannot lie, and who showed us what love and obedience and sacrifice mean, in the person of Jesus Christ. ~Elisabeth Elliot, “Secure in the Everlasting Arms”, p 94

The only crown Jesus ever wore on earth was a crown of thorns. ~Elisabeth Elliot, “The Path of Loneliness”, p137

Turn your loneliness into solitude, and your solitude into prayer. ~Elisabeth Elliot, “ The Path of Loneliness”, p153

After the Crucifixion came the Resurrection. After the Resurrection the Ascension. Because Jesus wore a crown of thorns, He now wears a crown of glory. Because He came poor, He now sits enthroned. Because He made Himself of no reputation, He now has a name which is above every name. Because He was willing to become a slave, He is now Master of everything. Because He was obedient to death, He is Lord of Life and holds the keys of hell and death. Because He made Himself of no reputation, every knee will someday bow before Him. Every renunciation led to glory. ~Elisabeth Elliot, “The Path of Loneliness”, p125

With what misgivings we turn over our lives to God, imagining somehow that we are about to lose everything that matters. Our hesitancy is like that of a tiny shell on the seashore, afraid to give up the teaspoon of water it holds lest there not be enough in the ocean to fill it again. Lose your life, said Jesus, and you will find it. Give up, and I will give you all. Can the shell imagine the depth and plenitude of the ocean? Can you and I fathom the riches, the fullness, of God’s Love? ~Elisabeth Elliot, The Path of Loneliness, p 32

Wherever you are, be all there. Live to the hilt ever situation you believe to be will of God. ~Jim Elliot, Journals

July 14, 1948 Ruth – Naomi had to become empty before God could restore life (1:21, 4:15). The weakness of two widows at the mercy of God He uses to give ancestry to great David and David’s “Lord.” Naomi’s tendency was to become embittered at her loss, not knowing this was God’s way to make His and her name remembered (4:11) in Israel. How like Orpah I am—prone to kiss, to display full devotion and turn away; how unlike Ruth, cleaving and refusing to part except at death (1:14-17). Eternal Lover, make Thou Thyself inseparable from my unstable soul. Be Thou the object bright and fair to fill and satisfy the heart. My hope to meet Thee in the air, and never more from Thee to part! ~Jim Elliot, Journals

July 7, 1948 – Psalms 104:4; “He makes his ministers a flame of fire.” Am I ignitable? God deliver me from the dread asbestos of “other things.” Saturate me with the oil of the Spirit that I may be a flame. ~Jim Elliot, Journals

Lord, give me firmness without hardness; steadfastness without dogmatism; love without weakness.
~Jim Elliot, Journals, Nov 24, 1949

August 14, 1948 – Take me, O God, and may my life be yielded that it might be wielded. Yea, I would know wielding the sword myself so that my hand would cleave thereto—wholly helpless without the Word—weary in its use but unrelenting in my clutch of it (2 Samuel 23:2-6) ~ Jim Elliot, Journals

I have prayed for new men, fiery, reckless men, possessed of uncontrollably youthful passion—these lit by the Spirit of God. I have prayed for new words, explosive, direct, simple words. I have prayed for new miracles. Explaining old miracles will not do. If God is to be known as the God who does wonders in heaven and earth, then God must produce for this generation. Lord, fill preachers and preaching with Thy power. How long dare we go on without tears, without moral passions, hatred and love? Not long, I pray, Lord Jesus, not long . . . “ ~Jim Elliot, Journals, Oct 27, 1949

October 27, 1948 – Sufficiency in myself is a persistent thought, though I try to judge it. Lord Jesus, Tender Lover of this brute soul, wilt Thou make me weak? I long to understand Thy sufficiency and my inadequacy, and how can I sense this except in experience? So, Lord, Thou knowest what I am able to bear. Send trouble that I might know peace; send anxiety that I might know rest in Thee. Send hard things that I may learn to rely on Thy dissolving them. Strange askings, and I do not know what I speak, but “my desire is toward Thee”—anything that will intensify and make me tender, Savior. O desire to be like Thee, Thou knowest. ~Jim Elliot, Journals

Conversion is not a blind leap into darkness. It is a joyous leap into the light that is the love of God. ~Corrie ten Boom, “Each New Day”

When the Lord takes your sins, you never see them again. He casts them into the depths of the sea, forgiven and forgotten. I even believe that He places a sign over them that reads, “No fishing allowed”. ~Corrie ten Boom, “New Each Day”

The devil smiles when we make plans. He laughs when we get too busy. But he trembles when we pray—especially when we pray together. ~Corrie ten Boom, “He Cares For You”
When the worst happens in the life of a child of God the best remains, and the very best is yet to be. ~Corrie ten Boom

God has no problems, only plans. ~Corrie ten Boom

Discernment is God's call to intercession, never to faultfinding. ~Corrie ten Boom

Any concern too small to be turned into a prayer is too small to be made into a burden. ~Corrie ten Boom

Never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God. ~Corrie ten Boom

It is not my ability, but my response to God’s ability, that counts. ~Corrie ten Boom

Worry is a cycle of inefficient thoughts whirling around a center of fear. ~Corrie ten Boom

If God sends us on strong paths, we are provided strong shoes. ~Corrie ten Boom

Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow. It empties today of its strength. ~Corrie ten Boom

Forgiveness is the key which unlocks the door of resentment and the handcuffs of hatred. It breaks the chains of bitterness and the shackles of selfishness. The forgiveness of Jesus not only takes away our sins, it makes them as if they had never been. ~Corrie ten Boom, “Tramp for the Lord”
:-D

"Come, then, let us restore the lost chord of Christianity heroism to the world, and the crown of the world to Christ. Christ Himself asks the question, Will you be a Malingerer or a Militant?

To your knees, man! And to your Bible! Decide at once! Don't hedge! Time flies! Cease your insults to God, quit consulting flesh and blood. Stop your lame, lying, and cowardly excuses." C.T. Studd

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Patrick Ersig

"Amongst all the stratagems whereby the great enemy of mankind plots and contrives their ruin, few are more unhappily successful than this fond persuasion he has filled them with: namely, that heaven and everlasting happiness are easily attainable."

[i]There Are But A Small Number Saved[/i]
Henry Scougal

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Mike Balog

Whenever our Lord talked about the relation of a disciple to Himself it was in terms of mystical union: “I am the vine [not the root of the vine, but the vine itself], ye are the branches.” We have not paid enough attention to the illustrations Jesus uses. This is the picture of sanctification in the individual, a completeness of relationship between Jesus Christ and myself. Pharisaic holiness means that my eyes are set on my own whiteness and I become a separate individual. I have the notion that I have to be something; I have not, I have to be absolutely abandoned to Jesus Christ, so one with Him that I never think of myself apart from Him. Love is never self-conscious.

-Chambers, Oswald. Biblical Ethics. Hants UK: Marshall, Morgan & Scott, 1996, c1947.

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Ron Halverson

"God is reasonably angry with you, because you, who are at enmity through wicked works, are unreasonably angry with Him."

-G.A. Jarquin

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Giancarlo

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Christopher Joel Dandrow

"No flesh shall glory in His presence, and the religious flesh is no more acceptable than the irreligious."

T. Austin-Sparks

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D. Bryant