“When we assume that God only wills healing and joy rather than suffering in our lives now, we have forgotten the cross of Christ. When we act as if life with the resurrected Christ should be just one victory upon another, we have forgotten the cross of Christ. For while the death of Christ was a once for all sacrifice, ambassadors of the gospel do not skip over the cross to experience “resurrection living.” – Todd Billing, Rejoicing in Lament, 127.
Category Archives: Quotes
Something to Always Pray For
“George Whitefield’s life drove home the truth that God alone could create in him a holy earnestness to win souls and qualify him for such divine work by imparting a compassion for the lost that should become an absorbing passion for their salvation.” – Pierson, George Müller of Bristol And His Witness to a Prayer-Hearing God, 89.
Joy in Meditation
“If enjoying God and being in the presence of God is the highest purpose for which I exist, then worship and biblical meditation are not low priorities but high priorities; they are worthy of my best time, energy and focused attention. Keeping this highest purpose of human existence—joyful communion with God—clearly in mind should be an excellent motivator to our meditative practice.” – John Jefferson Davis, Meditation and Communion with God, 87.
What Story Does Your Prayer Index Tell?
“Prayerlessness is often an index to our ignorance of God. Real and vital knowledge of God not only teaches us what to pray, but gives us powerful incentive to pray.” – D.A. Carson, Praying with Paul, 179.
The Right Mood of Preaching
“I love to preach in such a mood, not as though I was about to preach at all, but hoping that the Holy Spirit would speak through me. . . . Dependence upon God is the flowing fountain of success. That true saint of God, George Muller, has always struck me, when I have heard him speak, as being such a simple, child-like being in his dependence upon God; but, alas! the most of us are far too great for God to use us; we can preach as well as anybody, make a sermon with anybody,—and so we fail. Take care, brethren; for if we think we can do anything of ourselves, all we shall get from God will be the opportunity to try.” – Spurgeon, An All-Round Ministry, 183.
To Yourself First, Then To Them
“A man preacheth that sermon only well unto others which preacheth itself in his own soul. And he that doth not feed on and thrive in the digestion of the food which he provides for others will scarce make it savoury unto them; yea, he knows not but the food he hath provided may be poison, unless he have really tasted of it himself. If the word do not dwell with power in us, it will not pass with power from us.” – John Owen, Works Vol: XVI, 76.
Don’t Be a Cherry-Picker
“While psalms of thanksgiving are wonderful, they are rarer in the book of Psalms than psalms of lament. Cherry-picking only the praises from the Psalms tends to shape a church culture in which only positive emotions can be expressed before God in faith.” — Todd Billings, Rejoicing in Lament, 40-41.
Come On Down, The Water’s Fine!
The Judged, Not “The Judge”
“[A] God-centered focus of preaching will change [the listener’s] assessment of the preacher and the preaching. If people know they have encountered God, they do not praise the preacher. The focus stays on God. They no longer stand over the preacher as a judge of his sermon ‘performance.’ Though one moment they are the judge, the next they perceive that they are being judged. This perception should lead to a different diagnostic question in regard to preaching. The question will no longer be, ‘How was the sermon?’ because that question calls for the hearer to judge how the preacher did. Instead it will be, ‘How did your soul fare under the sermon?’ or ‘How did God address you in the sermon?’ – Jason Meyer, Preaching: A Biblical Theology, 246.
A Season for Smiling
“Let your warmest affection, your greatest cheerfulness, your most engaging smiles, be put on when you teach Scriptural truths to your children.” – John James