A W Pink

Just starting the book 'The Sovereignty of God' by fellow Notts-boy A.W.Pink. Although this is an extra read to Relay stoofs, I was struck by a sentence in the introduction about Pink's life, on the subject of the doctrine of Scripture (which was a large part of the beginning of my relay studies).

"However strongly he insists on the doctrines of Scripture, he never views correct doctrine as an end in itself, but rather as a means to a greater end - the glory of God in the salvation and sanctification of sinners"

BOOM. Feel the challenge.

Your Kingdom Come, My Kingdom Go

"Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on: you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of — throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were going to be made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself." : C.S.Lewis - Mere Christianity

"Before we say 'Your Kingdom Come', we have to say 'my kingdom go!'"
Peter Lewis, Cornerstone Church Nottingham

Identity.

"Our essential identity as Christians is formed by Christ and the gospel, not by our own personalities, backgrounds or achievements. Through the death and resurrection of his Son, God has cleansed us from the guilt of sin and liberated us from its consequences and its control. He has set us in a right and faithful relation to himself, together with all who call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Drawing us into an exclusive relationship with himself in this way, he has made us his holy people, destined to serve him and please him for ever. Sanctification is about being possessed by God and expressing that distinctive and exclusive relationship by the way we live.

Although God calls upon us to express the fact that we have been sanctified by the way we live, our standing with him does not depend on the degree to which we live up to his expectations. It depends on his grace alone. Those who are bowed down by the pressure of temptation and an awareness of failure need to be reminded of the definitive, sanctifying work of God in Christ, by which he has established us as his holy people. On this basis, they should be urged to press on in hope and grasp again by faith the benefits of Christ’s sacrifice. Approaching the exalted Lord with boldness, we may always receive mercy and find ‘grace to help in time of need’ (Heb. 4:16)."

David Peterson - Possessed by God: A New Testament Theology of Sanctification and Holiness (IVP, 1995)[pp. 47–48]

C.S. Lewis - The Weight Of Glory (excerpt)

"We cannot tell it because it is a desire for something that has never actually appeared in our experience. We cannot hide it because our experience is constantly suggesting it, and we betray ourselves like lovers at the mention of a name. Our commonest expedient is to call it beauty… The books or music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them; it was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through them was longing. These things – the beauty, the memory of our own past – are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshippers. For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never visited."

Leonard Ravenhill.

"A missionary isn’t someone who crosses the sea, but someone who sees the cross."

"A sinning man stops praying, a praying man stops sinning."

"The opportunity of a lifetime must be seized within the lifetime of the opportunity."

"Jesus did not come into the world to make bad men good. He came into the world to make dead men live!"

"There are only two kinds of persons: those dead in sin and those dead to sin."

Jerry Bridges, The Discipline of Grace (1994)

"Your worst days are never so bad that you are beyond the reach of God's grace. And your best days are never so good that you are beyond the need of it."

Treasuring Him / John Piper Sermon Jam

More available here, also as free mp3 downloads for your ears - http://www.1031sermonjams.com/

Good old Spurgeon

"Remember, sinner, it is not thy hold of Christ that saves thee – it is Christ; it is not thy joy in Christ that saves thee – it is Christ; it is not even faith in Christ, though that is the instrument – it is Christ’s blood and merits; therefore, look not to thy hope, but to Christ, the source of thy hope; look not to thy faith, but to Christ, the author and finisher of thy faith; and if thou doest that, ten thousand devils cannot throw thee down… There is one thing which we all of us too much becloud in our preaching, though I believe we do it very unintentionally – namely, the great truth that it is not prayer, it is not faith, it is not our doings, it is not our feelings upon which we must rest, but upon Christ, and on Christ alone. We are apt to think that we are not in a right state, that we do not feel enough, instead of remembering that our business is not with self, but Christ. Let me beseech thee, look only to Christ; never expect deliverance from self, from ministers, or from any means of any kind apart from Christ; keep thine eye simply on Him; let his death, His agonies, His groans, His sufferings, His merits, His glories, His intercession, be fresh upon thy mind; when thou wakest in the morning look for Him; when thou liest down at night look for Him."

The Forgotten Spurgeon, Iain Murray, p42