The Remnant – Watchman Nee

“When at the incarnation God visited His people, but a handful of them looked for the redemption of Israel. They believed God was going to act, and through them and because of them He acted. Then in Jesus’ own lifetime multitudes followed Him, but again it was a much smaller group who protested: “To whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life.” And once more, before His ascension, He instructed His own to await the promise of the Father.

In practice, it seems to work out that God has always to move through a faithful remnant who, within the larger number and for the sake of God’s purpose in the whole, will be utter in their obedience to Him today.”
– Watchman Nee

Anarchy

“Anarchy is the sure consequence of tyranny;
for no power that is not limited by laws
can ever be protected by them.”
John Milton

A.W. Tozer – Pure Desire

“Lord…I want constantly to be aware of Thy overshadowing Presence…I want to live so fully in the Spirit that all my thought may be as sweet incense ascending to Thee.”
– A.W. Tozer

“One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to enquire in his temple”
Psalm 27:4

See A.W. Tozer Quote – Bread for Others

Thomas Aquinas – Kindness

Kindness and Truth

“The greatest kindness one can render to any man consists in leading him from error to truth”
– Thomas Aquinas

“My brothers, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone brings him back, let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins”
James 5:19-20

Madeleine L’Engle

“No wonder our youth is confused and in pain; they long for God, for the transcendent, and are offered, far too often, either piosity or sociology, neither of which meets their needs, and they are introduced to churches which have become buildings that are a safe place to escape the awful demands of God”
– Madeleine L’Engle

Stephen Charnock – Holiness

Stephen Charnock

“Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness”
Psalm 29:2, 96:9

Holiness

“As it seems to challenge an excellency above all His other perfections, so it is the glory of all the rest; as it is the glory of the Godhead, so it is the glory of every perfection in the Godhead; as His power is the strength of them, so His holiness is the beauty of them; as all would be weak without almightiness to back them, so all would be uncomely without holiness to adorn them. Should this be sullied, all the rest would lose their honour; as at the same instant the sun should lose its light, it would lose its heat, its strength, its generative and quickening virtue. As sincerity is the luster of every grace in a Christian, so is purity the splendor of every attribute in the Godhead. His justice is a holy justice, His wisdom a holy wisdom, His arm of power a “holy arm” (Ps. 98:1), His truth or promise a “holy promise” (Ps. 105:42). His name, which signifies all His attributes in conjunction, “is holy,” Psalm 103:1″
– Stephen Charnock

The Earnest Christian

“Resolved, to ask myself at the end of every day, week, month and year, wherein I could possibly in any respect have done better”
– Jonathan Edward

The earnest Christian is intent upon the growth and the development of our walk and life in Him. It is Him we seek to please, glorify and honour. We were created for His pleasure and it is to such an end that we seek to walk circumspectly. His love in us is the only means by which we live right and walk right. Love is the only motive which is capable of pleasing Him.

“But in all things
approving ourselves
as the ministers of God…”
2 Corinthians 6:4

Brian Troxel

John Bunyan – The Barren Fig Tree

John Bunyan

The Barren Fig Tree

“And when he saw a fig tree in the way, he came to it, and found nothing thereon, but leaves only, and said unto it, Let no fruit grow on thee henceforward for ever. And presently the fig tree withered away”
Matthew 21:19

“The man, I told you, is to represent to us God the Father; by which similitude he is often set out in the New Testament.

Observe then, that it is no new thing, if you find in God’s Church barren fig-tree, fruitless professors; even as here you see, is a tree, a fruitless tree, a fruitless fig-tree in the vineyard. Fruit is not so easily brought forth as a profession is got into; it is easy for a man to clothe himself with a fair show in the flesh; to word it, and say, ‘be thou warmed and filled’, with the best. It is no hard thing to do these with other things; but to be fruitful, to bring forth fruit to God, this doth not every tree, no not every fig-tree, that stands in the vineyard of God. Those words also John 15:2, ‘Every branch in me that beareth not fruit He taketh away,” assert the same thing. There are branches in Christ, in Christ’s Body mystical, (which is His Church, His Vineyard), that bear not fruit, wherefore the hand of God is to take them away: ‘I looked for grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes;’ Isa. 5:4, that is , no fruit at all that was acceptable with God. Again, Hosea 10:1 ‘Israel is an empty vine, he bringeth forth fruit unto himself,’ none to God; he is without fruit to God. All these, with many more, show us the truth of the observation, and that God’s Church may be cumbered with fruitless fig-trees, with barren professors.”
– John Bunyan from his book “The Barren Fig Tree” He is also the author of one of the most popular books every written by man… Pilgrims Progress.

Teacher, Master and Lord

Quote for Today

“You call Me Teacher and Lord, and you say well, for so I am ….I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master…”
John 13:13, 16

“To have a master and teacher is not the same thing as being mastered and taught. Having a master and teacher means that there is someone who knows me better than I know myself, who is closer than a friend, and who understands the remotest depths of my heart and is able to satisfy them fully. It means having someone who has made me secure in the knowledge that he has met and solved all the doubts, uncertainties, and problems in my mind. To have a master and teacher is this and nothing less— “…for One is your Teacher, the Christ…” Matthew 23:8

Our Lord never takes measures to make me do what He wants. Sometimes I wish God would master and control me to make me do what He wants, but He will not. And at other times I wish He would leave me alone, and He does not.

“You call Me Teacher and Lord…”— but is He? Teacher, Master, and Lord have little place in our vocabulary. We prefer the words Savior, Sanctifier, and Healer. The only word that truly describes the experience of being mastered is love, and we know little about love as God reveals it in His Word. The way we use the word obey is proof of this. In the Bible, obedience is based on a relationship between equals; for example, that of a son with his father. Our Lord was not simply God’s servant— He was His Son. “…though He was a Son, yet He learned obedience…” (Hebrews 5:8). If we are consciously aware that we are being mastered, that idea itself is proof that we have no master. If that is our attitude toward Jesus, we are far away from having the relationship He wants with us. He wants us in a relationship where He is so easily our Master and Teacher that we have no conscious awareness of it— a relationship where all we know is that we are His to obey.”
Oswald Chambers

Quote for Today – Samuel Chadwick

Quote for Today

“Spirit filled souls are ablaze for God. They love with a love that glows. They serve with a faith that kindles. They serve with a devotion that consumes. They hate sin with fierceness that burns. They rejoice with a joy that radiates. Love is perfected in the fire of God”
– Samuel Chadwick