Inspirational Quotes on Christianity

“I seldom come out of the pulpit but my conscience smiteth me that I have been no more serious and fervent. It accuseth me not so much for want of ornaments and elegancy, nor for letting fall an unhandsome word; but it asketh me, 'How couldst thou speak of life and death with such a heart? How couldst thou preach of heaven and hell in such a careless, sleepy manner? Dost thou believe what thou sayest? Art thou in earnest, or in jest? How canst thou tell people that sin is such a thing, and that so much misery is upon them and before them, and be no more affected with it? Shouldst thou not weep over such a people, and should not thy tears interrupt thy words? Shouldst thou not cry aloud, and show them their transgressions; and entreat and beseech them as for life and death? Truly this is the peal that conscience doth ring in my ears, and yet my drowsy soul will not be awakened. Oh, what a thing is an insensible, hardened heart! O Lord, save us from the plague of infidelity and hardheartedness ourselves, or else how shall we be fit instruments of saving others from it? Oh, do that on our souls which thou wouldst use us to do on the souls of others!”

“Seriousness is the very thing wherein consisteth our sincerity. If thou art not serious, thou art not a Christian (279).”

“When the world is worth nothing, then heaven is worth something. I leave every Christian to judge by his own experience, whether we do not overlove the world more in prosperity than in adversity (374) [.]”

“Either paganish unbelief of the truth of that eternal blessedness, and of the truth of the Scripture which doth promise it to us; or, at least, a doubting of our own interest; or most usually most sensible of the latter, and therefore complain most against it, yet I am apt to suspect the former to be the main, radical master-sin, and of greatest force in this business. Oh! If we did but verily believe that the promise of the glory is the word of God, and that God doth truly mean as he speaks, and is fully resolved to make it good; if we did verily believe that there is, indeed, such blessedness prepared for believers as the scripture mentioneth ; sure we should be as impatient of living as we are now fearful of dying, and should think every day a year till our last day should come. We should as hardly refrain from laying violent hands on ourselves, or from the neglecting of the means of our health and life, as we do now from over-much carefulness and seeking of life by unlawful means. . . . Is it possible that we can truly believe that death will remove us fro misery to such glory, and yet be loth to die(465-6)? It appears we are little weary of sinning, when we are so unwilling to be freed by dying(467).”

“The strongest Christian is unsafe among occasions to sin (519).”

“Why dost thou not see that on earth they desires fly from thee? Art thou a not as a child that thinketh to travel to the sun, when he seeth it rising or setting, as it were close to the heart ; but as he traveleth toward it, it seems to go from him ; and when he hath long wearied himself, it is as far off as ever, for the thing he seeketh is in another world? Even such hath been thy labour in seeking for so holy, so pure, so peaceable as society, as might afford thee a contented settlement here. Those that have gone as far as America for satisfaction, have confessed themselves unsatisfied still (643).”

“We know many among ourselves who have given themselves up to bonds, in order that they might ransom others. Many, too, have surrendered themselves to slavery, that with the price which they received for themselves, they might provide food for others.”

“There are as many kinds of anger as there are of the sunsets with which they ought to end”

“The world is restless today. There are many voices but there is no peace. Men are feverishly saying to a god manufactured to serve the social needs of man: 'Deliver me; for thou art my god.' They are trying to produce decency without principle; they are trying to keep back the raging sea of passion with flimsy mud embankment of self-interest; they are trying to do without the stern, solid masonry of the will of God. When will the vain effort cease? Shall we continue on our wanderings? Shall we continue to stagger like drunken men? Shall we still fashion a divinity that shall serve our utilitarian ends? Shall we amuse ourselves with idols? Or shall we return unto God?”

“The life which [Jesus] now lives in the Gospels is simply the old life lived over and over again. And in that life we have no place; in that life we are spectators, not actors. The life in which Jesus lives in the Gospels is after all, for us, but the spurious life of the stage. We sit silent in the playhouse and watch the absorbing Gospel drama of forgiveness and healing and love and courage and high endeavor; in rapt attention, we follow the fortunes of those who came to Jesus laboring and heavy laden and found rest. For a time, our own troubles are forgotten. But suddenly the curtain falls, with the closing of the book, and out we go again into the cold humdrum of our own lives… with our own problems and our own misery, and our own sin, And still seeking our own Savior. Let us not deceive ourselves, A Jewish teacher of the first century can never satisfy the longing of our souls. Clothe Him with all the art of modern research, throw upon Him… modern sentimentality; and despite it all, common sense will come to its rights again, and for our brief hour of self-deception - as through we had been with Jesus - will wreak upon us the revenge of hopeless disillusionment.”

“All speculative theology, which rests on philosophical reasoning rather than biblical revelation, is at fault here. Paul tells us where this sort of theology ends: “The world by wisdom knew not God” (1 Cor 1:21 KJV). To follow the imagination of one’s heart in the realm of theology is the way to remain ignorant of God, and to become an idol-worshipper, the idol in this case being a false mental image of God, made by one’s own speculation and imagination.”

“The psalmist [of Psalm 119] was interested in truth and orthodoxy, in biblical teaching and theology, not as ends in themselves, but as means to the further ends of life and godliness. His ultimate concern was with the knowledge and service of the great God whose truth he sought to understand (pp. 22-23).”

“Through the death of Christ we are blessed, that is justified and made alive. As long as sin, death and the curse remain in us, sin damns us, death kills us and the curse curses us; but when these things are transferred to Christ, what is ours becomes his, and what is his becomes ours. Let us learn, therefore, in every temptation to transfer sin, death, the curse and all evils that oppress us from ourselves to Christ, and in the other hand to transfer righteousness, life and blessing from him to us. For he does in fact bear all our evils, because God the Father, as Isaiah says, ‘has laid on him the iniquity of us all.”

“People say to me, that it is but a dream to suppose that Christianity should regain the organic power in human society which it once possessed. I cannot help that; I never said it could. I am not a politician; I am proposing no measures, but exposing a fallacy, and resisting a pretence. Let Benthamism reign, if men have no aspirations; but do not tell them to be romantic, and then solace them with glory; do not attempt by philosophy what once was done by religion. The ascendancy of Faith may be impracticable, but the reign of Knowledge is incomprehensible. The problem for statesmen of this age is how to educate the masses, and literature and science cannot give the solution.”

“My goodness was like 'the morning-dew that passeth away'; and, loving sin and disrelishing religious duties as much as ever, I returned, as 'the sow that is washed, to her wallowing in the mire'. With little variation, this was my course of life for nine years: but in that time I had such experience of my own weakness, and the superior force of temptation, that I secretly concluded reformation in my case to be impracticable. 'Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots?' I was experimentally convicted that I was equally unable, with the feeble barrier of resolutions and endeavours, to stem the torrent of impetuous inclinations, when swelled by welcome, suitable and powerful temptations; and being ignorant that God had reserved this to himself as his own work, and had engaged to do it for the poor sinner, who, feeling his own insufficiency, is heartily desirous to have it done by him, I stifled my convictions as well as I could, and put off my repentance to a more convenient season.”

“Man, resolved to follow the dictates of his depraved inclination, and not to bound his pursuits and enjoyments by the limits of God's holy law, catches at any thing to soften the horrible thought of eternal misery. This is the awakening reflection, God's sword in the conscience, which it is Satan's business, by all his diabolical artifices, to endeavour to sheath, blunt, or turn aside; knowing that while this alarming apprehension is present to the soul, he can never maintain possession of it in peace. By such inventions therefore as these, he takes care to furnish the sinner with that which he seeks, and to enable him to walk according to the course of this wicked world, and the desires of his depraved nature, without being disturbed by such dreadful thoughts.”

“If gratitude for the gospel is not rooted in the glory of God beneath the gift of God, it is disguised idolatry.”

“The faith that justifies gives rise to lives of obedience—not perfection, but growing holiness.”

“Doubt your despairing thoughts. Whence this great confidence you have in your damnation? A little skepticism is in order here. Who do you think you are making final declarations about your soul that lie hidden in the secrets of the Almighty? No. No. Renounce such confidence. If you have no ability for faith in the love of God for you, make no more such great pretenses to have such certainty of faith in your damnation. This is not yours to know. Rather, yours is to listen to Jesus.”

“The spirit of Jesus, when he set his face like flint to go to Jerusalem, runs through the generations of all his most inspiring followers.”