Wes Van Fleet > Wes's Quotes

“Christ died for us, but he does not repent and believe for us. Repentance and faith are gifts that he gives us by his Word and Spirit, but we exercise them as a deliberate act of the will.67 Let us not downplay the difficulty of this struggle. Every believer fights against insurgents within and without, the remnants of a defeated foe. This growth is not automatic. We may quench the Spirit by refusing his promptings. When we fail to avail ourselves of the means of grace, we shrivel on the vine. Furthermore, if we don’t communicate with our Father and if we abandon the fellowship of our brothers and sisters, we become drifters instead of pilgrims. The gospel gives us a secure place to stand as we fight this battle with all our might and main.”
― Michael S. Horton, Calvin on the Christian Life: Glorifying and Enjoying God Forever

“Theologies of glory ascend to heaven with humanly devised methods for bringing Christ down or for descending into the depths to make him living and real to us, but a theology of the cross receives him in the humble and weak form of those creaturely means that he has ordained.3”
― Michael S. Horton, Calvin on the Christian Life: Glorifying and Enjoying God Forever

“There is nothing like looking, if you want to find something (or so Thorin said to the young dwarves). You certainly usually find something, if you look, but it is not always quite the something you were after.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit

“If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit

“If I do not procure the edification of those who hear me, I am a sacrilege, profaning God’s Word.” Edification is central to proper preaching: “For God will have his people edified. . . . When we come together in the name of God, it is not to hear merry songs and to be fed with wind, that is vain and unprofitable curiosity, but to receive spiritual nourishment.”
― Michael S. Horton, Calvin on the Christian Life: Glorifying and Enjoying God Forever

“In reading the book of Acts, most of us shouldn’t ask, “How many oceans have I sailed for the Gospel’s sake?” but rather, “If Paul made a seven-day stop in my town, would he be likely to find me faithfully advancing the Gospel with the rest of the disciples in my church?”
― Chris Anderson, Gospel Meditations for Missions

“Lad, it’s one thing to be poor in pocket—nothing wrong with that. But poor in heart—that’s no good. Look at them. They’re sad in the eyes, and it’s a sadness no amount of money could repair. Why, they hardly remember what it’s like to laugh from the belly anymore.”
― Andrew Peterson, On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness

“Over and over again he said, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” And over and over again, Nia said, “We love you, we love you.”
― Andrew Peterson, North! or Be Eaten

“failure to him and his dying a cold horror. It seems to me that if you or I must choose between two courses of thought or action, we should remember our dying and try so to live that our death brings no pleasure to the world. We have only one story. All novels, all poetry, are built on the never-ending contest in ourselves of good and evil. And it occurs to me that evil must constantly respawn, while good, while virtue, is immortal. Vice has always a new fresh young face, while virtue is venerable as nothing else in the world is.”
― John Steinbeck, East of Eden