J.T. > J.T.'s Quotes

“Without a doubt a world-crisis is at hand, and everywhere men are alarmed. But God is not! He is never taken by surprise. It is no unexpected emergency which now confronts Him, for He is the One who “worketh all things after the counsel of His own will” (Eph. 1:11). Hence, though the world is panic-stricken, the word to the believer is, “Fear not”! “All things” are subject to His immediate control: “all things” are moving in accord with His eternal purpose, and therefore, “all things” are “working together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose.”
― Arthur W. Pink, The Sovereignty of God

“But so long as we are occupied with any other object than God Himself, there will be neither rest for the heart nor peace for the mind. But when we receive all that enters our lives as from His hand, then, no matter what may be our circumstances or surroundings—whether in a hovel, a prison-dungeon, or a martyr’s stake—we shall be enabled to say, “The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places” (Ps. 16:6).”
― Arthur W. Pink, The Sovereignty of God

“Our actions don’t make us Christians or make us more of a Christian or keep us as Christians—for our union with God is all his work. Our actions do make a difference to our enjoyment of God—for our communion with God (our enjoyment of our union with God) involves a two-way relationship.”
― Tim Chester, Enjoying God: Experience the power and love of God in everyday

“Each of the three Persons in the blessed Trinity is concerned with our salvation: with the Father it is predestination; with the Son propitiation; with the Spirit regeneration. The Father chose us; the Son died for us; the Spirit quickens us. The Father was concerned about us; the Son shed His blood for us, the Spirit performs His work within us. What the One did was eternal, what the Other did was external, what the Spirit does is internal.”
― Arthur W. Pink, The Sovereignty of God

“Truly, God is “no respecter” of persons or He would not have saved me.”
― Arthur W. Pink, The Sovereignty of God

“Sacrifice becomes an opportunity to express our delight in God. What we give up seems small in comparison to what we’re gaining.”
― Tim Chester, Enjoying God: Experience the power and love of God in everyday

“This is how editor R. J. K. Law restates it: “The greatest sorrow and burden you can lay on the Father, the greatest unkindness you can do to him, is not to believe that he loves you.”
― Tim Chester, Enjoying God: Experience the power and love of God in everyday

“There can be no progress in Divine things until there is the personal recognition that God is Supreme, that He is to be feared and revered, that He is to be owned and served as Lord.”
― Arthur W. Pink, The Sovereignty of God

“Seeing God as our Father radically changes your attitude to religious duties. It turns religion into relationship.”
― Tim Chester, Enjoying God: Experience the power and love of God in everyday

“There is nothing that God expects you to do that you cannot do. The sin that defeats you need not defeat you. The fears that consume you need not consume you. The people who terrify you need not terrify you. You have the Spirit of life within you empowering you to know God and follow Christ.”
― Tim Chester, Enjoying God: Experience the power and love of God in everyday

“Although believers are now pilgrims on earth,” says Calvin, “yet by their confidence they surmount the heavens, so that they cherish their future inheritance in their bosoms with tranquillity.”[44] What frees us from the vain pursuit of earthly treasure is the hope of treasure in heaven (Matthew 6 v 19-20; 1 Timothy 6 v 17-19).”
― Tim Chester, Enjoying God: Experience the power and love of God in everyday

“Christians often speak of the three uses of the law. The first is to lead us to Christ by convicting us of sin. The second is to restrain wickedness in the world. The third use is to help us learn the nature of the Lord’s will, acting as a kind of blueprint for holiness.”
― Kevin DeYoung, The Hole in Our Holiness: Filling the Gap between Gospel Passion and the Pursuit of Godliness

“The Christian life still entails obedience. It still involves a fight. But it’s a fight we will win. You have the Spirit of Christ in your corner, rubbing your shoulders, holding the bucket, putting his arm around you and saying before the next round with sin, “You’re going to knock him out, kid.” Sin may get in some good jabs. It may clean your clock once in a while. It may bring you to your knees. But if you are in Christ it will never knock you out. You are no longer a slave, but free. Sin has no dominion over you. It can’t. It won’t. A new King sits on the throne. You serve a different Master. You salute a different Lord.”
― Kevin DeYoung, The Hole in Our Holiness: Filling the Gap between Gospel Passion and the Pursuit of Godliness

“In this fallen world, sadness is an act of sanity, our tears the testimony of the sane.”
― Zack Eswine, Spurgeon's Sorrows: Realistic Hope for those who Suffer from Depression

“I am sure that I have run more swiftly with a lame leg than I ever did with a sound one. I am certain that I have seen more in the dark than ever I saw in the light, – more stars, most certainly, – more things in heaven if fewer things on earth. The anvil, the fire, and the hammer, are the making of us; we do not get fashioned much by anything else. That heavy hammer falling on us helps to shape us; therefore let affliction and trouble and trial come.”
― Zack Eswine, Spurgeon's Sorrows: Realistic Hope for those who Suffer from Depression

“Fear not. Whether you live or die, you will be with me. And in the meantime, while you live, nothing will happen to you—nothing!—that I do not appoint. If I decide, you will live. If I decide, you will die. And until you die at my decision, I will decide if you do this or that. Get to work.” This is my Rock—for today, tomorrow, and eternity.”
― John Piper, Coronavirus and Christ

“God put the physical world under a curse so that the physical horrors we see around us in diseases and calamities would become a vivid picture of how horrible sin is. In other words, physical evil is a parable, a drama, a signpost pointing to the moral outrage of rebellion against God.”
― John Piper, Coronavirus and Christ

“Calamities are God’s previews of what sin deserves and will one day receive in judgment a thousand times worse. They are warnings. They are wake-up calls to see the moral horror and spiritual ugliness of sin against God.”
― John Piper, Coronavirus and Christ

“Therefore, one of God’s purposes in the coronavirus is that his people put to death self-pity and fear, and give themselves to good deeds in the presence of danger. Christians lean toward need, not comfort. Toward love, not safety. That’s what our Savior is like. That is what he died for.”
― John Piper, Coronavirus and Christ

“Since the minister’s job is to tell people how great God is and how wonderful the Christian life can be, his life needs to reflect it. So you either have to be close to God as you minister, or you have to act close to God. Either you truly learn how to commune with God, or you learn how to fake it: you talk as if you’re a lot closer to God than you actually are. And not only do people start to think that, but you start to think it too. This can be devastating for your heart. That’s what is so horribly dangerous about ministry.”
― Collin Hansen, Faithful Endurance: The Joy of Shepherding People for a Lifetime

“The reason people are sitting in church is that they hope the preacher can explain how the gospel has significance for their needs and hurts. When we demonstrate that we understand that hope and that Scripture addresses it, boredom turns into anticipation, and calloused commitment to endure another sermon becomes eagerness to hear God’s Word.”
― Collin Hansen, Faithful Endurance: The Joy of Shepherding People for a Lifetime

“God will not orchestrate circumstances in my life that do not require faith.”
― Collin Hansen, Faithful Endurance: The Joy of Shepherding People for a Lifetime

“Christians invented the university and founded most of the world’s top schools to glorify God. And yet studying is seen as a threat to faith. Christians invented science, yet science is seen as antithetical to Christianity.”
― Rebecca McLaughlin, Confronting Christianity: 12 Hard Questions for the World's Largest Religion

“If our commitment to diversity is more than skin deep, we must cultivate deep friendships with smart people with whom we fundamentally disagree.”
― Rebecca McLaughlin, Confronting Christianity: 12 Hard Questions for the World's Largest Religion

“Science is not designed to give us morals. It can help us build chemical weapons and chemotherapy drugs, but it cannot tell us whether and when to use them. As we saw in the last chapter, science cannot ground the belief that human beings should be valued equally.”
― Rebecca McLaughlin, Confronting Christianity: 12 Hard Questions for the World's Largest Religion

“As Nazi-era German theologian and resistance leader Dietrich Bonhoeffer put it, “The Christian needs another Christian who speaks God’s Word to him. . . . The Christ in his own heart is weaker than the Christ in the word of his brother.”15 The”
― Rebecca McLaughlin, Confronting Christianity: 12 Hard Questions for the World's Largest Religion

“The current racism of many white Christians is its residual stain and must be countered by biblical truth and the raising up of more leaders of color within majority-white churches. But we must not make the mistake of allowing the racism of many white Christians to define Christianity itself.”
― Rebecca McLaughlin, Confronting Christianity: 12 Hard Questions for the World's Largest Religion

“the question of the meaning of life comes down to three categories: Life has meaning because mine is a life of impact due to others noticing my achievements. (Excellence) Life has meaning because I am here on earth as a capable human being and I am exhilarated by life’s possibilities, whether I am noticed or not. (Existence) Life has meaning because I—whether I make a tangible impact or not, and whether I seem capable or not—am a unique, special part of a Design or Designer. (Essence)”
― Luke H. Davis, Tough Issues, True Hope: A Concise Journey through Christian Ethics

“When discussing God’s glory, Bavinck draws together many of the themes we have observed in previous pages: The ‘glory of the Lord’ is the splendor and brilliance that is inseparably associated with all of God’s attributes and his self-revelation in nature and grace, the glorious form in which he everywhere appears to his creatures. This glory and majesty . . . appeared to Israel . . . It filled the tabernacle and the temple . . ., and was communicated to all the people. . . . This glory is above all manifested in Christ, the only-begotten Son . . . and through him in the church . . ., which is looking for ‘the blessed hope and the manifestation of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ (Titus 2:13).17”
― David VanDrunen, God's Glory Alone---The Majestic Heart of Christian Faith and Life: What the Reformers Taught...and Why It Still Matters

“He goes on and describes this as a ‘royal marriage’, in a dramatic picture which is worthy of any Disney movie: Here this rich and divine bridegroom Christ marries this poor, wicked harlot, redeems her from all her evil, and adorns her with all his goodness. Her sins cannot now destroy her, since they are laid upon Christ and swallowed up by him. And she has that righteousness in Christ, her husband, of which she may boast as of her own and which she can confidently display alongside her sins in the face of death and hell and say, ‘If I have sinned, yet my Christ, in whom I believe, has not sinned, and all his is mine and all mine is his.’41 So the gospel is a romance. A hopeless, sinful slave marries the beautiful, powerful Lord.”
― Lee Gatiss, Light after Darkness: How the Reformers regained, retold and relied on the gospel of grace