Living by Faith Quotes

“Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamor, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice.” Eph. 4:31. Have you read those words and thought, “Oh, that it might be so?” Have you earnestly tried to put away that evil speaking, together with “the root of bitterness” from which it springs, and failed, because “the tongue can no man tame; it is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison?” James 3:8.  Read the Divine exhortation, “Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves.” “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.” Phil. 2:3, 5. And similar to this is the admonition, “Let brotherly love continue.” Heb. 13:1. What a blessed state of mind this must be; and what a heaven there would be on earth, if such a state of things only existed, even among those who profess the name of Christ. Yet how many who have set this blessed ideal before themselves, find themselves wondering how it is to be attained. ”
― E.J. Waggoner, Living by Faith

“When the word of the Lord found Elijah in the wilderness, as he fled from Jezebel, it said to him: “Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the LORD. And, behold, the LORD passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the LORD; but the LORD was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake; but the LORD was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire; but the LORD was not in the fire; and after the fire a still small voice. And it was so, when Elijah heard it that he wrapped his face in his mantle, and went out, and stood in the entering in of the cave. And, behold, there came a voice unto him, and said, What doest thou here, Elijah?” 1 Kings 19:11-13. ”
― E.J. Waggoner, Living by Faith

“Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” Rom. 10:17. “With the heart man believeth.” The hearing of faith puts the words of God in your heart. But Christ dwells in your heart by faith (Eph. 3:17), because His Spirit is in His word; so that the hearing of faith brings the life of Christ into your heart, and that is righteousness. ”
― E.J. Waggoner, Living by Faith

“Living by Faith E. J. Waggoner   A. T. Jones       “And he shewed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb. And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth  say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.” Rev. 22:1,17.   Will you?”
― E.J. Waggoner, Living by Faith

“It is the work that you should now be engaged in, for the day of the Lord is surely at hand, and His Word is to be set before you to prepare you to abide the day of His coming. ”
― E.J. Waggoner, Living by Faith

“Revelation 18 shows the desperate condition of the religious world just before the Lord comes, and the call from God is, “Come out of her, My people.” It is a call to you to reform your life, to forsake sin and self, and to take the salvation of God. ”
― E.J. Waggoner, Living by Faith

“Your life is made up of three things—deeds, words, and thoughts. ”
― E.J. Waggoner, Living by Faith

“46. Weakness and Strength When you are strong then you are also weak; and you are weak in the very point where your strength is. Were this not so, you would have something of your own to glory in. You are very apt to pride yourself on your “strong points;” but such points are strong only in comparison with other points in your character that are weaker. Compared with the power of the forces of evil, you have no strength, but can manifest only varying degrees of weakness.  It is on these “strong points” that people make their greatest moral failures. Peter’s strong point was his boldness; but behold him cowering in the judgment hall, afraid to confess his Lord! Solomon was the wisest man on the earth; but what more pitiable exhibition of folly could there be than the king of Israel surrounded by seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines, listening to their counsel and leading the people of God into idolatry! Moses’s strong point was his meekness; but we find him at Meribah saying to the multitude, “Hear now, ye rebels; must we bring you water out of this rock?”  People naturally trust in their “strong” points, and everyone is weak when trusting in themselves. We speak about “guarding our weak points;” but our strong points need guarding just as much. Your weak points include your strong ones. You have nothing but weak points. Whatever point it is that you trust in, that point especially is weak. And you are not guarding the weak points unless you are guarding every point. But you must remember that it is not your resolutions, your will, or your vigilance that guards you, but your faith. “The shield of faith” is what quenches the fiery darts of the wicked. Eph. 6:16. The armor that is prepared for you is not of human manufacture, but is such as God Himself has made in His own wisdom, and endowed with His own strength.  But you need not be discouraged because you find yourself weak where you had fancied yourself strong, for your dependence is not in self, but in God; and depending on Him, you are strong where you are weak. This was the experience of Paul, as he wrote to the Corinthians. 2 Cor. 12:10. You only need to unite your weakness to God’s strength. Then, like the apostle, you can “take pleasure in infirmities, and reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ’s sake.”  God has to reveal your weakness to you before He can save you. The devil, on the other hand, leads you to think you are strong in order that, by trusting in yourself, you may fall and be ruined. When you feel strong, the admonition is, “Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.” 1 Cor. 10:12. But when you feel weak, too weak to do anything of yourself, you are in a position to gain the victory. The danger is that you will not feel weak enough; for even in your weakest moments you have strength enough to resist the Holy Spirit and prevent God from working in your life. If you are weak enough to yield entirely to the Lord, then for those purposes for which you need strength, you become as strong as the Lord Himself, for you have His strength.”
― E.J. Waggoner, Living by Faith

“So when He comes to dwell in your heart by faith, He lives the same life of obedience in you that He did when He came here to die for you. When you know this in practice you are acknowledging that Christ is come in the flesh. ”
― E.J. Waggoner, Living by Faith

“Creative power is the distinguishing mark of Divinity. The Spirit of the Lord through the prophet Jeremiah describes the vanity of idols, and then continues: “But the LORD is the true God, He is the living God, and an everlasting King; at His wrath the earth shall tremble, and the nations shall not be able to abide His indignation. Thus shall ye say unto them, The gods that have not made the heavens and the earth, even they shall perish from the earth, and from under these heavens. He hath made the earth by His power, He hath established the world by His wisdom, and hath stretched out the heavens by His discretion.” Jer. 10:10-12. The earth was made by His power, and established by His wisdom. But Christ is “The power of God, and the wisdom of God.” So here again you find Christ inseparably connected with creation as the Creator. Only as you acknowledge and worship Christ as the Creator, do you acknowledge His Divinity. ”
― E.J. Waggoner, Living by Faith

“43. Making Mistakes The fact that God dwells in you, as He does in everyone who believes on the name of Jesus, does not preclude you from exhibiting the limitations of humanity. It keeps you from sin, but not from all the mistakes that arise from the limitations of human vision and judgment. The mystery of godliness is God in you—God manifested in the life of righteousness and you manifested in the frailties of the flesh. The one contrasts with the other, and by the very contrast it is manifest that the life is not of you, but of God; and that to Him alone belongs the glory.”
― E.J. Waggoner, Living by Faith

“The work of the gospel is to put God’s righteous works in the place of your unrighteousness. It is to work in you the works of God, and to cause you to think the thoughts of God. It is to save you from all unrighteousness, to deliver you from “this present evil world,” to redeem you from all iniquity; that is the result. By what means is it to be accomplished? By the power of God. We must know what that power is, and how it is received.  Immediately after the statement that the gospel is the power of God to salvation, the apostle tells us how we may know the power. “For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead.” Rom. 1:20. That is, God’s power is seen in the things that He has made. Creation reveals the power of God, for His power is creative power. The fact that God creates is what distinguishes Him as the one true God. The Psalmist says: “For the LORD is great and greatly to be praised; He is to be feared above all gods. For all the gods of the nations are idols [nothing]: but the LORD made the heavens.” Ps. 96:4, 5. ”
― E.J. Waggoner, Living by Faith

“Many people do this ignorantly, but the result is the same. It was because the Jews were ignorant of God’s righteousness that they went about to establish their own righteousness. Rom. 10:1-3. If you realize the infinite depth and height and breadth of the character of God, which is summed up in His law, you will readily see that nothing short of the power of God can produce that character in you. Only God Himself can do the works of God. For you to assume that you by yourself are able to do God’s righteous works, is to make yourself equal with God; and that is the very “mystery of iniquity” itself. ”
― E.J. Waggoner, Living by Faith

“So by these miracles Christ teaches you that the Sabbath, the seventh day of the week, is the crowning glory of the Gospel. Kept as God intended, it enables you to see Christ as both Redeemer and Creator. His Redeeming power is His creative power. The Sabbath of the Lord, the memorial of creation, reminds you of the power of God to salvation to everyone that believes. It reveals to you, as nothing else can, that Christ was anointed by the Holy Spirit “to preach the Gospel to the poor;” “to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord.”            Luke 4:18, 19.”
― E.J. Waggoner, Living by Faith

“God gave us the Sabbath that we might know that He is the God that sanctifies us. Eze. 20:12. So in performing those miracles on the Sabbath day, Jesus was showing that the purpose of the Sabbath is to free us from bondage. It commemorates His creative power and it is by this power that we are made new creatures in Christ, when we believe. “For we which have believed do enter into rest,” even God’s rest. ”
― E.J. Waggoner, Living by Faith

“God gave Jesus “power over all flesh, that He should give eternal life” to all who come to Him. By His power to deliver our bodies from disease, He shows His power to release our souls from sin. “For whether is easier, to say, Thy sins be forgiven thee; or to say, Arise, and walk? But that ye may know that the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins, (then saith He to the sick of the palsy,) Arise, take up thy bed, and go unto thine house. And he arose, and departed to his house. But when the multitude saw it, they marveled, and glorified God, which had given such power unto men.” Matt. 9:5-8.  Some of the most striking miracles of Jesus were done on the Sabbath day, and we wish to call special attention to them now.”
― E.J. Waggoner, Living by Faith

“Christ comes to live in you when you believe, for He dwells in your heart by faith.”
― E.J. Waggoner, Living by Faith

“What is prayer and what is the purpose for which it is offered? It is the expression of your consent to what God is willing and waiting to do for you. It is expressing to God your willingness to let Him do for you what He wants to. It is not left for you to instruct the Lord in regard to what you need. “Your heavenly Father knoweth what things ye have need of before ye ask Him.” He knows what you need much better than you know yourself. “For we know not what we should pray for as we ought; but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings that cannot be uttered.” Rom. 8:26.  God knows all the needs that you have, and is ready and anxious to supply them; but He waits for you to realize your need of Him. He cannot consistently, with the infinitely wise principles by which He works, bestow on you spiritual blessings that you would not appreciate. He cannot work for you without your cooperation. Your heart must be in a condition to receive an appropriate gift before it can be bestowed. And when it is in that condition, you will feel an earnest longing that will naturally take the form of prayer. And when this longing is felt, when your soul feels an intense desire for the help that God alone can give, when the language of your soul is, “As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after Thee, O God,” the effect is to open the channel between God and your soul. Then the flood of blessings can descend which God was already waiting to pour out. And it is the intensity of your desire that determines how wide the door will be opened.  You need to more clearly realize the great truth that God sees and knows everything that you need and has every provision made for all your wants. He knows them even before you have thought of those wants yourself. Your work is not to determine what must be done to relieve your wants, but to place yourself in a position where God can relieve them by the means which He has provided. You want to move according to His plans, and not set about the fruitless task of trying to make Him work for you according to some plans of your own.”
― E.J. Waggoner, Living by Faith

“In the Bible, this very idea of living by bread by eating it, is carried over and applied to the word of God. “But thou, son of man, hear what I say unto thee; Be not thou rebellious like that rebellious house: open thy mouth, and eat that I give thee. And when I looked, behold, an hand was sent unto me; and, lo, a roll of a book was therein; and he spread it before me; and it was written within and without: and there was written therein lamentations, and mourning, and woe. Moreover He said unto me, Son of man, eat that thou findest; eat this roll, and go speak unto the house of Israel. So I opened my mouth, and He caused me to eat that roll. And He said unto me, Son of man, cause thy belly to eat, and fill thy bowels with this roll that I give thee. Then did I eat it; and it was in my mouth as honey for sweetness. And He said unto me, Son of man, go, get thee unto the house of Israel, and speak with My words unto them.” “Moreover He said unto me, Son of man, all My words that I shall speak unto thee receive in thine heart, and hear with thine ears.” Eze. 2:8–3:4,10.”
― E.J. Waggoner, Living by Faith

“Do you have faith in God? Do you know that you have it? Are you certain that you know what faith is? The disciples thought they had faith, but in the time of test and trial they were found wanting. Faith stands every test; but that which is not faith, does not endure the test. If you have faith, you will abide unshaken in the storms and temptations of this mortal life. But if what you think is faith is only a counterfeit of faith, then when the storm beats hard your house will fall. It is all important to know now whether your house is built on the sand, or on the solid rock.  The solid rock is the word of God; and there is no such thing as faith without this word. The rock is Christ, and Christ is the Word. John 1:1, 14. That word may not seem to you to be solid; but it is. We are not used to thinking of words as being solid like rocks, but this is true of the word of the Lord. That word is as substantial as God Himself. And while the earth and earthly things will pass away, the word of the Lord will abide as firm as the eternal throne. By that word they came into existence, and by that word they will be dissolved and vanish away.  Faith is composed of two elements—belief, and the word of God. Counterfeit faith has only one of these elements; it always lacks the word. It rests on something else—some feeling, or impression, or hope, or desire, or process of reasoning, or on the word of some person. Faith accepts the word of God, no matter how it reads, without questioning. Pretended faith is often obliged to explain the word away. Genuine faith “worketh by love.” Pretended faith either doesn’t work at all, or works by some motive which has its root in self. The Savior said that if you have faith you could ask whatever you wanted of God, and it would be given to you. But when you have faith you will ask according to God’s will, and God will always hear such a petition and answer it; for faith always rests on God’s word, which is the expression of His will. And when you ask in faith, you will believe that you receive the things you asked for, basing your belief on the promise of God. You not only believe that you have them, but you do have them, really and literally. So it makes all the difference in the world for you, whether or not you have faith. Some people know and will admit the great benefits that come from faith in other people.  But through the blindness and perverseness of their natural minds, they think that nothing substantial can be derived from faith in God.”
― E.J. Waggoner, Living by Faith

“God says that you will find all the Heavenly Bread that you can possibly need—in your Bible! The words that you see in your Bible are not the same lifeless words that you read in other books. Jesus says that the words of the Bible are full of life—of His life. And He says, “I am that bread of life that was sent down from heaven.”  Don’t you see that since the life of Jesus is in those words, you can get Jesus, the Bread from heaven, just by feeding on those words? You can eat them, and make them a part of yourself, by reading them every day, and believing that they are your heavenly Father speaking to you; by loving them, and believing that by them Jesus comes into your heart.  And when Jesus is in your heart won’t His powerful word, that created the earth and the entire universe, keep you from sin and strengthen you to say kind words and do loving acts? You say, “Why, how can Jesus come into my heart with His Word? How can I feed on Him by feeding on His Word?” That is a question that I cannot answer. I do not know how it can be. But you do not need to know how it is done. Jesus says that He will do it, and isn’t that enough? You know that He has done it, and is living every day in your heart as you eat His words.  Oh, prize your Bible! Love it and read it as no other book. Again I say, Don’t forget to eat the Bread of Life every day. You need it much more than your earthly food. Feeding on it once a week will not keep you alive for heaven, any more than eating your earthly food once a week will keep you alive for earth. So DON’T FORGET TO EAT!”
― E.J. Waggoner, Living by Faith

“Faith in Christ supplies spiritual life just as surely as eating nourishing food supplies physical life. The Savior says to you, “Whoso eateth My flesh, and drinketh My blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. For My flesh is meat indeed, and My blood is drink indeed.” John 6:54, 55. You eat His flesh, by feeding on His word (verse 63), for it is written that you shall live “by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.” ”
― E.J. Waggoner, Living by Faith

“Therefore when you read the admonitions to let certain evil things be put away from you, and to let certain graces appear, you are not to regard them as commands for you to put them away, but as the agency by which the task is to be accomplished.  God’s power to create is as great now as it ever was. He who in the beginning caused the ground to bring forth fruit, and who made a perfect man of the dust of the ground, can take these earthen vessels and make them “to the praise of the glory of His grace.” You are to become so familiar with the fact that God is Creator, that when He says, “Let this be done,” you will at once and continually respond, “Amen, even so, let it be done, Lord Jesus;” and thus the new heart will be created, from which will proceed thoughts and words acceptable in His sight.”
― E.J. Waggoner, Living by Faith

“Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamor, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice.” Eph. 4:31. Have you read those words and thought, “Oh, that it might be so?” Have you earnestly tried to put away that evil speaking, together with “the root of bitterness” from which it springs, and failed, because “the tongue can no man tame; it is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison?” James 3:8. ”
― E.J. Waggoner, Living by Faith

“He says, “I will dwell in them and walk in them;” “I will not leave you comfortless, I will come to you;” and “because I live, ye shall live also.” John 14:18, 19. It is by the Holy Spirit that He dwells in you; for He desires you “to be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts.” Eph. 3:16, 17. And “at that day”—the day that ye receive the gift of the Holy Ghost—“ye shall know that I am in My Father, and ye in Me, and I in you.” John 14:20. “And hereby we know that He abideth in us, by the Spirit which He hath given us.” 1 John 3:24. And we “receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.” Gal. 3:14. ”
― E.J. Waggoner, Living by Faith

“Let your mind grasp the thought that the same Spirit that convinces of sin also convinces of righteousness. It is always a Comforter. The Spirit does not lay aside one office while it performs another. It does not leave aside the revealing of righteousness when it convinces of sin, nor does it cease to be a convincer of sin when it reveals righteousness. It does both at the same time, and that is the comfort to all those who will take it. It convinces of sin because it convinces of righteousness. But let us consider this matter further, and then meditate on it.”
― E.J. Waggoner, Living by Faith

“But while the Spirit convicts of sin it is always a Comforter. It is as a Comforter that it convicts. Few people stop to think of that. Remember that nowhere is it said that the Spirit condemns for sin. There is a difference between conviction and condemnation. Conviction is the revealing of sin. But it depends on your course after you have been convinced of sin, whether or not you will be condemned. For “this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.” John 3:19. The mere pointing out that you are a sinner is not condemnation; the condemnation comes from holding on to the sin after it is made known to you.”
― E.J. Waggoner, Living by Faith

“Most of the great manifestations of the power of God in the earth are silent and unseen. You only know that the power is there by the results. Think of the thousands of millions of tons of water that the sun is constantly lifting up from the earth to the clouds, to send down again in dew and rain. Not a sound is heard. But you can’t fill a cup of water from the faucet without much noise. The power manifested in the growing plants is beyond all human conception, yet there is no sound. A growing plant can break a rock in pieces yet it is all done silently. The heavens declare the glory of God, yet they don’t ring bells and blow trumpets. God’s work is so mighty that the results speak for themselves; advertisement would belittle it. ”
― E.J. Waggoner, Living by Faith

“The prophet, speaking of God’s dealing with ancient Israel, said, “In all their afflictions He was afflicted.” Isa. 63:9. It is still the same now. As an eagle bears her young on her wings, so the Lord puts Himself under you, bearing all your sin and sorrow. He takes it on Himself, and in Him it is lost, by the same process by which at the last “He will swallow up death in victory.”  Christ took on Himself the curse, in order that the blessing might come on us. Gal. 3:13, 14. Although He knew no sin, He was made to be sin for you, that you might be made the righteousness of God in Him. 2 Cor. 5:21. He suffered the death to which you were doomed, that you might share His life. And this exchange is made when you come into touch with Him, by confessing that “Jesus Christ is come in the flesh.” How much you lose by holding Jesus off as a stranger, or by regarding faith in Him as a theory. When you know that He identifies Himself with you in your fallen condition, taking on Himself, and from you, your infirmities, how precious becomes the assurance, “Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.” ”
― E.J. Waggoner, Living by Faith

“Leprosy was one of the most loathsome and dreaded diseases known to the people. The leper was an outcast, compelled to keep away from even his own family. The disease was a slow, progressive death; the victim’s body becoming increasingly deformed until death ended his misery.  No other disease more aptly illustrates the defilement of sin;”
― E.J. Waggoner, Living by Faith