Newton on the Christian Life Quotes

“In the mature Christian more aware of his sin (in private) there will be found an authenticity to his humility (in public) that cannot be faked by those who are less aware of indwelling evil. A deep sense of indwelling sin is essential to humble living.”
― Tony Reinke, Newton on the Christian Life: To Live Is Christ

“My heart is like a country but half subdued, where all things are in an unsettled state, and mutinies and insurrections are daily happening. I hope I hate the rebels that disturb the King’s peace. I am glad when I can point them out, lay hold of them, and bring them to him for justice. But they have many lurking-holes, and sometimes they come disguised like friends, so that I do not know them, till their works discover them.10”
― Tony Reinke, Newton on the Christian Life: To Live Is Christ

“Keeping Christ in view at all times is, by far, the hardest—and the most essential—part of our calling as Christians.”
― Tony Reinke, Newton on the Christian Life: To Live Is Christ

“John Newton’s final recorded words: “My memory is nearly gone, but I remember two things: that I am a great sinner and that Christ is a great Savior.”
― Tony Reinke, Newton on the Christian Life: To Live Is Christ

“Legalism is a wicked lie that puts a mirror in front of our faces and makes us think we are looking at Christ when we are actually adoring the ghost of our own self-righteousness.”
― Tony Reinke, Newton on the Christian Life: To Live Is Christ

“The Christian life is Christ—a truth that deeply reassures our souls, focuses our hearts, and simplifies our spiritual lives. But it’s a calling that we perpetually fumble. The veil removed from our eyes in conversion gives way to clouds over our eyes in trials and sleepiness in our steps with the spiritual disciplines. The greatest challenges we face are Christ-clouding distractions.”
― Tony Reinke, Newton on the Christian Life: To Live Is Christ

“God is not grieved that indwelling sin remains in us, as a father does not lament the weak muscles of his infant. But God is grieved (like any father) when the child he loves willfully disobeys him. In response to our willful sins, God is pained, and he will often choose, for a time, to send into our lives dark clouds that hide his face and “suspend his influence” in our communion with him (Psalm 51; Eph. 4:30). Our justification remains untouched. But the lack of our experienced communion with him and the drought of our joys and affections are intended to expose our weaknesses.”
― Tony Reinke, Newton on the Christian Life: To Live Is Christ

“What you complain of in yourself, comprises the best marks of grace I can offer. A sense of unworthiness and weakness, joined with a hope in the Savior, constitutes the character of a Christian in this world. But you want the witness of the Spirit. What do you mean by this? Is it a whisper or a voice from heaven, to encourage you to believe that you may venture to hope that the promises of God are true, that he means what he says, and is able to make his word good? Your eyes are opened, you are weary of sin, you love the way of salvation yourself, and love to point it out to others, you are devoted to God, to his cause and people. It was not so with you once. Either you have somewhere stolen these blessings, or you have received them from the Holy Spirit.”
― Tony Reinke, Newton on the Christian Life: To Live Is Christ

“The Christian lives “a strange mysterious life” that seems to swing daily from darkness into light, from peace into strife. Time and time again, our Friend breaks into this strange and mysterious riddle of life and empowers us for a sweet and stable life in the storm.”
― Tony Reinke, Newton on the Christian Life: To Live Is Christ

“The only way out of spiritual immaturity is to walk by faith when the affections are dry and the presence of God appears to have been withdrawn.”
― Tony Reinke, Newton on the Christian Life: To Live Is Christ

“Christ is our safety, and he is our magnet, drawing us to himself, pulling us along a path marked out with his own feet, into a heaven opened to us by his crushed body.”
― Tony Reinke, Newton on the Christian Life: To Live Is Christ

“Christian growth is never measured by a Christian’s satisfaction in himself.”
― Tony Reinke, Newton on the Christian Life: To Live Is Christ

“The Christian’s hope is based not on our unsettling feelings of joy in Christ, but on Christ himself.”
― Tony Reinke, Newton on the Christian Life: To Live Is Christ

“The progressive cure for our maladies is looking to Christ’s glory as we endure the proper medications of necessary pain and trials, the bitter circumstances that make us whiny patients.61 Yet Christ is always on call, his patience is infinite, and he bears with our complaints as he works out our spiritual health.62 Only in him do sinners find healing.”
― Tony Reinke, Newton on the Christian Life: To Live Is Christ

“The job of the sin-sick Christian is to repent and turn from sin and press into Christ for continued healing.”
― Tony Reinke, Newton on the Christian Life: To Live Is Christ

“To not feel the sting of sin is a form of sickness, a deadness, a leprosy of the soul.54 But to feel the sting of sin is a mark of health, a sign of life, and a necessary experience if we are to appreciate the sin-conquering work of Christ.”
― Tony Reinke, Newton on the Christian Life: To Live Is Christ

“But sin should never consume our focus at the expense of our confidence in the power and sufficiency of Christ. There is little danger in thinking lowly of ourselves. The ever-present danger faced by the Christian is thinking too lowly of Christ. Christ is our identity, not indwelling sin.”
― Tony Reinke, Newton on the Christian Life: To Live Is Christ

“You express not only a low opinion of yourself, which is right, but too low an opinion of the person, work, and promises of the Redeemer; which is certainly wrong.”52 Yes, there are monsters in the heart of a man, as there are monsters under the surface of the ocean, but there is a line we must never cross, and the line is crossed when indwelling sin clouds the Savior from our eyes. Newton dealt with this time after time with his friends, and it’s an enduring lesson for anyone who takes personal sin seriously. Blessed be God, amidst so many causes of mourning in myself, it is still my duty and my privilege to rejoice in the Lord; in him I have righteousness and strength, pardon and peace. I have sinned—I sin continually—but Christ has died, and forever lives, as my Redeemer, Priest, Advocate, and King. And though my transgressions and my enemies, are very many and very prevalent, the Lord in whom I trust is more and mightier than all that is against me.”
― Tony Reinke, Newton on the Christian Life: To Live Is Christ

“If we measure progress by the absence of indwelling sin, we will be endlessly frustrated and depressed. The reality is that indwelling sin will be universally and always felt during our present state. It insinuates into, and mixes with all our thoughts, and all our actions. It is inseparable from us, as the shadow from our bodies when the sun shines upon us. The holiness of a sinner does not consist in a deliverance from it, but in being sensible of it, striving against it, and being humbled under it, and taking occasion from thence to admire our Savior, and rejoice in him as our complete righteousness and sanctification.50”
― Tony Reinke, Newton on the Christian Life: To Live Is Christ

“Humbled I ought to be, to find I am so totally depraved; but not discouraged, since Jesus is appointed to me of God, wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption; and since I find that, in the midst of all this darkness and deadness, he keeps alive the principle of grace which he has implanted in my heart.48”
― Tony Reinke, Newton on the Christian Life: To Live Is Christ

“To feel the weight of sin is a sure mark of God acting upon the soul, because apart from the Holy Spirit we are numb to the gangrene sin in our lifeless hearts. As reborn creatures, we are given new eyes to truly perceive the dreadful darkness of sin that remains. By discovering our personal sin, we feel the weight of sin and experience the sorrow of sin. To feel this pinch of indwelling sin is not disqualification from God; rather it’s a gift from God, an evidence of his work, and an essential piece of maturity in the Christian life.”
― Tony Reinke, Newton on the Christian Life: To Live Is Christ

“If our awareness of indwelling sin humbles us and makes our sovereign Christ more precious to us, we are safe.39”
― Tony Reinke, Newton on the Christian Life: To Live Is Christ

“If a sailor escapes with his life in a storm on the open sea, he will be grateful but soon forget his deliverance, Newton writes (no doubt looking back to the storm that nearly took his life). But even more permanently thankful will be the sailor who escapes storm after storm, swell after swell, near-death experience after near-death experience, and then after such an odyssey finally finds his way to safe harbor.”
― Tony Reinke, Newton on the Christian Life: To Live Is Christ

“We know we want to read the Bible, or at least we know we ought to desire to read it. We know we want to pray, or at least we know we ought to desire to pray. And yet we don’t. Even with our Bibles open and our hands folded, there is no guarantee we are doing what we want to or ought to be doing. The spiritual disciplines are rather simple, yet we find them dreadfully hard because of this enigma. Our knowledge of what is right and our good intentions cannot overcome our sinful desires opposed to the Spirit.”
― Tony Reinke, Newton on the Christian Life: To Live Is Christ

“Sin is what makes the things we know we ought to do so difficult and lifeless.”
― Tony Reinke, Newton on the Christian Life: To Live Is Christ

“This sting is felt when God’s grace breaks into your life, like a sharp knife, cutting deep into motives and intentions (Heb. 4:12).16 Without this sting, we would never be compelled to confess our sins. We would be left in the condition of the legalist, who can only make excuses for his sin, but who cannot repent because he remains numb to his depravities.17 There are times when God willingly withholds his presence from us in order that we can feel the weight of our indwelling sin for ourselves.18 To feel sin for what it is, an offense against a holy God, is a bone-chilling sensation explained by no human cause, but only the “good work” of the Spirit.”
― Tony Reinke, Newton on the Christian Life: To Live Is Christ

“The simple Christian looks to God alone to supply him with spiritual joys, understanding that there will be times when those joys may be withheld by God for a divinely appointed reason. Yet, because he aims to live for God’s glory alone, he looks to God alone for his soul’s pleasure (Ps. 86:4).”
― Tony Reinke, Newton on the Christian Life: To Live Is Christ

“In the gospel-simple life we do not live to please men; we live to please the Lord alone.”
― Tony Reinke, Newton on the Christian Life: To Live Is Christ

“In the healthy Christian life, there are no double standards, no dual aims. The private life and the public life are equally oriented to the glory of God. This is manifested as true Christian authenticity in the world.”
― Tony Reinke, Newton on the Christian Life: To Live Is Christ

“This simplicity of aim covers every decision and situation faced in the Christian life. The heart blessed with simplicity of intention is a gospel-filled heart that can endure everything in this life. The gospel-simple heart knows that every trial or stroke of pain comes from God’s hand, with his own glory at stake ultimately. The gospel-simple heart finds the love of God in Christ to be our highest temporal joy and finds freedom from the perpetual entanglements of sin and self. Simplicity of intention is self-denial before God—self-denial of our self-righteousness, self-denial of our self-wisdom, and self-denial of our self-will.15 The gospel-simple heart takes its rightful place under Christ’s lordship, and there is protected from “low, sordid, and idolatrous pursuits.” It entertains no rivals to Christ. It does not accept the bribes of the world. It lives for the glory of God. In enduring trials, or fighting sin, or living out our calling in the world, the gospel-simple heart is driven by one aim: “a single eye to [God’s] glory, as the ultimate scope of all our undertakings.”16”
― Tony Reinke, Newton on the Christian Life: To Live Is Christ