ASSUARANCE

'Assurance is not the eradication of indwelling sin, but the honest and humbled awareness of it.'

Tony Reinke, Newton on the Christian Life, p.222.

GOD'S LOVE FOR US MATTERS MOST

'On the whole God's love for us is a much safer subject to think about than our love for Him. Nobody can always have devout feelings: and even if we could, feelings are not what God principally cares about. Christian Love, either towards God or towards man, is an affair on the will. If we are trying to do His will we are obeying the commandment, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God." He will give us feelings of love if He pleases. We cannot create them for ourselves, and we must not demand them as a right. But the great thing to remember is that, though our feelings come and go, His love for us does not. It is not wearied by our sins, or our indifference; and, therefore, it is quite relentless in it's determination that we shall be cured of those sins, at whatever cost to us, at whatever cost to him.'

CS Lewis, Mere Christianity, p.133.

INFINTE GRACE

'If all the world should drink free grace, mercy and pardon from Christ, the well of salvation; if they should draw strength from one single promise, they would not be able to lower the level of the water of grace in that promise one hair's breadth. There is enough grace, mercy and pardon in one of God's promises for the sins of millions of worlds, if they existed, because the promise is supplied from an infinite, bottomless reservoir. What is one finite guilt before the infinite and eternal reservoir of grace?'

John Owen, Communion with God, p.70.

SET YOUR THOUGHTS ON THE ETERNAL LOVE OF THE FATHER

'All that we learn of God will only frighten us away from him if we do not see him as loving and merciful to us. But if your heart is taken up with the Father's love as the chief property of his nature, it cannot help but choose to be overpowered, conquered and embraced by him. This, if anything, will arouse our desire to make our desire to make our eternal home with God. If the love of a father will not make a child delight in him, what will? So do this: set your thoughts on the eternal love of the Father and see if your heart is not aroused to delight in him. Sit down for a while at this delightful spring of living water and you will soon find its streams sweet and delightful. You who used to un from God will now be able, even for a second, top keep at any distance from him.'

John Owen, Communion with God, p.37.

THE CHRISTIAN LIFE

'A child may be born heir to a great fortune and yet never be aware of his riches; may live childish, die childish, and never know the greatness of his possessions. And so also a man may be a babe in Christ's family, think as a babe, speak as a babe, and, though saved, never enjoy a lively hope, or know the real privileges of his inheritance.' 

JC Ryle in Timothy Lane, Living without Worry,  p.84. 

BIBLICAL MEDITATION

'When you are in moments of pain and shock, the things that come out of your mind and mouth are the most primal things in your being. And when Jesus was in such moments, out came the words of the Bible. Something like 10 per cent of all the things he says in the Bible are quotations of, or allusions to, the Hebrew Scriptures. When you know Scripture that well, you process all thoughts and feelings through a grid of biblical revelation. And when you have God's own assurances, summonses, promises, and revelations secured that deep inside you, its extremely difficult for Satan to get a foothold and block your assurance of your salvation. You aren't vulnerable along the front where he can best attack you.'

Timothy Keller, Encounters with Jesus: Unexpected Answers to Life's Biggest Questions, p.123.

SIN

'Christians typically identify two ways to respond to God: follow him and do his will, or reject him and do your own thing. Ultimately this is true, but there are actually two ways to reject God that must be distinguished from one another. You can reject God by rejecting his law and living any way you see fit. And you can can also reject God by embracing and obeying God's law so as to earn your salvation. The problem is that people who belong in this last group - who reject the gospel in favor of moralism - look as if they are trying to do God's will. Consequently, there are not just two ways to respond to God but three: irreligion, religion, and the gospel.'

Timothy Keller, Center Church, p.63.

SUFFERING

'Are you ready to conclude that you have no part in the favour of God, because you are visited with some extraordinary affliction? If so, do you then rightly conclude that great trials are tokens of God's hatred? Does the Scripture teach this? And dare you infer the same with respect to all who have been as much or more afflicted than yourself? If the argument is good in your case, it is good in application to theirs, and more conclusive with respect to them, in proportion as their trials were greater than yours. Woe then to David, Job, Paul, and all who have been afflicted as they were! But had you passed along in quietness and prosperity; had God witheld those chastisements with which he ordinarily visits his people, would you not have far more reasosn for doubts and distress than you now have?'

John Flavel, Keeping the Heart, p.89.

ASSURANCE

'Sincerity! which is the thing sought, lies in the heart like a small piece of gold in the bottom of a river; he that would find it must stay till the water is clear, and then he will see it sparking at the bottom. That the heart may be clear and settled, how much pains and watching, care and dilligence, are requisite!'

John Flavel, Keeping the Heart, p.25.

ASSURANCE

'Assurance is a believer's ark, where he sits, Noah-like, quiet and still in the midst of all distractions and destructions, commotions and confusions.'

Thomas Brooks, Heaven on Earth, p.11.

SIN

'Failings, with conflict, in sanctification should not weaken the peace of our justification and assurance of salvation. It matters not so much what ill is in us, as what good; not what corruptions, but how we regard them; not what our particular failings are so much as what the thread and tenor of our lives are, for Christ's dislike of that which is amiss in us turns not to the hatred of our persons but to the victorious subduing of all our infirmities.'

Richard Sibbes, The Bruised Reed, p.96.

SALVATION

'When the eighth commandment says, "Thou shalt not steal," it doesn't mention my name. It doesn't say that John Frame should not steal. Does that mean that I am free to take your wallet? Well, of course not. Because "Thou shalt not steal" means "Everybody should not steal" or "Nobody should steal." That includes John Frame. So, although my name is not in the text explicitly, the text applies to me, which is to say that my name is there implicitly. The same is true with the promises of salvation. God promises salvation to everybody who believes. If you believe, then that promise is yours. God promises to save you. And that promise is infallible, certain. You dare not doubt it.'

John Frame, Salvation Belongs to the Lord, p.218.