“God’s kingdom is won not though strength and accomplishment, however, but through the cross. It is entered not by the strong, but by those who admit their weakness and need for grace. This completely changes our attitude toward the poor, the powerless, and the marginal.”
"My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." 2 Corinthians 12:9
”The miracle is not that we do this work, but that we are happy to do it.” Mother Teresa
"Therefore, since through God's mercy we have this ministry, we do not lose heart." 2 Corinthians 4:1
“Prayer… is the splicing of our limp wire to the lightening bolt of heaven.” John Piper
"This kind can come out only by prayer." Mark 9:29
“Where Christ is truly seen, there must be full and perfect joy in the Lord, with peace of conscience, which thus thinketh: Although I am a sinner by the law, and under condemnation of the law, yet I despair not, yet I die not, because Christ liveth, who is both my righteousness and my everlasting life. In that righteousness and life I have no sin, no fear, no sting of conscience, no care of death. I am indeed a sinner as touching this present life, and the righteousness thereof… But I have another righteousness and life, above this life, which is Christ the Son of God, who knoweth no sin, no death, but is righteousness and life eternal…
He that strayeth from this Christian righteousness, must needs fall into the righteousness of the law; that is to say, when he hath lost Christ, he must fall into the confidence of his own works. But… when I have Christian righteousness reigning in my heart… I do good works, how and wheresoever occasion arise… Whosoever is assuredly persuaded that Christ alone is his righteousness, doth not only cheerfully and gladly work well in his vocation, but also submitteth himself… to all manner of burdens, and to all dangers of the present life, because he knoweth that this is the will of God, and that this obedience pleaseth Him.”
Martin Luther
"It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God- that is our righteousness, holiness and redemption." 1 Corinthians 1:30
“The gospel is the good news that we are forgiven by God’s grace, and that the whole world will one day be renewed by God’s grace. That is why deeds that alleviate suffering are so integral to the declaration of the gospel. In one sense, showing mercy to our neighbor is a result of the gospel, because as converted people we live like the one who saved us. In another sense, showing mercy to our neighbor is itself a gospel proclamation. It preaches the gospel through our actions.”
Check out his books and his sermons.
“Most of our defeats, I think, are due to the fact that we parley with sin, we attempt to fight it. Now there is a sense in which we have to do that…. There are times in our experience when, for reasons often beyond our own control, unless we run to Christ and hide in Him we are certain to be defeated. But thank God, the possibility that is held up before us is that we can go to Him directly, immediately and look to Him. That is what I might call ‘the great strategy of faith.’…. When the fight is yet strong and the enemy is there and we feel we are on the point of falling, we must simply cry, ‘Jesus’ and believe and know that He is looking on and that He is there and is ready to deliver us and protect us.”
D.M. Lloyd-Jones
"When persons are truly converted they always are sincerely desirous to make rapid progress in piety….Why then is so little advancement made? First, there is a defect in our belief in the freeness of divine grace. To exercise unshaken confidence in the doctrine of gratuitous pardon is one of the most difficult things in the world, and to preach this doctrine fully without verging towards antinomianism is no easy task and is therefore seldom done. But Christians cannot but be lean and feeble when deprived of their proper nutriment.
It is by faith that the spiritual life is made to grow, and the doctrine of free grace, without any mixture of human merit, is the only true object of faith. Christians are too much inclined to depend on themselves and not to derive their life entirely from Christ. There is a spurious legal religion, which may flourish without the practical belief in the absolute freeness of divine grace, but it possesses none of the characteristics of the Christian's life. It is found to exist in the rankest growth, in systems of religion which are utterly false. But even when the true doctrine is acknowledged in theory, often it is not practically felt and acted on.
The new convert lives upon his frames rather than on Christ, while the older Christian is still found struggling in his own strength and, failing in his expectations of success, he becomes discouraged first, and then he sinks into a gloomy despondency, or becomes in a measure careless….[U]ntil religious teachers inculcate clearly, fully, and practically, the grace of God as manifested in the Gospel, we shall have no vigorous growth of piety among professing Christians….The covenant of grace must be more clearly and repeatedly expounded in all its rich plenitude of mercy, and in all its absolute freeness."
"Christians must be exposed to the gospel of grace versus works again and again, not only to bring people to justification, but to enhance sanctification." Tim Keller
“Ambitions for God, however, if they are to be worthy, can never be modest. There is something inherently inappropriate about cherishing small ambitions for God. How can we ever be content that he should acquire just a little more honor in the world? No. Once we are clear that God is King, then we long to see him crowned with glory and honour, and accorded his true place, which is the supreme place. We become ambitious for the spread of his kingdom and righteousness everywhere.” John Stott
"So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God." 1Corinthians 10:31
"This perpetual hurry of business and company ruins me in soul if not in body. More solitude and earlier hours! I suspect I have been allotting habitually too little time to religious exercises, as private devotion and religious meditation, Scripture-reading, etc. Hence I am lean and cold and hard. I had better allot two hours or an hour and a half daily. I have been keeping too late hours, and hence have had but a hurried half hour in a morning to myself. Surely the experience of all good men confirms the proposition that without a due measure of private devotions the soul will grow lean. But all may be done through prayer -- almighty prayer, I am ready to say -- and why not? For that it is almighty is only through the gracious ordination of the God of love and truth. O then, pray, pray, pray!"
"But his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night." Psalm 1:2
"Our task is the opposite of distraction. It's to help people concentrate on the real, but often hidden, event of God's active presence in our lives." Henri Nouwen
"But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us." 2 Corinthians 4:7
“Owing to certain floods in the country, he (a Christian in South Africa traveling the country) had to stay where there was a kind of saloon or public house. He was amazed and saddened at the sight of the farmers, many of whom, he noticed came there and spent in a few days all the money that they had been able to earn and save as the result of their hard work through the year. They had a powerful craving for drink that they could not conquer.
He was especially attracted to one poor man who seemed to be a particular victim to this terrible affliction, and he began to talk to him. First, of all he began to reason with him, pointing out the suffering that his wife and children had to endure. The poor man admitted it all and told the story of how he had been almost unconsciously led into it and found himself a helpless slave to drink before realizing that anything had happened- how he would give the whole world if he could stop it, but he was now a victim of it. Then this Christian went on to tell him about faith, the possibility o overcoming, and told him about the Lord Jesus Christ who had come into this world to save us. He told him that if only he looked to Christ and relied on Him, he would be enabled to overcome this thing, and the man was given faith to believe that. He was a simple, illiterate man, and all he was anxious to do was to find the name of this person about whom this Christian was speaking, and he was told the name was Jesus.
That poor man went away and, having worked again, came back to this same place to sell his grain. There again the tempters came, but he did not go with them, and his own wife and children were amazed. This Christian visitor came back in a year or so to find the man entirely changed. He began talking to him and asked him how it had happened. And the man’s simple testimony was this: ‘I went back the first time, and my friends came and tempted me, and I felt weak. But suddenly I remembered the name- Jesus. I could do nothing but keep on saying to myself, “Jesus”; I cried to Jesus to do what you told me He would.’ His faith was as simple as that, but it was enough, and he overcame; he did not go back, he was emancipated.”
Here is a stained glass window picturing their suffering. Note them being marched up the mountain, and then hot spring in the upper portion.