Jordan Hartley > Jordan's Quotes

“of praise in the faces around you. When you fall short of others’ expectations, you replay your failures again and again. On your better days, your successes almost seem to balance your screwups. On your darker days, you suspect that your shortcomings have forever skewed everyone’s opinion of you — even God’s — and you wonder what it will take to regain God’s good”
― Dan Montgomery, PROOF: Finding Freedom through the Intoxicating Joy of Irresistible Grace

“that’s not based on anything we have done, can do, or might do.17 It’s not even a reward that God hands out to those who happen to choose him (Romans 9:16). It’s God’s wonderful acceptance of us not because we have”
― Dan Montgomery, PROOF: Finding Freedom through the Intoxicating Joy of Irresistible Grace

“We will never stand in awe of being loved by God until we reckon with the seriousness of our sin and the justice of his wrath against us. But when, by grace, we waken to our unworthiness, then we may look at the suffering and death of Christ and say, “In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the [wrath-absorbing] propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:10).”
― John Piper, Fifty Reasons Why Jesus Came to Die

“Knowledge, not improved and well employed, will only increase our condemnation at the last day.”
― J.C. Ryle, Expository Thoughts on the Gospels: The Four Volume Set [Fully Linked and Optimized]

“What was paramount in the apostles' earliest motives was oral proclamation of the gospel. They wanted to disseminate the word as quickly as possible.”
― J. Ed Komoszewski, Reinventing Jesus: How Contemporary Skeptics Miss the Real Jesus and Mislead Popular Culture

“a covenant is a solemn agreement with oaths and/or promises, which imply certain sanctions or legality.”
― Michael G. Brown, Sacred Bond; Covenant Theology Explored

“The civil magistrate cannot function without some ethical guidance, without some standard of good and evil. If that standard is not to be the revealed law of God… then what will it be? In some form or expression it will have to be the law of man (or men) - the standard of self-law or autonomy. And when autonomous laws come to govern a commonwealth, the sword is certainly wielded in vain, for it represents simply the brute force of some men’s will against the will of other men.”
― Greg Bahnsen

“1. We fear people because they can expose and humiliate us.
2. We fear people because they can reject, ridicule, or despise us.
3. We fear people because they can attack, oppress, or threaten us. These three reasons have one thing in common: they see people as “bigger” (that is, more powerful and significant) than God, and, out of the fear that creates in us, we give other people the power and right to tell us what to feel, think, and do.”
― Edward T. Welch, When People Are Big and God is Small: Overcoming Peer Pressure, Codependency, and the Fear of Man

“We spend too much time wondering what others may have thought about our outfit or the comment we made in the small group meeting. We see opportunities to testify about Christ, but we avoid them. We are more concerned about looking stupid (a fear of people) than we are about acting sinfully (fear of the Lord). ”
― Edward Welch

“Notice how those who have medicated away their hardships with illegal drugs, alcohol, or sex can seem immature. They may look forty-five, but they have the character of an adolescent. Find a person who has weathered storms rather than avoided them and you will find someone who is wise.”
― Edward T. Welch, Depression: Looking Up from the Stubborn Darkness

“We forget that God's primary goal ia not changing our situations or relationships so that we can be happy, but changing us through our situations and relationships so that we will be holy.”
― Paul David Tripp, Instruments in the Redeemer's Hands: People in Need of Change Helping People in Need of Change

“The church is not a theological classroom. It is a conversion, confession, repentance, reconciliation, forgiveness and sanctification center, where flawed people place their faith in Christ, gather to know and love him better, and learn to love others as he designed.”
― Paul David Tripp, Instruments in the Redeemer's Hands: People in Need of Change Helping People in Need of Change

“Personal ministry is not about always knowing what to say. It is not about fixing everything in sight that is broken. Personal ministry is about connecting people with Christ so that they are able to think as he would have them think, desire what he says is best, and do what he calls them to do even if their circumstances never get "fixed." It involves exposing hurt, lost, and confused people to God's glory, so that they give up their pursuit of their own glory and live for his.”
― Paul David Tripp

“Restlessness and impatience change nothing except our peace and joy. Peace does not dwell in outward things, but in the heart prepared to wait trustfully and quietly on Him who has all things safely in His hands.”
― Elisabeth Elliott

“If God is the Creator of the entire universe, then it must follow that He is the Lord of the whole universe. No part of the world is outside of His lordship. That means that no part of my life must be outside of His lordship.”
― R.C. Sproul

“Here, then, is the real problem of our negligence. We fail in our duty to study God's Word not so much because it is difficult to understand, not so much because it is dull and boring, but because it is work. Our problem is not a lack of intelligence or a lack of passion. Our problem is that we are lazy. ”
― R. C. Sproul

“Nothing could be more irrational than the idea that something comes from nothing.”
― R. C. Sproul

“I think the greatest weakness in the church today is that almost no one believes that God invests His power in the Bible. Everyone is looking for power in a program, in a methodology, in a technique, in anything and everything but that in which God has placed it—His Word. He alone has the power to change lives for eternity, and that power is focused on the Scriptures.”
― R.C. Sproul, The Prayer of the Lord

“As the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom, so the denial of God is the height of foolishness.”
― R.C. Sproul, Essential Truths of the Christian Faith

“Prayer does change things, all kinds of things. But the most important thing it changes is us. As we engage in this communion with God more deeply and come to know the One with whom we are speaking more intimately, that growing knowledge of God reveals to us all the more brilliantly who we are and our need to change in conformity to Him. Prayer changes us profoundly.”
― R.C. Sproul, The Prayer of the Lord

“The issue of faith is not so much whether we believe in God, but whether we believe the God we believe in. (p.35)”
― R.C. Sproul, Knowing Scripture

“It is fashionable in some academic circles to exercise scholarly criticism of the Bible. In so doing, scholars place themselves above the Bible and seek to correct it. If indeed the Bible is the Word of God, nothing could be more arrogant. It is God who corrects us; we don’t correct Him. We do not stand over God but under Him.”
― R.C. Sproul, Five Things Every Christian Needs to Grow

“There are times when solitude is better than society, and silence is wiser than speech. We should be better Christians if we were more alone, waiting upon God, and gathering through meditation on His Word spiritual strength for labour in his service. We ought to muse upon the things of God, because we thus get the real nutriment out of them. . . . Why is it that some Christians, although they hear many sermons, make but slow advances in the divine life? Because they neglect their closets, and do not thoughtfully meditate on God's Word. They love the wheat, but they do not grind it; they would have the corn, but they will not go forth into the fields to gather it; the fruit hangs upon the tree, but they will not pluck it; the water flows at their feet, but they will not stoop to drink it. From such folly deliver us, O Lord. . . .”
― Charles Spurgeon

“A Bible that’s falling apart usually belongs to someone who isn’t.”
― Charles Spurgeon

“Visit many good books, but live in the Bible.”
― Charles Spurgeon

“When your will is God's will, you will have your will.”
― Charles Spurgeon

“Faith goes up the stairs that love has built and looks out the windows which hope has opened.”
― Charles H. Spurgeon

“Give yourself unto reading. The man who never reads will never be read; he who never quotes will never be quoted. He who will not use the thoughts of other men’s brains, proves that he has no brains of his own. You need to read.

. . .

We are quite persuaded that the very best way for you to be spending your leisure time, is to be either reading or praying. You may get much instruction from books which afterwards you may use as a true weapon in your Lord and Master’s service. Paul cries, “Bring the books” — join in the cry.”
― Charles Haddon Spurgeon

“By perseverance the snail reached the ark.”
― Charles Spurgeon

“You say, 'If I had a little more, I should be very satisfied.' You make a mistake. If you are not content with what you have, you would not be satisfied if it were doubled.”
― Charles Spurgeon