Never choose to be a worker; but when once God has put His call on you, woe be to you if you turn to the right hand or to the left.

We are not here to work for God because we have chosen to do so, but because God has apprehended us.

There is never any thought of - "Oh, well, I am not fitted for this." What you are to preach is determined by God, not by your own natural inclinations.

Keep your soul steadfastly related to God, and remember that you are called not to bear testimony only, but to preach the gospel.

Every Christian must testify, but when it comes to the call to preach, there must be the agonizing grip of God's hand on you, your life is in the grip of God for that one thing.

How many of us are held like that?

Never water down the word of God, preach it in its undiluted sternness; there must be unflinching loyalty to the word of God; but when you come to personal dealing with your fellow men, remember who you are - not a special being made up in heaven, but a sinner saved by grace.

"I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do . . ."

It is a snare to imagine that God wants to make us perfect specimens of what He can do; God's purpose is to make us one with Himself.

The emphasis of holiness movements is apt to be that God is producing specimens of holiness to put in His museum. If you go off on this idea of personal holiness, the dead-set of your life will not be for God, but for what you call the manifestation of God in your life.

"It can never be God's will that I should be sick." If it was God's will to bruise His own Son, why should He not bruise you? The thing that tells for God is not your relevant consistency to an idea of what a saint should be, but your real vital relation to Jesus Christ, and your abandonment to Him whether you are well or ill.

Christian perfection is not, and never can be, human perfection. Christian perfection is the perfection of a relationship to God which shows itself amid the irrelevancies of human life.

When you obey the call of Jesus Christ, the first thing that strikes you is the irrelevancy of the things you have to do, and the next thing that strikes you is the fact that other people seem to be living perfectly consistent lives.

Such lives are apt to leave you with the idea that God is unnecessary, by human effort and devotion we can reach the standard God wants. In a fallen world this can never be done.

I am called to live in perfect relation to God so that my life produces a longing after God in other lives, not admiration for myself.

Thoughts about myself hinder my usefulness to God.

God is not after perfecting me to be a specimen in His show-room; He is getting me to the place where He can use me. Let Him do what He likes.

In the very depths of yourself, dig a grave. Let it be like some forgotten spot to which no path leads; and there, in the eternal silence, bury the wrongs that you have suffered. Your heart will feel as if a weight had fallen from it, and a Divine peace come to abide with you. CHARLES WAGNER

To be misunderstood even by those whom one loves is the cross and bitterness of life. It is the secret of that sad melancholy smile on the lips of great men which so few understand. It is what must have oftenest wrung the heart of the Son of Man. AMIEL

Blasted rock and broken stone, Ordinary earth, Rolled and rammed and trampled on, Forgotten, nothing worth, And blamed, but used day after day; An open road—the king’s highway.

Often left outside the door, Sometimes in the rain, Always lying on the floor, And made for mud and stain: Men wipe their feet, and tread it flat, And beat it clean—the master’s mat.

Thou wast broken, left alone, Thou wast blamed, and worse, Thou wast scourged and spat upon, Thou didst become my curse— Lord Jesus, as I think of that I pray, make me Thy road, Thy mat. GOLD CORD

The power to help others depends upon the acceptance of a trampled life.

I am the Almighty God; walk before me, and be thou perfect.

Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect. I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

Enoch walked with God and he was not; for God took him.

Grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.—We all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.

These words spake Jesus, I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil. I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one.

There remaineth yet very much land to be possessed.

Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus.

Be ye therefore perfect.—Giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; and to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness; and to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity.

I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all judgment.

Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit.

There remaineth . . . a rest for the people of God.—Thine eyes shall see the king in his beauty: they shall behold the land that is very far off.

I will hope continually, and will yet praise thee more and more.

Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect.—Leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfection; not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works, and of faith toward God.—The path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day.

I love the Lord , because he hath heard my voice and my supplications. Because he hath inclined his ear unto me, therefore will I call upon him as long as I live.—I will bless the Lord all times: his praise shall continually be in my mouth.

Praise waiteth for thee, O God, in Sion.—They rest not day and night, saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty.—Whoso offereth praise glorifieth me.—Rejoice evermore. Pray without ceasing. In everything give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.—Rejoice in the Lord, always; and again I say, Rejoice.

Dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit.

Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts: and in the hidden part thou shalt make me to know wisdom.—Teaching us that denying ungodliness and wordly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world.—Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.—Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect.

Every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure.

Now he that hath wrought us for the selfsame thing is God, who also hath given unto us the earnest of the Spirit.—For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ: till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledege of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.

Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus.

Then shall we know, if we follow on to know the Lord.

Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father.

We all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.

When that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.

For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.

Beloved, now are we the sons of God; and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.

And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure.