Jonathan Franzone

“How can I learn to love? I cannot, until the Spirit of God fills my heart with God’s love, and I long for God’s love in a very different sense from which I have sought it so selfishly, as a comfort and a joy and a happiness and a pleasure to myself. I cannot learn to love until I learn that God is love and to claim it and receive it as an indwelling power for self-sacrifice. I cannot learn to love until I see that my glory and my blessedness is to be like God and like Christ in giving up everything in myself for my fellow men. May God teach us that! Oh, the divine blessedness of the love with which the Holy Spirit can fill our hearts! The fruit of the Spirit is love.”
― Andrew Murray, Absolute Surrender (Updated and Annotated): The Blessedness of Forsaking All and Following Christ

“An idle life and a holy heart is a contradiction.”
― Thomas Brooks

“James paints a picture of a downward spiral of giving into temptation. First, evil desire entices and lures (or traps) the complicit victim. Next, as this indwelling evil desire is allowed to run unchecked, it “gives birth to sin.” In other words, just as conception leads naturally to childbirth, giving free rein to sinful inclinations naturally results in discrete moral transgressions. Just as water runs downhill, so evil desire, if allowed to pursue its “gravitational inclination,” runs down into sinful activity.”
― Iain M. Duguid, ESV Expository Commentary (Volume 12): Hebrews–Revelation

“No flattery can heal a bad conscience, so no slander can hurt a good one.”
― Thomas Watson