Hilary

“The Place of God’s Justifiable Wrath How horrible is this echo? Let’s take a look at Matthew 18:8–9: And if your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life crippled or lame than with two hands or two feet to be thrown into the eternal fire. And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into the hell of fire. This passage, by the way, doesn’t just give us the comparative negative of hell, but it translates really well into a theology of suffering. With these words of Jesus in mind, I can now know that it is better never to hold my children, it is better never to run my fingers through my wife’s hair, it is better not to be able to brush my own teeth, it is better never to be able to drive a car, it is better to be paralyzed and never feel anything from the neck down, and it is better to have stage III anaplastic oligodendroglioma than to find myself outside the kingdom of God. It is better never to see the sunset or the sunrise, never see the stars in the sky, never to see my daughter in her little dress-up clothes, never to see my son throw a ball—it is better never to have seen those things than to have seen those things and yet end up outside the kingdom of God.”
― Matt Chandler, The Explicit Gospel

“God will not give me humility, or patience, or holiness, or love as separate investments of His grace. He has given only one gift to meet our need, His Son Christ Jesus.”
― Watchman Nee, The Normal Christian Life

“The word of God is living, and active, and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing even to the dividing of soul and spirit. Hebrews 4:12 Some of God’s children lay great emphasis on rightly dividing the word of truth. Indeed, Scripture itself tells us we are to do this (2 Tim. 2:15), but it also tells us His Word is to divide us. Where we may be wrong is in seeking to divide His Word first before we have allowed it to do its work on us! Are we aware of this living, powerful character of God’s Word? Does it deal with us like a sharp, two-edged sword? Or do we handle it as though it were just one more book to be studied and analyzed? The strange thing about Scripture is that it does not aim to make us understand doctrines in a systematic way. Perhaps we think it would have been better if Paul and the others had got together to provide a detailed handbook of Christian doctrines. But God did not permit this. How easily He could have settled some of our theological arguments, but it seems He loves to confuse those who only approach the Bible intellectually! He wants to preserve men from merely getting hold of doctrines. He wants His truth to get hold of them.”
― Watchman Nee, A Table in the Wilderness

“Man's thought is always of the punishment that will come to him if he sins. God's thought is always of the glory man will miss if he sins. God's purpose for redemption is glory, glory, glory.”
― Watchman Nee, The Normal Christian Life