True humiliation is no enemy but a real friend unto spiritual joy, to our rejoicing in God. The more a man is humbled for sin committed, the more he will rejoice in God, and rejoice that he can grieve for sin. He grieves, and rejoices that he can grieve for sin.
Taken from the book A Lifting Up For The Downcast by William Bridge 1649
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The Lord Jesus when He quickens them, gives them a voice and a tongue, and says to them, "Be dumb no more." God has no dumb children. It is as much a part of their new nature to pray, as it is of a child to cry. They see their need of mercy and grace. They feel their emptiness and weakness. They cannot do otherwise than they do. They must pray.
Taken from the book A Call to Prayer by JC Ryle 1816-1900
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O then, for what should my soul more pray, than for a clearer and stronger faith? 'I believe; Lord, help my unbelief!' I have many thousand times groaned to thee under this burden of remaining darkness and unbelief; I have many thousand times thought of the evidences of Christianity, and of the necessity of a lively, powerful, active faith. I have cried to thee night and day, 'Lord, increase my faith!'
Taken from the book Dying Thoughts by Richard Baxter 1683
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If we are struggling in prayer it is because the wiles of the enemy are getting the upper hand, and we must look for the cause in our lack of discipline. There are some things we have not been strenuously practicing. We used to pray in the morning, do we now? We used to commune with God over the Bible, do we now? We used to be in contact with God wherever we went, are we now? Put on the whole armor of God and continuously practice, then the wiles of the devil cannot get you unaware.
Taken from the book If You Will Ask by Oswald Chambers 1874-1917
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If this God be our God; or if our God be such a God, and could we but attain to that knowledge of the breath, and length, and depth, and height that is in him, as the apostle here prays, and desires we may, we should never be afraid of anything we shall meet with, or that shall assault us in this world.
Taken from the book All Loves Excelling by John Bunyan 1692
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To sing with the soul is to offer the only acceptable praise. We do not come together to amuse ourselves, to display our powers of melody, or our aptness in creating harmony. We come to pay our adoration at the footstool of the Great King, to whom alone be glory forever and ever. True praise is for God and for God alone.
Taken from the book Spurgeon on Praise Charles Spurgeon 1834-1892
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No saint shall die till he has attained the utmost of what he was designed to. As none of God's elect die before they are converted, so no converted ones die till they come to their maturity and ripen, like a shock of corn, for the harvest of God. God gathers only ripe fruits, though some are ripe sooner than others. And I may say, some are summer and other winter fruit.
Taken from the book Learning in Christ's School by Ralph Venning 1675
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