For fellow participants, what I would LOVE, LOVE, LOVE to see is for people to share quotes from what they're reading. I'd love for you to share quotes occasionally with your readers and let me know about it. If you don't have a blog, you could always leave quotes in the comments here.
What Satan put into the heads of our remote ancestors was the idea that they could “be like gods”—could set up on their own as if they had created themselves—be their own masters—invent some sort of happiness for themselves outside God, apart from God. And out of that hopeless attempt has come nearly all that we call human history—money, poverty, ambition, war, prostitution, classes, empires, slavery—the long terrible story of man trying to find something other than God which will make him happy. God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing. ~ C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
"Take Care of Him" Christina Rossetti
"Thou whom I love, for whom I died,
Lovest thou Me, My bride?"--
Low on my knees I love Thee, Lord,
Believed in and adored.
"That I love thee the proof is plain:
How does thou love again?"--
In prayer, in toil, in earthly loss,
In a long-carried cross.
"Yea, thou dost love: yet one adept
Brings more for Me to accept."--
I mould my will to match with Thine,
My wishes I resign.
"Thou gives much: then give the whole
For solace of My soul."--
More would I give, if I could get:
But, Lord, what lack I yet?
"In Me thou lovest Me: I call
Thee to love Me in all."--
Brim full my heart, dear Lord, that so
My love may overflow.
"Love Me in sinners and in saints,
In each who needs or faints."--
Lord, I will love Thee as I can
In every brother man.
"All sore, all crippled, all who ache,
Tend all for My dear sake."--
All for Thy sake, Lord: I will see
In every sufferer, Thee.
"So I at last, upon My Throne
Of glory, Judge alone,
So I at last will say to thee:
Thou diddest it to Me."
Should any here, supposing themselves to be the children of God, imagine that there is some reason in them why they should have been chosen, let them know that as yet they are in the dark concerning the first principles of grace, and have not yet learned the gospel. If ever they had known the gospel, they would, on the other hand, confess that they were less than the least — the offscouring of all things — unworthy, ill- deserving, undeserving, and hell deserving, and ascribe it all to distinguishing grace, which has made them to differ, and to discriminating love which has chosen them out from the rest of the world. Great Christian, thou wouldst have been a great sinner if God had not made thee to differ. Oh! thou who art valiant for truth, thou wouldst have been as valiant for the devil if grace had not laid hold upon thee. A seat in heaven shall one day be thine, but a chain in hell would have been thine if grace had not changed thee. ~ Charles Spurgeon, "Fruitless Vine"
Thou art now wrapped in the golden righteousness of the Savior, and accepted in the garments of the beloved but thou wouldst have been buried under the black mountain of sin, and clothed with the filthy rags of unrighteousness, if he had not changed thee. And art thou proud? Dost thou exalt thyself? Oh! strange mystery, that thou, who hast borrowed everything, shouldst exalt thyself, that thou, who hast nothing of thine own, but hast still to draw upon grace, shouldst be proud; a poor dependent pensioner upon the bounty of thy Savior, and yet proud; one who hath a life which can only live by fresh streams of life from Jesus, and yet proud! ~ Charles Spurgeon, "Fruitless Vine"© Becky Laney of Operation Actually Read Bible
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