Classic & Contemporary Excerpts from March 18, 1988

Real generosity

Let us hide away our charity—yes, hide it even from ourselves. Give so often and so much as a matter of course, that you no more take note that you have helped the poor than that you have eaten your regular meals. Do your alms without even whispering to yourself, “How generous I am!” Do not thus attempt to reward yourself. Leave the matter with God, who never fails to see, to record, and to reward.… This is the bread, which eaten by stealth, is sweeter than the banquets of kings. How can I indulge myself today with this delightful luxury?

—C. H. Spurgeon in Faith’s Checkbook

All end in the cross

Suffering is the heritage of the bad, of the penitent, and of the Son of God. Each one ends in the cross. The bad thief is crucified, the penitent thief is crucified, and the Son of God is crucified. By these signs we know the widespread heritage of suffering.

—Oswald Chambers in Christian Discipline

Real Cross Bearing

To deny self does not mean to deny things. It means to give yourself wholly to Christ and share in His shame and death. To take up a cross does not mean to carry burdens or have problems. I once met a lady who told me her asthma was the cross she had to bear! To take up the cross means to identify with Christ in His rejection, shame, suffering, and death.

—Warren W. Wiersbe in A Time to Be Renewed

Hollywood’s influence, our responsibility

Even if we personally avoid the movie industry’s products, those products will have an ongoing impact on both the dreams and the fears of our culture. However uncomfortable we may be with what movies represent, we will be influenced by them because we are surrounded by their impact. If you doubt it, consider what you read on the backs of breakfast cereal boxes, the toys your grandchild wants for Christmas, the music taught in schools, and the televised versions of movies that fill some of your own evenings.… Is it not a Christian responsibility to study the cinema and to use it to advantage?

—John Stapert in The Church Herald (Sept. 18, 1987)

The ages of ministry

When I turned 30 I wanted to build a large church. At 40 I wanted to learn how to preach. But at 50 I want to know God deeply.

—Truman Dollar in Fundamentalist Journal (Nov. 1987)

No loose strings

We must face the fact that many today are notoriously careless in their living. This attitude finds its way into the church. We have liberty, we have money, we live in comparative luxury. As a result, discipline practically has disappeared.

What would a violin solo sound like if the strings on the musician’s instrument were all hanging loose, not stretched tight, not “disciplined”?

—A. W. Tozer in Men Who Met God

Loving people or targets?

You make us feel that you want to do good to us, but you don’t make us feel that you need us.

—an Indian Christian, quoted by Daniel Fleming in Whither Bound in Missions?

A holy truism

It is a common temptation of Satan to make us give up the reading of the Word and prayer when our enjoyment is gone; as if it were of no use to read the Scriptures when we do not enjoy them, and as if it were no use to pray when we have no spirit of prayer. The truth is that, in order to enjoy the Word, we ought to continue to read it, and the way to obtain a spirit of prayer is to continue praying. The less we read the Word of God, the less we desire to read it, and the less we pray, the less we desire to pray.

—George Müller in A Narrative of Some of the Lord’s Dealings with George Müller

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