God is First for the Christian - Jonathan Edwards

If God were not to be enjoyed in heaven, but only vast wealth, immense treasures of silver, and gold, great honour of such kind as men obtain in this world…all these would not make up for the want of God and Christ, and the enjoyment of them there. If it were empty of God, it would indeed be an empty and melancholy place. - The godly have been made sensible, as to all creature-enjoyments, that they cannot satisfy the soul; and therefore nothing will content them but God. Offer a saint what you will, if you deny him God, he will esteem himself miserable. God is the centre of his desires; and as long as you keep his soul from its proper centre, it will not be at rest. - Jonathan Edwards, “God the Best Portion of the Christian,” Works, Vol. 2, 105.

God in Our Own Image - Gerrit Berkouwer

This genial providence, this grace without judgment, this love without justice, this forgiveness without redemption, forms the background of the crisis of our [read 21st] century. - G. C. Berkouwer, The Providence of God, 28.

The Correct Observation of Providence - John Murray

One of the grossest distortions of the sovereignty of God in his decree and providence is that of passive quiescence, fatalistic inactivity and stoical indifference.  This attitude of mind is notorious for its frequency and but it is disastrous in its results.  The faith in God’s providence that is true and the hope in God’s faithfulness that is well grounded have as their complement the strictest adherence to and perseverance in the way of divine commandment.  The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us. - John Murray,  Collected Writings, vol. 3, 166.

Finding God - Peter Lewis

Jesus is so uniquely “the Way” that believers find the destination as soon as they find Him.  They ‘arrive’ at God as soon as they step on to the Way of God.  They do not find Jesus and then, at a later stage, find the Father. – Peter Lewis, The Glory of Christ, 103.

Life in the Spirit - F.F. Bruce

To be ‘led by the Spirit’ is to walk by the Spirit - to have the power to rebut the desire of the flesh, to be increasingly conformed to the likeness of Christ (2 Cor. 3:18), to cease to be under law.  To be under law affords no protection against the desire of the flesh.  ‘Spirit’ is equally opposed to ‘law’ as to ‘flesh’.  To be led by the Spirit bring simultaneous deliverance from the desire of the flesh, the bondage of the law, and the power of sin… - F.F. Bruce, Commentary on Galatians, NIGNTC, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982, 245.

Carl F. H. Henry on the Secular Man

The reality of God as depicted in his revelation best explains why secular man refuses to order his life exclusively by the naturalistic worldlife view, while the fact of sin best explains why he refuses to order his life exclusively by the truth and will of God. - Carl F. H. Henry, God, Revelation and Authority, 1.148

Faith in God’s Promises - Richard Sibbes

We cannot honour God more than to believe His promises and build on Him.  This will breed love, when we feel the comfort of the promises.  Foolish men think to honour God by compliments, by dead performances…To God, it [is] to seal His truth, that thou shouldst not make Him a liar…Get faith.  That will honour Him, and He will honour thy faith. - Richard Sibbes, Commentary on 2 Corinthians 1 (Works III, 408).

Ingratitude - Dostoyevsky

“Writing in his Notes from Underground Dostoyevsky says of man, ‘If he is not stupid, he is monstrously ungrateful! Phenomally ungrateful. In fact, I believe that the best definition of man is the ungrateful biped.’” - from Os Guinness, God in the Dark, 43.

William Greenhill on Circumspection in Worship

“The works of men in God’s worship steal away the heart” - William Greenhill, Ezekiel, 160.

Sexual Sins - John Brown (of Edinburgh)

“No species of sin is more degrading to the intellectual and moral nature of man… They obscure the mind, they harden the heart, they pervert the affections. They unfit the mind for the exercises and the pleasures of [faith], and in their unhappy victim all the emotional part of our nature seems strangely converted into one depraved feeling of brutal selfishness.” - John Brown, The Discourses and Sayings of our Lord, 1.192.