2004-04-27 - Quotes From Reading

Many of you know I have been struggling with my health, and one of the complications is that I have a hard time sitting for any length of time. This makes writing the devotionals difficult, because they require some extended time sitting at the computer. I have not done this in years, but I would like to give some quotes from the books I have been reading lately. I am currently reading eight books, and doing this will allow me to take a break and rest when the pain from sitting becomes unbearable. Some quotes you may need to read twice in order to get them. Others you may read 10 times and wonder why I selected that one. My hope is that, in some manner, these quotes encourage, challenge, strengthen and edify you in your walk with Jesus Christ.

I have been reading a commentary on 2 Peter by Thomas Adams. Here are some thoughts from him:

"Do not think thou dost honor God in serving him; but think how God honors thee, in vouchsafing thee to be his servant."

"Faith hath two eyes; one looks to Christ's merits, that we may be saved, the other to his righteousness, that we may be sanctified."

"There may be atheists on earth; there are none in hell."

"Most men think when they give, that God and man is beholden to them. Not so; they do not give of their own, but restore some of that God hath given them."

"Thus they that put away honest wives and go to harlots, deal as wisely as he that cuts off his own legs to go upon crutches."

I have been reading Elisha Coles on the Sovereignty of God. Thoughts from him:

"For as bread must be eaten, and taken in, before it can nourish; so must the righteousness of Christ be apprehended by faith, before we can be justified by it. But as the action of eating or chewing is not the matter or substance of our nourishment, but the bread we eat; so neither is our act of believing, but the righteousness of Christ alone, apprehended by faith, the matter of our justification."

"And for any to say, that a will to believe is not purchased by Christ, and effectually applied by him, but depends on something to be done by men, is a great derogation to the merit of his sufferings: it is, in effect, to steal a jewel from our sovereign's crown, and to wreath it on a fools cap."

"Rest not in this, that you know God; but, rather, that you are known of him."

I have been reading a book on Thomas Hooker's morphology of conversion. I found his practice before going to sleep interesting:

"Nightly, upon retiring, Hooker made it his practice to single out some promise of God and rehearse it until he found satisfaction of soul whereupon he could pray, 'I will lay me down in peace, and sleep; for Thou, O Lord, makest me dwell in assurance.'"

Soli Deo Gloria,
T-

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