The Pursuit of God (1957)

• ...if my fire is not large, it is yet real, and there may be those who can light their candle at its flame. (forward)

• Let the seeking man reach a place where life and lips join to say continually, "Be thou exalted," and a thousand minor problems will be solved at once.

• Let a man set his heart only on doing the will of God and he is instantly free.

• We are right when, and only when, we stand in a right position relative to God, and we are wrong so far and so long as we stand in any other position.

• When God would make His name known to mankind, He could find no better word than "I AM."

• The blessed and inviting truth is that God is the most winsome of all beings and in our worship of Him we should find unspeakable pleasure.

• In the long pull we pray only as well as we live.

• To have found God and still to pursue Him is the soul's paradox of love, scorned indeed by the too-easily-satisfied religionist, but justified in happy experience by the children of the burning heart.

• Apart from sin we have nothing of which to be ashamed. Only an evil desire to shine makes us want to appear other than we are.

Man: The Dwelling Place of God (1992)

• One hundred religious persons knit into a unity by careful organization do not constitute a church any more than eleven dead men make a football team. The first requisite is life, always.

• The truly spiritual man is indeed something of an oddity. He lives not for himself but to promote the interests of Another. He seeks to persuade people to give all to his Lord and asks no portion or share for himself. He delights not to be honored but to see his Saviour glorified in the eyes of men. His joy is to see his Lord promoted and himself neglected. He finds few who care to talk about that which is the supreme object of his interest, so he is often silent and preoccupied in the midst of noisy religious shoptalk. For this he earns the reputation of being dull and overserious, so he is avoided and the gulf between him and society widens. He searches for friends upon whose garments he can detect the smell of myrrh and aloes and cassia out of the ivory palaces, and finding few or none he, like Mary of old, keeps these things in his heart.

The Knowledge of the Holy

• What comes to mind when we think about God is the most important thing about us. The Knowledge of the Holy.

Misc

• In many churches Christianity has been watered down until the solution is so weak that if it were poison it would not hurt anyone, and if it were medicine it would not cure anyone! — I Talk Back to the Devil

• It is doubtful whether God can bless a man greatly until He has hurt him deeply. — Glorify his name! Root of the Righteous, Ch. 39.

• God wants us to worship Him. He doesn't need us, for He couldn't be a self-sufficient God and need anything or anybody, but He wants us. When Adam sinned it was not he who cried, 'God, where art Thou?' It was God who cried, 'Adam, where art thou?' — Worship: The Missing Jewel

• Some of my friends good-humoredly – and some a little bit severely – have called me a 'mystic.' Well I'd like to say this about any mysticism I may suppose to have. If an arch-angel from heaven were to come, and were to start giving me, telling me, teaching me, and giving me instruction, I'd ask him for the text. I'd say, 'Where's it say that in the Bible? I want to know.' And I would insist that it was according to the scriptures, because I do not believe in any extra-scriptural teachings, nor any anti-scriptural teachings, or any sub-scriptural teachings. I think we ought to put the emphasis where God puts it, and continue to put it there, and to expound the scriptures, and stay by the scriptures. I wouldn't – no matter if I saw a light above the light of the sun, I'd keep my mouth shut about it 'til I'd checked with Daniel and Revelation and the rest of the scriptures to see if it had any basis in truth. And if it didn't, I'd think I'd just eaten something I shouldn't, and I wouldn't say anything about it. Because I don't believe in anything that is unscriptural or that is anti-scripture. — What Difference Does the Holy Spirit Make?