Nothing teaches us so much the preciousness of the Creator, as when we learnt the emptiness of all besides.

Spurgeon

Dare to stand alone!

It is possible to live for God in a hostile world. Godliness can, and does strive  where there are no ideal circumstances. (...)When we think of difficulties, we usually  only think only of our own. We persuade ourselves that everybody has it easy, and that we would make more spiritual progress if we were in some other situation.  The factory worker thinks it is easier to live the Christian life in the office, while the office worker is convinced that it is easier to be a Christian housewife at home. The housewife is not aware of the difficulties of living for Christ at school, and the student looks forward to the day when he will face comparatively easier challenges of the factory floor. (...) We each imagine that nobody has difficulties as great as our own.We excuse our poor standards of Christian living by pointing to the circumstances in which we are found.

The book of Daniel exposes us completely. It proves that true spirituality never depends upon things being easy.

Excerpt from Dare to Stand Alone by Pr. Stuart Olyott

Keeping the Heart

The great difficult in conversion is to win the heart to GOD, and the great difficult after conversion is to keep the heart with GOD. Herein lies the very pinch and stress of religion; here is that which makes the way of life a narrow way, and the gate of Heaven a straight one. 

from guarding your heart by Arthur Pink

No longer I

(...) " Yes you've always something to see about except your own business. It is too bad!"


But something else exclaimed, " your own business! have you really any of your own!"


"No, I am not my own!" She answered, " and I am glad I am not.  I am glad there is a GOD and that I am His child, and that I haven't anything to do but just to obey Him."


The restless feeling vanished for the time and she went cheerfully about her work, ' doing it as unto GOD.'

Excerpt from the Flower of the family by Mrs. E. Prentiss

No longer I

I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me . . . —Galatians 2:20

Has that breaking of my independence come? All the rest is religious fraud. The one point to decide is— will I give up? Will I surrender to Jesus Christ, placing no conditions whatsoever as to how the brokenness will come? I must be broken from my own understanding of myself. When I reach that point, immediately the reality of the supernatural identification with Jesus Christ takes place. And the witness of the Spirit of God is unmistakable— “I have been crucified with Christ . . . .”

The passion of Christianity comes from deliberately signing away my own rights and becoming a bondservant of Jesus Christ. Until I do that, I will not begin to be a saint.

Oswald Chambers

No longer I

Yes, our life is hid with Christ in God, in actual truth as well in God's purpose, if it has come to this that it is "no longer" we that live but Christ that liveth in us. Oh! the simplicity of that "no longer" - as the seed-vessel pictures it now, taken up with the seed it bears, and heedless of itself and whatever may come. And yet, in the absolute simplicity, there is a depth of mystery that the former days never knew. It is like a soul that has come into the Holiest, where it has God alone.

excerpt from Parables of the Christ-Life by LiliasTrotter