“After all these years, I’ve come to realize the greatest tragedy for a Believer is to be a Christian and not truly know Jesus.” - Allen Hood

A disciple of Jesus understands that their reward is not coming in this age, but when He returns.

They may lose money, property, reputation, and even their own life because their highest aim is to imitate him as a witness. A day is coming when it's all going to change. -Josh Hawkins

Your sin isn’t some little virus that’s causing spots. Your sin, my dear friend, is a cancer that will burn in you in time, and it’ll burn through you in hell if you don’t get rid of it. - Leonard Ravenhill

The Parable of the Two Foundations

Men who complain about their churches abound. Men who pray earnestly for their churches, care for the saints and make disciples are far too rare.

Do not walk the broad road of consumerism. Find the narrow road of becoming a true churchman, and carry the cross all the way to glory. -BA Purtle

“I am very jealous for Zion; I am burning with jealousy for her.”

“I will return to Zion and dwell in Jerusalem. Then Jerusalem will be called the Faithful City, and the mountain of the Lord Almighty will be called the Holy Mountain.”

“Once again men and women of ripe old age will sit in the streets of Jerusalem, each of them with cane in hand because of their age. The city streets will be filled with boys and girls playing there.”

-YWH

On the Suffering and Glory of the Bride:

Does the Bride get battered and bloody during the Great Tribulation? Yes. Just as the Bridegroom Himself was battered and bloodied. Both Head and Body endure (and overcome) an "hour when darkness reigns." There is an ultimate, eschatological Cross for the Bride to bear, so that the desire of Paul may be fulfilled in us: "I want to know Him...and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings."

The "fellowship of sufferings" will be a key component of the Bride's intimacy with Jesus. But Paul's teaching is wider than that:

"that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead."

-Gabe Cali

Paul describes life lived by faith in Christ's sacrifice as being analogous to a "race" (cf. 1 Cor. 9:24; Gal. 5:7; 2 Tim. 4:7), wherein conversion is the starting line and the day of the Lord is the finish line. How you start is no as imporant as how you finish, though obviously you cannot finish without staring. Who puts blood on the door at dusk, but then goes down to frolic in the Nile before midnight? Who looks at the snake on the pole once, but then goes about tending to his wounds? The dead man does. The atonement only applies if faith is held unto the time of judgment. The scriptures leave no room for the popular notion of "once saved, always saved." -John P. Harrigan, The Gospel of Christ Crucified, p.236

The Godliness of a national leader has never been the prerequisite for God to move in mighty ways.

The humility of God’s people, coupled with prayer, has always been the prerequisite for God to move in mighty ways.

-Scott Volk

Spurgeon: “To live like Jesus most nearly concerns us; a triumphant death may be the crown, but a holy life is the head that must wear it.”

Jesus is the true and better Adam who passed the test in the garden. Jesus is also the true and better Abraham who answered the call of God to leave all the comfortable and familiar and go out into the void to create a new people of God. - Timothy Keller

Modern Christians should avoid the principal danger of Corinth, viz., an over-realized eschatology, which demands blessings that may not be ours till the end of the age. - DA Carson

John 17:3 "This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus…"

The incarnate Christ revealed the Father more fully than anyone ever had understood. The essence of eternal life is to encounter the Father and the Son in a growing relationship. - Mike Bickle

My message on Psalm 18. Notes. Audio 1. Audio 2. 

“This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.” Acts 1:11

Love this. Long for this. Let this be the morning star of your days. -John Piper

“A man may easier see without eyes, speak without a tongue, than truly mortify one sin without the Spirit.” -John Owen

Samuel Rutherford: “Your time will not be long: make the seeking of Christ your daily task.”

"The greatest sorrow and burden you can lay on the Father, the greatest unkindness you can do to him is to not believe that he loves you." - John Owen "Communion with God"

 

And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.

Some people claim to have tried Jesus and got burned by their faith. But actually, they weren’t burned by faith, they were shipwrecked by unbelief. - Bob Sorge

The repentance that Jesus requires consists of a change of thought as well as a change of action. Before telling those in Laodicea to repent, Jesus tells them that He loves them (Rev. 3:19). Part of the process of repentance is filling our minds with the subject of God's love. - Mike Bickle

"Deny your flesh, take up your cross."

Following Jesus is not complex, but it is hard. -Josh Hawkins

"My brethren, preach Christ. He is the whole Gospel." -Charles Spurgeon

“They were breaking bread in their homes and received their food with glad and generous hearts.” Acts 2:46

“Their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity.” 2 Corinthians 8:2

Inseparable Christian traits: Joy and generosity. - John Piper

Job:"For [God] is not a man...that we should come to trial together. There is no arbiter between us, who might lay his hand on us both."

Paul:"there is one mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus." The Arbiter can lay hands on both God and man, because He is God and man. -Gabe Cali

Yet the LORD longs to be gracious to you; therefore he will rise up to show you compassion. For the LORD is a God of justice. Blessed are all who wait for him! People of Zion, who live in Jerusalem, you will weep no more. How gracious he will be when you cry for help! As soon as he hears, he will answer you.

Isaiah 30:18-19

The Levitical system operates only by faith: Israel must believe that Yahweh really is in the tabernacle, that he really is holy, that sin and uncleanness really do make it dangerous to be near Yahweh, and that the prescribed sacrifice really will atone for sin. -Dr. Jim Hamilton