Thinking is what the brain does – pushing information around and modeling possible outcomes.

To be a soul winner is the happiest thing in this world. And with every soul you bring to Jesus Christ, you seem to get a new heaven here upon earth.

We might as well preach to stone walls as preach to humanity unless the Holy Ghost be with the word, to give it power to convert the soul.

We might preach till our tongues rotted, till we should exhaust our lungs and die, but never a soul would be converted unless there were mysterious power going with it – the Holy Ghost changing the will of man.

You are saved. Seek to be like your Savior.

The gospel is preached in the ears of all men; it only comes with power to some. The power that is in the gospel does not lie in the eloquence of the preacher otherwise men would be converters of souls. Nor does it lie in the preacher’s learning; otherwise it could consists of the wisdom of men.

Is not the gospel its own sign and wonder? Is not this a miracle of miracles, that ‘God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish’? Surely that precious word, ‘Whosoever will, let him come and take the water of life freely’ and that solemn promise, ‘Him that cometh unto Me, I will in no wise cast out,’ are better than signs and wonders! A truthful Saviour ought to be believed. He is truth itself. Why will you ask proof of the veracity of One who cannot lie?

When you see a man with a great deal of religion displayed in his shop window, you may depend upon it he keeps a very small stock of it within.

Let eloquence be flung to the dogs rather than souls be lost. What we want is to win souls. They are not won by flowery speeches.

Every Christian is either a missionary or an imposter.

Have your heart right with Christ, and he will visit you often, and so turn weekdays into Sundays, meals into sacraments, homes into temples, and earth into heaven.

A Jesus who never wept could never wipe away my tears.

I have a great need for Christ. I have a great Christ for my need.

If Christ is not all to you He is nothing to you. He will never go into partnership as a part Saviour of men. If He be something He must be everything, and if He be not everything He is nothing to you.

Have you no wish for others to be saved? Then you’re not saved yourself, be sure of that!

If sinners be damned, at least let them leap to Hell over our dead bodies. And if they perish, let them perish with our arms wrapped about their knees, imploring them to stay. If Hell must be filled, let it be filled in the teeth of our exertions, and let not one go unwarned and unprayed for.

Without Christ there is no hope.

The mind of God is greater than all the minds of men, so let all men leave the gospel just as God has delivered it unto us.

So, you who wish to have an exemplary character before God and before men, remember that, if ill company does not burn you to your hurt, it is sure to blacken you by damaging your reputation.

Bad company does a man real harm, for, as the old proverb has it, if you lie down with dogs you will get up with fleas.

We are one in Christ; let us be friends with one another; but let us never be friends with one another’s error. If I be wrong, rebuke me sternly; I can bear it, and bear it cheerfully; and if ye be wrong, expect the like measure from me, and neither peace nor parley with your mistakes.

A friend to everybody is often a friend to nobody.

If we would always recollect that we live among men who are imperfect, we should not be in such a fever when we find out our friend’s failings.

It is foolish to turn off a tried friend because of a failing or two, for you may get rid of a one-eyed nag and buy a blind one.

Be friendly to all, but make none your friends until they know you, and you know them.

Depend upon it, a great deal depends upon whom we choose for our companions when we begin life.

I think you may judge of a man’s character by the persons whose affection he seeks. If you find a man seeking only the affection of those who are great, depend upon it he is ambitious and self-seeking; but when you observe that a man seeks the affection of those who can do nothing for him, but for whom he must do everything, you know that he is not seeking himself, but that pure benevolence sways his heart.

Friendship is one of the sweetest joys of life. Many might have failed beneath the bitterness of their trial had they not found a friend.

Never fear dying, beloved. Dying is the last, but the least matter that a Christian has to be anxious about. Fear living – that is a hard battle to fight, a stern discipline to endure, a rough voyage to undergo.

Tested faith brings experience. You would never have believed your own weakness had you not needed to pass through trials. And you would never have known God’s strength had His strength not been needed to carry you through.

Train up a child in the way he should go – but be sure you go that way yourself.

Doubt discovers difficulties which it never solves; it creates hesitancy, despondency, despair. Its progress is the decay of comfort, the death of peace. “Believe!” is the word which speaks life into a man, but doubt nails down his coffin.

Visit many good books, but live in the Bible.

If you give your soul up to anything earthly, whether it be the wealth, or the honours, or the pleasures of this world, you might as well hunt after the mirage of the desert or try to collect the mists of the morning, or to store up for yourself the clouds of the sky, for all these things are passing away.

The greatest joy of a Christian is to give joy to Christ.

A Bible that’s falling apart usually belongs to someone who isn’t.

If we never have headaches through rebuking our children, we shall have plenty of heartaches when they grow up.

That very church which the world likes best is sure to be that which God abhors.

Nobody ever outgrows Scripture; the book widens and deepens with our years.

When you see no present advantage, walk by faith and not by sight. Do God the honor to trust Him when it comes to matters of loss for the sake of principle.

Wisdom is the right use of knowledge. To know is not to be wise. Many men know a great deal, and are all the greater fools for it. There is no fool so great a fool as a knowing fool. But to know how to use knowledge is to have wisdom.

Faith goes up the stairs that love has built and looks out the windows which hope has opened.

Why is it that some Christians, although they hear many sermons, make but slow advances in the divine life? Because they neglect their closets, and do not thoughtfully meditate on God’s Word. They love the wheat, but they do not grind it; they would have the corn, but they will not go forth into the fields to gather it; the fruit hangs upon the tree, but they will not pluck it; the water flows at their feet, but they will not stoop to drink it.

A little faith will bring your soul to heaven. A great faith will bring heaven to your soul.

Let us not dread old age. Let us grow old graciously since the LORD Himself is with us in fullness of grace.

Some talk of our being in grace and out of it, as if we were like rabbits that run in and out of their burrows; but, indeed, it is not so. The LORD’s love is a far more serious and abiding matter than this. He chose us from eternity, and He will love us throughout eternity. He loved us so as to die for us, and we may therefore be sure that His love will never die.

We who are saved find rest in Jesus. Those who are not saved will receive rest if they come to Him, for here He promises to “give” it. Nothing can be freer than a gift; let us gladly accept what He gladly gives. You are not to buy it, nor to borrow it, but to receive it as a gift.

If God had begun saving us because we were good, He would of course leave off saving us when we were not good.

If you are renewed by grace, and were to meet your old self, I am sure you would be very anxious to get out of his company.

The Lord’s mercy often rides to the door of our heart upon the black horse of affliction.

You will never glory in God till first of all God has killed your glorying in yourself.

This is how grace works; it enters the soul, penetrates the heart, saturates the conscience, abides in the memory, affects the affections, gives understanding to the understanding, and imparts real life to the heart, which is the seat of life.

Grace is the mother and nurse of holiness, and not the apologist of sin.

It is not a matter of time so much as a matter of heart. If you have the heart to pray, you will find the time.

Believe me, if a church does not pray, it is dead.

Prayer has become as essential to me as the heaving of my lungs, and the beating of my pulse.

We may be certain that whatever God has made prominent in His Word, He intended to be conspicuous in our lives. If He has said much about prayer, it is because He knows we have much need of it.

God keeps a file for our prayers. They are not blown away by the wind, they are treasured in the King’s archives.

If you do not pray except when you feel like praying, you will not pray much, nor pray when you most need it.

Many hours are spent with men. How many with your Maker?

We cannot all argue, but we can all pray. We cannot all be leaders, but we can all be pleaders. We cannot all be mighty in rhetoric, but we can all be prevalent in prayer.

Not length but strength is desirable. A sense of need is a mighty teacher of brevity. If our prayers had less of the tail feathers of pride and more wing they would be all the better. Verbiage is to devotion as chaff to the wheat.

The great matter is not how long you pray, but how earnestly you pray. Consider the life of the prayer rather than the length of the prayer. If your prayer reaches to heaven it is long enough.

True prayer is measured by weight, not by length. A single groan before God may have more fullness of prayer in it than a fine oration of great length.

Prayer will make you leave off sinning, or sinning will make you leave off praying.

Groanings which cannot be uttered are often prayers which cannot be refused.

If I carefully consider others, God will consider me, and in some way or other He will recompense me. Let me consider the poor, and the LORD will consider me. Let me look after little children, and the LORD will treat me as His child. Let me feed His flock, and He will feed me. Let me water His garden, and He will make a watered garden of my soul. This is the LORD’s own promise; be it mine to fulfill the condition and then to expect its fulfillment.

God has great leisure. He lives not merely in time, he inhabiteth eternity. A thousand years are to him but as one day, so he can afford to wait.

Do you not know that his name is the happy God, and nothing gives him greater happiness then to give happiness to his creatures.

The Lord is infinitely good, essentially. He is growingly good, experimentally.

When divine strength comes, human weakness is no more a hindrance.

In all of my years of service to my Lord, I have discovered a truth that has never failed and has never been compromised. That truth is that it is beyond the realm of possibilities that one has the ability to out give God. Even if I give the whole of my worth to Him, He will find a way to give back to me much more than I gave.

Even as in our young days He carried us like lambs in His bosom, so will He in our years of infirmity He made us, and He will care for us. When we become a burden to our friends and a burden to ourselves, the LORD will not shake us off, but the rather He will take us up and carry and deliver us more fully than ever.

When we grow old our God will still be the I AM, abiding evermore the same. Hoar hairs tell of our decay, but He decayeth not. When we cannot carry a burden and can hardly carry ourselves, the LORD will carry us.

His help is timely: He is a very present help in time of trouble. His help is very wise: He knows how to give each man help meet and fit for him. His help is most effectual, though vain is the help of man. His help is more than help, for He bears all the burden and supplies all the need. The LORD is my helper, I will not fear what man can do unto me.

The LORD says, “I will help thee.” Strength within is supplemented by help without. God can raise us up allies in our warfare if so it seems good in His sight; and even if He does not send us human assistance, He Himself will be at our side, and this is better still. “Our August Ally” is better than legions of mortal helpers.

My own weakness makes me shrink, but God’s promise makes me brave.

Poverty is a hard heritage; but those who trust in the LORD are made rich by faith. Let us, when we have short commons below, think of the royal table above.

I find myself frequently depressed – perhaps more so than any other person here. And I find no better cure for that depression than to trust in the Lord with all my heart, and seek to realize afresh the power of the peace-speaking blood of Jesus, and His infinite love in dying upon the cross to put away all my transgressions.

As sure as God puts His children in the furnace of affliction, He will be with them in it.

Those who dive in the sea of affliction bring up rare pearls.

No stars gleam as brightly as those which glisten in the polar sky. No water tastes so sweet as that which springs amid the desert sand. And no faith is so precious as that which lives and triumphs through adversity.

Is there nothing to sing about to-day? Then borrow a song from tomorrow; sing of what is yet to be. Is this world dreary? Then think of the next.

Love letters from heaven are often sent in black-edged envelopes. The cloud that is black with horror is big with mercy. Fear not the storm. It brings healing in its wings and when Jesus is with you in the vessel the tempest only hastens the ship to its desired haven.

Our Father’s wagons rumble most heavily when they are bringing us the richest freight of the bullion of his grace.

It is not how much we have, but how much we enjoy, that makes happiness.

I bear my witness that the worst days I have ever had have turned out to be my best days. And when God has seemed most cruel to me he has then been most kind. If there is anything in this world for which I would bless him more than for anything else it is for pain and affliction. I am sure that in these things the richest tenderest love has been manifested to me.

Trials teach us what we are; they dig up the soil, and let us see what we are made of.

There is hardship in everything except eating pancakes.

Your emptiness is but the preparation for your being filled and your casting down is but the making ready for your lifting up.

The Lord gets His best soldiers out of the highlands of affliction.

Nothing teaches us about the preciousness of the Creator as much as when we learn the emptiness of everything else.

God is too good to be unkind and He is too wise to be mistaken. And when we cannot trace His hand, we must trust His heart.

If you can’t see His way past the tears, trust His heart.

Though you have changed a thousand times, He has not changed once.

A good character is the best tombstone. Those who loved you and were helped by you will remember you when forget-me-nots have withered. Carve your name on hearts, not on marble.

I have learned to kiss the waves that throw me up against the Rock of Ages.

You say, ‘If I had a little more, I should be very satisfied.’ You make a mistake. If you are not content with what you have, you would not be satisfied if it were doubled.

Hope itself is like a star – not to be seen in the sunshine of prosperity, and only to be discovered in the night of adversity.

Our anxiety does not empty tomorrow of its sorrows, but only empties today of its strengths.