12 Quotes From “10 People Every Christian Should Know”

10 People Every Christian Should KnowWarren Wiersbe’s book 10 People Every Christian Should Know was filled with lots of quotes by and about the notable historical figures he covered in his book. You can read my book review by clicking here, but these are some of the quotes I highlighted while I was reading.

“You have been asked to take notice of the sayings of dying men—this is mine: that a life spent in the service of God and communion with Him is the most pleasant life that anyone can live in this world.” —Matthew Henry, on his deathbed 

“I am greatly persuaded that the generality of preachers talk of an unknown, unfelt Christ. And the reason why congregations have been so dead is because dead men preach to them.” —George Whitefield

“To quicken the conscience by the holiness of God, to feed the mind with the truth of God, to purge the imagination by the beauty of God, to open up the heart to the love of God, to devote the will to the purpose of God.” —William Temple, giving his definition of worship

“There are men called by God to preach on the issues of the hour, and we need their ministry. But for permanent strengthening of the church, we also need preachers who will dig again the old wells and lead us intelligently down the old paths and who, renouncing cheap pulpit rhetoric, will focus the white light of revelation on the human heart and examine us in that light.” —Warren Wiersbe

“Want of trust is at the root of almost all our sins and all our weaknesses, and how shall we escape it but by looking to Him and observing His faithfulness. The man who holds God’s faithfulness will not be foolhardy or reckless, but he will be ready for every emergency.” —J. Hudson Taylor

“I’d rather be able to pray than to be a great preacher. Jesus Christ never taught His disciples how to preach, but only how to pray.” —D.L. Moody

“The work will never go deeper than we have gone ourselves” —Amy Carmichael

“My Vow: Whatsoever Thou sayest unto me, by Thy grace I will do it.
My Constraint: Thy love, O Christ, my Lord.
My Confidence: Thou art able to keep that which I have committed unto thee.
My Joy: To do Thy will, O God.
My Discipline: That which I would not choose, but which Thy love appoints.
My Prayer: Conform my will to Thine.
My Motto: Love to live—live to love.
My Portion: The Lord is the portion of mine inheritance.” —Amy Carmichael

“You can be much more for Him than ever you know by just being yourself and relying on Him…. Keep praying and playing and being yourself.” —Oswald Chambers 

“You can never give another person that which you have found, but you can make him homesick for what you have.” —Oswald Chambers

“Stop having a measuring rod for other people. There is always one fact more in every man’s case about which we know nothing.” —Oswald Chambers

“The best book is not one that informs merely, but one that stirs the reader up to inform himself.” —A.W. Tozer

Thursdays With Oswald—Symphonizing In Prayer

This is a weekly series with things I’m reading and pondering from Oswald Chambers. You can read the original seed thought here, or type “Thursdays With Oswald” in the search box to read more entries.

Oswald Chambers

Symphonizing In Prayer 

     Again, truly I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything they ask for, it will be done for them by My Father in heaven. (Matthew 18:19) 

     We need to know this simple, direct truth about praying in public. It is perilously easy to make public prayer the mere fringe of devotion to what we are pleased to think of as the real center of the meeting. Agreement in purpose on earth must not be taken to mean a predetermination to agree together to storm God’s fort doggedly till He yields. It is far from right to agree beforehand over what we want, and then go to God and wait, not until He gives us His mind about the matter, but until we extort from Him permission to do what we had made up our minds to do before we prayed; we should rather agree to ask God to convey His mind and meaning to us in regard to the matter. 

     Agreement in purpose on earth is not a public presentation of persistent begging which knows no limit, but a prayer which is conscious that it is limited through the moral nature of the Holy Spirit. It is really “symphonizing” on earth with our Father Who is in Heaven.

From Christian Disciplines

When Jesus taught us to pray He said we should say, “Your will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.” God has a perfect plan in mind, and He wants us to be a part of that plan. So before we make up our mind to pray a certain way, and rally others around us to “agree in prayer” with us, we need to find out what God’s mind is on the matter. Our agreement needs to be with God, not with others.

A Grateful Heart Is A Strong Heart

A Grateful Heart [web]As we approach Thanksgiving Day, many people begin to get their thanks on! They will start rehearsing for their family gathering when someone might ask them, “What are you thankful for this year?”

But I want to make the case for practicing gratitude all year long!

There are emotional, physical, psychological and relational benefits to being a thanks-filled person. Truly those with grateful hearts have strong, healthy hearts … both physically and emotionally.

“Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos into order, confusion into clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense out of our past, brings peace for today, and create a vision for tomorrow.” —John Maxwell 

Please join me the next two Sundays at Calvary Assembly of God as I share some of the medical research and biblical truths that will reveal the year-round, whole-person benefits of being grateful.

Become A Better Person

Become A Better Person

If you want a better world,
Composed of better nations,
Inhabited by better states,
Filled with better counties,
Made up of better cities,
Comprised of better neighborhoods,
Illuminated by better churches,
Populated by better families,
Then you’ll have to start by becoming
A better person. —Tony Evans

10 People Every Christian Should Know (book review)

10 People Every Christian Should Know10 People Every Christian Should Know is a quick survey of notable Christian movers and shakers from the 1600s through the 1960s. Warren Wiersbe gives us a quick overview of their lives, attempting to whet our appetites to learn more about them.

By no means are these in-depth biographies, but rather short biographical sketches of their lives. Rev. Wiersbe quotes from other biographies and works written by the person being studied to give us insight into why they belong on this “Top 10” list. Each chapter contains Rev. Wiersbe’s recommendations about which books to read by or about that person to go deeper in your study of their life and beliefs.

I don’t have any arguments with the list of distinguished people who made this list, and I found the book recommendations in each chapter helpful, as well as the extensive list of reference books and biographies at the end of the book. The only thing I found slightly off-putting was Rev. Wiersbe’s commentaries into why the spiritual experiences of some of the subjects weren’t what they were portrayed to be. It would have been far better for him to simply say, “Here’s what happened, and here’s where you can read more.” Other than that, I would recommend this book as a great starting point for anyone who loves studying history as much as I do.

By the way, the Top 10 people covered in this book are:

  • Matthew Henry—Bible commentator
  • Jonathan Edwards—pastor
  • John Henry Cardinal Newman—pastor
  • J.B. Lightfoot—Bible translator
  • J. Hudson Taylor—missionary
  • Charles H. Spurgeon—pastor
  • Dwight L. Moody—pastor
  • Amy Carmichael—missionary
  • Oswald Chambers—professor
  • A.W. Tozer—pastor

Happy Veterans Day

Ronald Reagan“In our hearts you will always be young, full of the love that is youth, love of life, love of joy, love of country—you fought for your country and for its safety and for the freedom of others with strength and courage. We love you for it. We honor you. And we have faith that, as He does all His sacred children, the Lord will bless you and keep you, the Lord will make His face to shine upon you and give you peace, now and forevermore.” —Ronald Reagan, in his 1988 Veterans Day address

Getting Cold Brings The Heat

A lukewarm Christian is a dangerous thing. So dangerous, in fact, that Jesus said to lukewarm Christians, “I can’t help you.”

Lukewarm is just a few degrees off hot. It’s just a subtle drift. No one can hardly notice that someone is lukewarm, except Christ.

Lukewarm Christians live off yesterday’s encounter with God. They still have an appearance of being hot, but they have settled for something mediocre.

I think cold is much closer to hot than lukewarm is. I think it’s easier to go from cold to hot, than it is to go from lukewarm to hot. At least cold and hot people share this in common: their walk matches their talk.

Jesus counsels lukewarm people to buy from Me. He is saying, “Recognize your need, be in the market, but only buy the best from Me.” Jesus also challenges lukewarm people to repent: literally to change their mind; to stop thinking the way they have been thinking and see themselves differently. And finally Jesus asks lukewarm Christians to listen for His voice.

Light Of The World [William Holman Hunt]William Holman Hunt painted a picture called Light of the World in which Jesus is knocking at a heart’s door. Notice that Jesus is in His royal robes and wearing His King’s crown. He is not coming to ask for something, but to give something. Notice also that it’s getting dark. The day is almost done, and the time to let Him in is almost up. Finally, note that there is no handle on the outside of the door. Jesus will not open the door to come in, but He patiently waits for you to open the door to Him.

Recognizing our desperate need of Christ makes us instantly cold. But in that instant of humble poverty, we can immediately become hot as Jesus is welcomed into our heart. Don’t miss out on the rewards Christ has for you by being comfortably lukewarm!

“There is nothing so necessary as cultivating a spirit of dependence on God and of confidence in Him that refuses to go on without the needed supply of grace and strength.” —Andrew Murray

Thursdays With Oswald—Our Broken Treasures

This is a weekly series with things I’m reading and pondering from Oswald Chambers. You can read the original seed thought here, or type “Thursdays With Oswald” in the search box to read more entries.

Oswald Chambers

Our Broken Treasures 

     It is a revelation of pure joyousness in which the child of God pours into the Father’s bosom the cares which give pain and anxiety that He may solve the difficulties. Too often we imagine that God lives in a place where He only repairs our broken treasures, but Jesus reveals that it is quite otherwise; He discerns all our difficulties and solves them before us. 

     We are not beggars on the one hand or spiritual customers on the other; we are God’s children, and we just stay before Him with our broken treasures or our pain and watch Him mend or heal in such a way that we understand Him better. 

From Christian Disciplines 

I think we sometimes forget the infinite capacity of our Heavenly Father. He is All-Loving: no one has ever—or can ever—love more completely and deeply than He does. He is also All-Powerful: there isn’t anything that limits His potency. What an amazing combination! If God were only loving but not powerful, we couldn’t be sure He was able to answer our prayer. If God were only powerful but not loving, we wouldn’t be comfortable about bringing our concerns to Him.

But He is Both! And as such, we should have such rock-solid confidence that He not only can answer prayer, but that He wants to answer prayer. He answers, as Oswald Chambers says, in ways that reveal more of His nature to us, so that we can understand Him better and better through each answered prayer.

“Oh, what peace we often forfeit. Oh, what needless pain we bear, all because we do not carry everything to God in prayer.”

‘Nuff Said

'Nuff SaidWould you like God to bless your work? Would you like Him to bless all of your work?

He said it pretty simply. There are two actions / attitudes (because the actions must be done with the right attitude) that will bring God’s blessings:

  1. Tithe on what you earn—Deuteronomy 14:28-29
  2. Help the poor—Deuteronomy 15:7-11

‘Nuff said!

Ho Hum, It’s Election Day

Calvin CoolidgeSadly, that’s the attitude of far too many people in the United States of America. And it’s flat-out wrong! 

If America is to stay true to the designs of our brilliant Founding Fathers, we must vote intelligently. In this age of easy internet access, there is no excuse for you not to find out where each candidate stands. So get informed and go vote!

Almost 90 years ago President Calvin Coolidge had some challenging words for Americans which should still grab our attention today—

“All the opportunity for self-government through the rule of the people depends upon one single factor. That is the ballot box…. The people of our country are sovereign. If they do not vote they abdicate that sovereignty, and they may be entirely sure that if they relinquish it other forces will seize it, and if they fail to govern themselves some other power will rise up to govern them. The choice is always before them, whether they will be slaves or whether they will be free. The only way to be free is to exercise actively and energetically the privileges, and discharge faithfully the duties which make freedom. It is not to be secured by passive resistance. It is the result of energy and action. … Persons who have the right to vote are trustees for the benefit of their country and their countrymen. They have no right to say they do not care. They must care! They have no right to say that whatever the result of the election they can get along. They must remember that their country and their countrymen cannot get along, cannot remain sound, cannot preserve its institutions, cannot protect its citizens, cannot maintain its place in the world, unless those who have the right to vote do sustain and do guide the course of public affairs by the thoughtful exercise of that right on election day.” (emphasis added)