Prayer is always essential, but thought is essential, too, because prayer can be just an escape mechanism, almost at times a cry in the dark by people who are desperate and defeated. Prayer must be intelligent, and it is only to those who realize that their bodies are the temples of the Holy Ghost that the answer will be given and the power will come.Spiritual Depression (173)
When we fight the war for holiness. We recognize the demons are involved in that. But we are not called upon to name territorial spirits and rebuke the devil and satan. Please read Jude verse 9 and you'll stop doing that.
Rather our task is to come before the Lord and to submit ourselves before the Holy Spirit and to invite him to fill us afresh to empower us. So we rely on Him and not on our own flesh. Sermon: I Believe in Satan (and Demons)
It is tragic that we are so negligent about the eternal and are so concerned about that which must inevitably come to an end. It is better to be a cripple in this life, says our Lord, than to lose everything in the next. Put your soul and its eternal destiny before everything else.Studies in the Sermon on the Mount (217)
Let us settle in our minds that the Christian fight is a good fight-really good, truly good, emphatically good. We see only part of it as yet. We see the struggle, but not the end; we see the campaign, but not the reward; we see the cross, but not the crown. We see a few humble, broken-spirited, penitent, praying people, enduring hardships and despised by the world; but we see not the hand of God over them, the face of God smiling on them, the kingdom of glory prepared for them. Holiness (Chapter 4)
And have we not all known what it is to find that, somehow, we have less to say to God when we are alone than when we are in the presence of others? It should not be so; but it often is.Studies in the Sermon on the Mount (322)
The glory of the gospel is that when the Church is absolutely different from the world, she invariably attracts it. It is then that the world is made to listen to her message, though it may hate it at first.Studies on the Sermon on the Mount (28)
Be still, and know that I am God'. We must not interpret that 'Be still' in a sentimental manner. Some regard it as a kind of exhortation to us to be silent; but it is nothing of the sort. It means, 'Give up (or 'Give in') and admit I am God. God is addressing people who are opposed to Him
The main art in the matter of spiritual living is to know how to handle yourself. You have to take yourself in hand, you have to address yourself, preach to yourself, question yourself. You must say to your soul: ' Why art thou cast down'-- what business have you to be disquieted? You must turn on yourself, upbraid yourself, condemn yourself, exhort yourself, and say to yourself: 'Hope thou in God' instead of muttering in this depressed, unhappy way. And then you must go on to remind yourself of God, Who God is, and what God has done, and on this great note: defy yourself, and defy other people, and defy the devil and the whole world, and say with this man: 'I shall yet praise Him for the help of His countenance, who is also the health of my countenance and my God'.Spiritual Depression, p. 21
When the church is absolutely different from the world, she invariably attracts it. It is then that the world is made to listen to her message, though it may hate it at first.
the greatest problem that any man who preaches the gospel ever has to face is that while he is preaching he is in danger of looking at himself and watching himself and always being conscious of himself.Spiritual Depression (125)
we must never look at any sin in our past life in any way except that which leads us to praise God and to magnify His grace in Christ Jesus.Spiritual Depression (75)
Let us remember that our justification means not only that our sins are forgiven and that we have been declared to be righteous by God Himself, not merely that we were righteous at that moment when we believed, but permanently righteous.Spiritual Depression (74)
God wants us to know that the time [of Christ's return] is definite. In his mind it's going to happen at a definite time. But you and I can never say exactly which is the date.
"Necessity is laid upon us. We must fight. There are no promises in the Lord Jesus Christ's epistles to the seven churches, except to those who 'overcome.' Where there is grace, there will be conflict. The believer is a soldier. There is no holiness without a warfare."