Pages: 225
Year: 2019
Publisher: Banner of Truth

Quotables

Ability to focus our gaze, fill our minds, and devote our hearts to Jesus Christ is a basic element in real Christian growth. Inability to do so is a sign of immaturity. (21)

In our Christian subculture a tendency has developed today to think that the Bible tells us what to do, but if we want to know how to do it we need to enquire elsewhere. That 'elsewhere' might be a book, a seminar, or a website... But it is important not to overlook the fact that the Scriptures that address 'what to do' exhortations to us also provide answers to the 'how to?' questions. But to discover them we need to learn to meditate on the Scriptures until the applications of their exhortations become clearer to us. (33)

Feeding our minds with the word of Christ is essential if our hearts are to be filled with the joy of Christ... There is no substitute here for dogged daily discipline. It is a battle to find the time; it can be a harder battle to fight sloth. But we need to overcome the habit of reading Scripture only when we 'feel like it.' (49)

Law accuses us for our failure to keep it; Conscience joins its witness condemning our ongoing sinfulness; and Satan makes capital out of our weakness, reminding us of long-forgotten words, deeds, and thoughts which seem scarcely consistent with our Christian profession. (75)

So here is a very simple litmus test: what I ask questions about God's will for my life, where do I look? At my mind, or at God's mind—inwardly for some kind of revelation that comes immediately into my mind from God? Or outwardly, to the mind of God revealed in Scripture, praying that I will be given the Spirit of illumination and wisdom to be able to apply it? (88)

In the immediately preceding section of Ephesians [chapter 5] he has been discussing relationships between husbands and wives, parents and children, masters and servants. Why, then, the radical shift to spiritual warfare and armour [in chapter 6]? But perhaps it is not so radical after all. For these are the mundane areas in our lives where we are often tripped up and our usefulness hindered. (132)

How slow we are to learn that God is willing to go to any lengths to transform us. No matter what it costs he has set his heart on us. The cross proves his determination. He means to make us like his Son, Jesus Christ. (156)