Assurance before confidence

"It is by this faith . . . that we receive Christ . . . But is this the faith of assurance, or faith of adherence? The Scripture mentions no such distinction . . . And it is certain, this faith necessarily implies an assurance . . . that Christ loved me, and gave Himself for me. For 'he that believeth' with the true living faith 'hath the witness in himself': 'the Spirit witnesseth with his spirit that he is a child of God.' 'Because he is a son, God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into his heart, crying, Abba, Father'; giving him an assurance that he is so, and a childlike confidence in Him. But let it be observed, that, in the very nature of the thing, the assurance goes before the confidence. For a man cannot have a childlike confidence in God till he knows he is a child of God. Therefore, confidence, trust, reliance, adherence, or whatever else it be called, is not the first, as some have supposed, but the second, branch or act of faith. " ~ John Wesley in "The Scripture Way of Salvation"

Impossible possibilities

". . . the commandments were given irrespective of human ability or inability to keep them; then when Jesus Christ came, instead of doing what we all too glibly say He did - put something easier before men, He made it a hundredfold more difficult, because He goes behind the law to the disposition." ~ Oswald Chambers

"If the old commandments were difficult, our Lord's principles are unfathomably more difficult. Our Lord goes behind the old law to the disposition. Everything He teaches is impossible unless He can put into us His Spirit and remake us from within." ~ Oswald Chambers

Contesting for the truth

"In great contests each party claims to act in accordance with the will of God. Both may be, and one must be, wrong. God cannot be for and against the same thing at the same time." ~ Abraham Lincoln

For by grace are ye saved

The words of John Bunyan an unspecified number of years before his soul was comforted with the witness of the Holy Spirit: "Sometimes I would tell my condition to the people of God; which, when they heard, they would pity me, and would tell me of the promises; but they had as good have told me, that I must reach the sun with my finger, as have bidden me receive or rely upon the promises: and as soon I should have done it. All my sense and feeling were against me; and I saw I had an heart that would sin, and that lay under a law that would condemn." ~ John Bunyan in Grace Abounding

The strait gate and narrow way

"And though I was much troubled, and tossed, and afflicted, with the sight and sense and terror of my own wickedness, yet I was afraid to let this sight and sense go quite off my mind . . . I had seen some, who . . . seeking rather present ease from their trouble . . . cared not how they lost their guilt, so they got it out of their mind . . . but they grew harder and blinder . . . This made me afraid, and made me cry to God the more, that it might not be so with me.

In this condition I went a great while but when comforting time was come . . . I began to give place to the word which with power, did over and over make this joyful sound within my soul ... And with that my heart was filled full of comfort and hope, and now I could believe that my sins should be forgiven me." ~ John Bunyan in Grace Abounding

A seeking heart

"But all this while, as to the act of sinning, I was never more tender than now . . . But my original and inward pollution; That, that was my plague and affliction . . .

Sin and corruption, I said, would as naturally bubble out of my heart, as water would bubble out of a fountain: I thought now, that every one had a better heart than I had . . . and thus I continued a long while, even for some years together.

My soul is dying, my soul is damning. Were my soul but in a good condition, and were I but sure of it, ah! how rich should I esteem myself, though blessed but with bread and water!" ~ John Bunyan in Grace Abounding

Bedrock Christianity

"Gold! could it have been gotten for gold, what would I have given for it? Had I had a whole world, it had all gone ten thousand times over for this, that my soul might have been in a converted state. How lovely now was every one in my eyes, that I thought to be converted men and women. They shone, they walked like a people that carried the broad seal of heaven about them." ~ John Bunyan in Grace Abounding