Quotable

True spirituality manifests itself in…the desire to be holy rather than happy….The spiritual man wants to carry his cross. Many Christians accept adversity or tribulation with a sigh and call it their cross, forgetting that such things come alike to saint and sinner. The cross is that extra adversity that comes to us as a result of our obedience to Christ. This cross is not forced upon us; we voluntarily take it up with full knowledge of the consequences.

We choose to obey Christ and by so doing choose to carry the cross. Carrying a cross means to be attached to the person of Christ, committed to the Lordship of Christ and obedient to the commandments of Christ. Such a man would rather be useful than famous and would rather serve than be served. And this must be by the operation of the Holy Spirit within him. No man can become spiritual by himself.

—A. W. Tozer

Of the lonely way His disciples should walk, Christ said: “Straight is the gate and narrow the way which leadeth unto life and few there be that find it.”

“No man stood with me, but all men forsook me,” wrote the battle-scarred apostle in describing his first appearance before Nero to answer with his life for believing and teaching contrary to the Roman world.

Truth has been out of fashion since man changed his robe of fadeless light for a garment of faded leaves.

Multitudes now, in the church and in the world, applaud the courage of patriarchs and prophets, of apostles and martyrs, but condemn as stubbornness or foolishness like faithfulness today.

WANTED TODAY, men and women, young and old, who will obey their convictions of truth and duty at the cost of fortune and friends and life itself.

—Author unknown