Look here for quotes short and long from significant practitioners of true New Covenant living.  Those who discovered the life without limit, that “life to the full” that Jesus promised His true disciples.  The paradox of this life is that to gain this abundance requires the surrender of all living, all possessing.  Yet when you do, you will find the life that these master old and new have discovered and write about.  Be challenged!

Banner image via author, Bear Creek Spire and Mount Dana, Little Lakes Valley, Sierra Nevada Range, California.

In our day heaven and earth are on tiptoe waiting for the emerging of the Spirit-led, Spirit-intoxicated, Spirit-empowered people. All of creation watches expectantly for the springing up of a disciplined, freely gathered, martyr people who know in this life the life and power of the Kingdom of God. It happened before, it can happen again.  – Richard J. Foster

We love the old saints, missionaries, martyrs, and reformers. Our Luthers, Bunyans, Wesleys and Asburys, etc… We will write their biographies, reverence their memories, frame their epitaphs, and build their monuments. We will do anything except imitate them. We cherish the last drop of their blood, but watch carefully over the first drop of our own.   – AW Tozer

Eighty and six years have I served Christ, nor has He ever done me any harm. How, then, could I blaspheme my King who saved Me?….I bless Thee for deigning me worthy of this day and this hour that I may be among Thy martyrs and drink the cup of my Lord Jesus Christ.  – Polycarp

The tyrant dies and his rule is over, the martyr dies and his rule begins.  – Soren Kierkegaard

Country Club Church. You’ve probably heard the criticism leveled at some churches – “They’re just a country club church.” Perhaps you have said it about some churches yourself. Such “country club churches” indeed exist, and it is surely one of the worst indictments they could ever receive. And the symptoms of country club Christianity are obvious. A country club church exists for social and secular and temporal reasons. It has a religious flavor, to be sure. But its focus seems to be on other things. Evangelism, seeking to win the lost to Christ, is not high on its agenda. Prayer is something we do before the meal or the preacher does for us on Sunday morning. “Worship” is more entertaining than humbling. One church service a week is more than enough, and that (the Sunday “worship service”) must not go too long – this, after all, is just one slice of our very crowded life. The preaching must not be too long, nor must it be too personal – if the preacher dares to invade our space and meddle, he’s overstepped his bounds. He must never make us feel uncomfortable – his purpose is to make us feel good. And if anyone says “Amen!” (1Cor.14:16) during the sermon, he is probably a fanatic and will certainly get some funny looks from others in the congregation.

Country club Christianity. It’s not about God, really. It’s about relationships, entertainments, activities – a religious kind of secularism. A religion that is used perhaps to salve a conscience but a religion which makes no demands on life. A religion which is really very convenient and which exists precisely because it is convenient. But it is not a religion for discipleship. It is not a religion which calls us to deny ourselves, take up our cross, and passionately pursue Christ.

Country Cub Christianity, in other words, is not Christianity at all. – Fred Zaspel

We must all have the spirit of martyrdom, though we may not all die martyrs. – George Whitefield

Stop asking God to bless what you’re doing. Find out what God’s doing. It’s already blessed. – Bono

When you align yourself with God’s purpose as described in the Scriptures, something special happens to your life. – Bono

Religion can be the enemy of God. It’s often what happens when God, like Elvis, has left the building. – Bono

God is so big. It’s a gigantic concept in God. The idea that God might love us and be interested in us is kind of huge and gigantic, but we turn it, because we’re small-minded, into this tiny, petty, often greedy version of God, that is religion. – Bono

“Once”

Once it was the blessing, now it is the Lord;
Once it was the feeling, now it is His Word.
Once His gifts I wanted, now the Giver own;
Once I sought for healing, now Himself alone.

Once ’twas painful trying, now ’tis perfect trust;
Once a half salvation, now the uttermost.
Once ’twas ceaseless holding, now He holds me fast;
Once ’twas constant drifting, now my anchor’s cast.

Once ’twas busy planning, now ’tis trustful prayer;
Once ’twas anxious caring, now He has the care.
Once ’twas what I wanted, now what Jesus says;
Once ’twas constant asking, now ’tis ceaseless praise.

Once it was my working, His it hence shall be;
Once I tried to use Him, now He uses me.
Once the power I wanted, now the Mighty One;
Once for self I labored, now for Him alone.

Once I hoped in Jesus, now I know He’s mine;
Once my lamps were dying, Now they brightly shine.
Once for death I waited, now His coming hail;
And my hopes are anchored, safe within the veil.
― A. B. Simpson

The Church was never intended to be a natural and intellectual organization, but a supernatural instrumentality wholly dependent upon the direct power of God for all her efficiency, and therefore, needing to be ever separated from the arm of flesh and the strength of mere human agencies. ― A.B. Simpson,

The true Church of Jesus Christ will never be overwhelmed by the world. The waters may swirl around us, but the Lord has promised to build His Church and keep it strong until He returns. ― A.B. Simpson

If you say you haven’t the time to go down into the recreating silences, I can only say to you, ‘Then you don’t really want to, you don’t yet love God above all else in the world, with all your heart and soul and mind and strength.’… We find time for what we really want to do…. – Thomas R. Kelly

Our real problem, in failing to center down, is not a lack of time; it is, I fear, in too many of us, lack of joyful, enthusiastic delight in Him, lack of deep, deep-drawing love directed toward Him at every hour of the day and night. – Thomas R. Kelly

To be Christian is to live in the reality of having died to sin with Christ, and to now be dead to its power and dominion over oneself.   To be Christian is to depend on the life of our God in us to live the will of our God by the power of our God in and through us.  – Timothy Denney