Northwest Pastor

“The gospel, God’s free gift of grace in Jesus, only works when we realize we don’t have it all together. The same is true for prayer. The very thing we are allergic to—our helplessness—is what makes prayer work. It works because are helpless. We can’t do life on our own.

Prayer mirrors the gospel. In the gospel, the Father takes us as we are because of Jesus and gives us his gift of salvation. In prayer, the Father receives us as we are because of Jesus and gives us his gift of help. We look at the inadequacy of our praying and give up, thinking something is wrong with us. God looks as the adequacy of his Son and delights in our sloppy, meandering prayers.”

—Paul Miller, A Praying Life

“Are you relying on your own righteousness? Or on ‘the righteousness of God which is by faith in Jesus Christ’? Do you know the grounds of your standing at this moment? Have you got this solid rock beneath you? Are you relying utterly upon the Son of God and His perfect work on your behalf? If not, you have not got the breastplate of righteousness, and that means that you are already defeated by the devil. This is the only righteousness that avails, not only when we go to God in prayer, but when we are confronted by the wiles of the devil, and as we wrestle against the principalities and powers, the rulers of the darkness of this world, the spiritual wickedness in high places.”
Martin Lloyd-Jones, The Christian Soldier

“It is always the Holy Spirit’s work to turn our eyes away from self to Jesus; but Satan’s work is just the opposite of this, for he is constantly trying to make us pay attention to ourselves instead of to Christ. He insinuates, ‘Your sins are too great for pardon; you have no faith; you do not repent enough; you will never be able to continue to the end; you do not have the joy of His children; you have such a weak hold of Jesus.’ All these are thoughts about self, and we will never find comfort or assurance by looking within. But the Holy Spirit turns our eyes entirely away from self. He tells us that we are nothing, but that Christ is all in all.’”

- Charles Spurgeon, Morning by Morning

“Saving belief is not mere mental assent, but a believing in – a living in – the knowledge of that news. It is a leaning on, a relying on. We must come to grips with the fact that we are unable to satisfy God’s demands on us, no matter how morally we try to live. We don’t want to end up trusting a little in ourselves and a little in God; we want to realize that we are to rely on God fully, to trust in Christ alone for our salvation.” -Mark Dever, The Gospel and Personal Evangelism

We need to be communities of love. And we need to be seen to be
communities of love. People need to encounter the church as a network of relationships rather than a meeting you attend or a place you enter. - Total Church by Tim Chester & Steve Timmis

“All change comes from deepening your understanding of the salvation of Christ and living out of the changes that understanding creates in your heart. Faith in the gospel re-structures our motivations, our self-understanding, our identity, and our view of the world. Behavioral compliance to rules without heart-change will be superficial and fleeting.” - Timothy Keller, The Prodigal God

“The key difference between a Pharisee and a believer in Jesus is inner heart motivation. Pharisees are being good but out of a fearful need to control God. They don’t really trust him or love him. To them God is an exacting boss, not a loving father. Christians have seen something that has transformed their hearts toward God so they can finally love and rest in the Father. . . . Jesus Christ, who had all the power in the world, saw us enslaved by the very things we thought would free us. So he emptied himself of his glory and became a servant (Philippians 2). He laid aside the infinities and the immensities of his being and, at the cost of his life paid the debt for our sins, purchasing us the only place our hearts can rest, in his Father’s house.” Timothy Keller, The Prodigal God