+ CrossQuotes +

To learn strong faith is to endure great trials. I have learned my faith by standing firm amid severe testings. George Mueller

I care not where I go, or how I live, or what I endure so that I may save souls. When I sleep I dream of them; when I awake they are first in my thoughts. David Brainerd

It is prosperity that we cannot endure. Martin Luther

Lord Jesus, you embraced your cross to redeem the world. Help me to embrace the crosses in my life — the hardships, struggles, disappointments, pain. Only by recognizing my own weakness, can I discover your strength. Author Unknown

If you’re serious about sanctification, you can expect to experience heart-wrenching moments that try your faith, your endurance, and your patience. Sheri Dew

The principal act of courage is to endure and withstand dangers doggedly rather than to attack them. Thomas Aquinas

The only true conqueror who shall be crowned in the end is he who continues until war’s trumpet is blown no more…. Christian, wear your shield close to your armor and cry earnestly to God, that by His Spirit you may endure to the end. Alistair Begg

Endurance is not just the ability to bear a hard thing, but to turn it into glory. Philip Yancey

Teach me. O God, to use all the circumstances of my life to-day that they may bring forth in me the fruits of holiness rather than the fruits of sin. Let me use disappointment as material for patience: Let me use success as material for thankfulness: Let me use suspence as material for perseverance: Let me use danger as material for courage: Let me use reproach as material for longsuffering: Let me use praise as material for humility: Let me use pleasures as material for temperance: Let me use pains as material for endurance. John Baillie

With regard to patience the Lord says, ‘You will gain possession of your souls through your patient endurance’ (Luke 21:19). He did not say ‘through your fasting’ or ‘through your vigils’. I refer to the patience bestowed by God, which is the queen of virtues, the foundation of courageous actions. It is patience that is peace amid strife, serenity amid distress, and a steadfast base for those who acquire it. Once you have attained it with the help of Christ Jesus, no swords and spears, no attacking armies, not even the ranks of demonpeace of Cod in the pitch-dark night, in the midst of corpses and dead men’s bones? Joy like this, peace like this, comes from nothing in this world. God alone can give it. While I was sitting therein the well I reflected that I never felt this kind of happiness while I lived in the house of my parents in comfort and luxury. Whence then came this overflowing joy in that terrible den? I saw then more clearly than ever, that Jesus is alive, and that it was He who was filling my heart with peace and joy. Sadhu Sundar Singh

When I was on my feet, big boisterous pleasures provided only fleeting satisfaction. In a wheelchair, satisfaction settles in as I sit under an oak tree on a windy day and delight in the rustle of the leaves or sit by a fire and enjoy the soothing strains of a symphony. These smaller, less noisy pleasures are rich because, unlike the fun on my feet, these things yield patience, endurance, and a spirit of gratitude, all of which fits me further for eternity. It is this yieldedness that gains you the most here on earth. Joni Eareckson Tada

Perseverance is more than endurance. It is endurance combined with absolute assurance and certainty that what we are looking for is going to happen. Oswald Chambers

Endurance is a key indicator of spiritual fitness. Alistair Begg

A journey, I reflected, is of no merit unless it has tested you. Tahir Shah

Scars are not signs of weakness, they are signs of survival and endurance. Author Unknown

Everyone who believes in God must have His revelation in his spirit, or else what he believes is not God but mere human wisdom, ideals or words. Such faith cannot endure the test. Watchman Nee

Human beings are the only creatures who are allowed to fail. If an ant fails, it’s dead. But we’re allowed to learn from our mistakes and from our failures. And that’s how I learn, by falling flat on my face and picking myself up and starting all over again. Madeleine L’Engle

In all your course, walk with God and follow Christ as a little, poor, helpless child, taking hold of Christ’s hand, keeping your eye on the mark of the wounds on his hands and side, whence came the blood that cleanses you from sin and hiding your nakedness under the skirt of the white shining robe of his righteousness. Jonathan Edwards

An ever-growing, ever-constant relationship with God makes us certain of what we believe and enables us to run with endurance. Katy Kauffman

My dear son, be patient, because the weaknesses of the body are given to us in this world by God for the salvation of the soul. So they are of great merit when they are borne patiently. Francis of Assisi

You can also offer your prayers, obedience, and endurance of dryness to Our Lord, for the good of other souls, and then you have practiced intercession. Never mind if it all seems for the time very second-hand. The less you get out of it, the nearer it approaches to being something worth offering; and the humiliation of not being able to feel as devout as we want to be, is excellent for most of us. Use vocal prayer…very slowly, trying to realize the meaning with which it is charged and remember that…you are only a unit in the Chorus of the Church, so that the others will make good the shortcomings you cannot help. Evelyn Underhill

“One of the purest souls ever to live on this fallen planet was Nicholas Herman, known as Brother Lawrence. He wrote very little, but what he wrote has seemed to several generations of Christians to be so rare and so beautiful as to deserve a place near the top among the world’s great books of devotion. The writings of Brother Lawrence are the ultimate in simplicity; ideas woven like costly threads to make a pattern of great beauty. ” — A.W. Tozer

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Let us think often that our only business in this life is to please God. Perhaps all besides is but folly and vanity.

Think often on God, by day, by night, in your business and even in your diversions. He is always near you and with you; leave him not alone.

GOD will not permit that a soul which desires to be devoted entirely to Him should take other pleasures than with Him: that is more than reasonable.

In order to know God, we must often think of Him; and when we come to love Him, we shall then also think of Him often, for our heart will be with our treasure.

I drove away from my mind everything capable of spoiling the sense of the presence of God…. I just make it my business to persevere in His holy presence… My soul has had an habitual, silent, secret conversation with God.

You need not cry very loud; he is nearer to us than we think.

There is not in the world a kind of life more sweet and delightful, than that of a continual conversation with God; those only can comprehend it who practice and experience it.

We ought not to be weary of doing little things for the love of God, who regards not the greatness of the work, but the love with which it is performed.

To worship God in truth is to recognize Him for being who He is, and to recognize ourselves for what we are.

He does not ask much of us, merely a thought of Him from time to time, a little act of adoration, sometimes to ask for His grace, sometimes to offer Him your sufferings, at other times to thank Him for the graces, past and present, He has bestowed on you, in the midst of your troubles to take solace in Him as often as you can. Lift up your heart to Him during your meals and in company; the least little remembrance will always be the most pleasing to Him. One need not cry out very loudly; He is nearer to us than we think.

I cannot imagine how religious persons can live satisfied without the practice of the presence of GOD. For my part I keep myself retired with Him in the depth of centre of my soul as much as I can; and while I am so with Him I fear nothing; but the least turning from Him is insupportable.

I regard myself as the most wretched of all men, stinking and covered with sores, and as one who has committed all sorts of crimes against his King. Overcome by remorse, I confess all my wickedness to Him, ask His pardon and abandon myself entirely to Him to do with as He will. But this King, filled with goodness and mercy, far from chastising me, lovingly embraces me, makes me eat at His table, serves me with His own hands, gives me the keys of His treasures and treats me as His favorite. He talks with me and is delighted with me in a thousand and one ways; He forgives me and relieves me of my principle bad habits without talking about them; I beg Him to make me according to His heart and always the more weak and despicable I see myself to be, the more beloved I am of God.

That there needed neither art nor science for going to GOD, but only a heart resolutely determined to apply itself to nothing but Him, or for His sake, and to love Him only.

That we should establish ourselves in a sense of GOD’S Presence, by continually conversing with Him. That it was a shameful thing to quit His conversation, to think of trifles and fooleries. That we should feed on.

Sufferings will be sweet and pleasant to us while we are with Him; and the greatest pleasures will be, without Him, a cruel punishment to us.