God - christiansquoting.org.uk

God

IF GOD HAD A REFRIGERATOR
If God had a refrigerator, your picture would be on it.
If God had a wallet, your photo would be in it.
God sends you a sunrise every morning.
He sends you flowers every spring.
God could live anywhere in the universe, and He chose your heart.
When you want to talk, God will listen.
And that Christmas gift He sent you in Bethlehem?
. . . Face it, friend, God is crazy about you!

God loves us not because of who we are, but because of who He is.

The 23rd Psalm
The Lord is my Shepherd
THAT'S RELATIONSHIP!
I shall not want
THAT'S SUPPLY!
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures
THAT'S REST!
He leadeth me beside still waters
THAT'S REFRESHMENT!
He restoreth my soul
THAT'S HEALING!
He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness
THAT'S GUIDANCE!
For His name sake
THAT'S PURPOSE!
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death
THAT'S TESTING!
I will fear no evil
THAT'S PROTECTION!
For Thou art with me
THAT'S FAITHFULNESS!
Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me
THAT'S DISCIPLINE!
THou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies
THAT'S HOPE!
Thou anointest my head with oil
THAT'S CONSECRATION!
My cup runneth over
THAT'S ABUNDANCE!
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life
THAT'S BLESSING!
And I will dwell in the house of the Lord
THAT'S SECURITY!
Forever
THAT'S ETERNITY

The task ahead of us is never as great as the power behind us.

It's my business to do God's business and it's His business to take care of my business

This generation has forgotten the sovereignty of God and exalted the sovereignty of man's free will. We have forgotten the holiness of God amd exalted man's personal happiness to the chief goal and obligation of the gospel. We are so occuppied with ourselves and our own pleasure that we literally believe that God exists for the sole purpose of making us happy by giving us whatever our selfish hearts desire. He is viewed as a heavenly bellhop.

It is not possible ... to trace the wonders of the Lord. When a man has finished, he is just beginning. Sirach 18:6

The distinction between Christianity and other systems of religion consists largely in this, that in these others men are found seeking after God, while Christianity is God seeking after men. THOMAS ARNOLD

To see God is the promised goal of all our actions and the promised height of all our joys. AUGUSTINE

God is not a deceiver, that he should offer to support us, and then, when we lean upon Him, should slip away from us.--- Augustine

O God, Thou hast made us for thyself, and ours hearts are restless until they find their rest in Thee. ---AUGUSTINE

The statement that God is dead comes from Nietzsche and has recently been trumpeted abroad by some German and American theologians. But the good Lord has not died of this; He who dwells in the heaven laughs at them. KARL BARTH

According to Scripture, God is incomprehensible yet knowable, absolute yet personal. HERMAN BAVINCK

You may know God, but not comprehend Him. - Richard Baxter

Remember the perfections of that God whom you worship, that he is a Spirit, and therefore to be worshipped in spirit and truth; and that he is most great and terrible, and therefore to be worshipped with seriousness and reverence, and not to be dallied with, or served with toys or lifeless lip-service; and that he is most holy, pure, and jealous, and therefore to be purely worshipped; and that he is still present with you, and all things are naked and open to him with whom we have to do. The knowledge of God, and the remembrance of his all-seeing presence, are the most powerful means against hypocrisy. RICHARD BAXTER

I remember myself, that when I was young, I had sometime the company of one ancient godly minister, who was of weaker parts than many others, but yet did profit me more than most; because he would never in prayer or conference speak of God, or the life to come, but with such marvelous seriousness and reverence, as if he had seen the majesty and glory which he talked of. - RICHARD BAXTER

One thing God has spoken, two things have I heard: that you, O God, are strong, and that you, O Lord, are loving.-- Ps. 62:11,12.

Were the holiest heart upon earth enlarged to the vast comprehension of this great world's wideness; nay, made capable of all the glorious and magnificent hallelujahs and hearty praises offered to Jehovah,both by all the militant and triumphant church, yet would it come infinitely short of sufficiently magnifying, admiring, and adoring the inexplicable mystery and bottomless depth of this free, independent mercy, and love to God, the Fountain and First Mover of all our good. - ROBERT BOLTON

God does not give us everything we want, but He does fulfil all His promises . . . leading us along the best and straightest paths to Himself. Dietrich Bonhoeffer

We are a long time in learning that all our strength and salvation is in God.-- David Brainerd

Many refuse to accept the reality of a personal God because they are unwilling to submit to His authority - Kurt Bruner

What is God's majesty to a sinful man, but a consuming fire? And what is sinful man in himself, or in his approach to God, but as stubble fully dry. Since the name of God is that by which his nature is expressed, and since He naturally is so glorious and incomprehensible, His name must needs be the object of our fear;and we ought always to have a reverent awe of God upon our hearts at what time soever we think of or hear his name; but most of all when we ourselves do take his Holy and fearful name into our mouths, especially in a religious manner; that is, in preaching, praying, or Holy conference. Make mention then of the name of the Lord at all times with great dread of His majesty on your hearts,and in great soberness and truth. To do otherwise is to profane the name of the Lord, and to take his name in vain.-- John Bunyan

The most perfect way of seeking God, and the most suitable order, is not for us to attempt with bold curiosity to penetrate to the investigation of His essence, which we ought more to adore than meticulously to search out, but for us to contemplate Him in His works, whereby He renders Himself near and familiar to us, and in some manner communicates Himself .
John Calvin (1509-1564)

However many blessings we expect from God, His infinite liberality will always exceed all our wishes and our thoughts. -- John Calvin, Commentary, Erh 3:21.

Hence that dread and amazement with which as Scripture uniformly relates holy men were struck and overwhelmed whenever they beheld the presence of God men are never duly touched and impressed with a conviction of their insignificance until they have contrasted themselves with the majesty of God. -- JOHN CALVIN

We are consecrated and dedicated to God; therefore, we may not hereafter think, speak, meditate or do anything but with a view to his glory...We are God s; to him, therefore, let us live and die. JOHN CALVIN, The Institutes

When God and his glory are made our end, we shall find a silent likeness pass in upon us; the beauty of God will, by degrees, enter upon our soul. STEPHEN CHARNOCK

In nature, we see God, as it were, like the sun in a picture; in the law, as the sun in a cloud; in Christ we see Him in His beams; He being 'the brightness of His glory, and the exact image of His person. - STEPHEN CHARNOCK

Insisting that God is inside man, man is always inside himself. By insisting that God transcends man, man has transcended himself.--G. K. Chesterton,_Orthodoxy_

[I] had always believed that the world involved magic: now I thought that perhaps it involved a magician...I had always felt life firs as a story; and if there is a story there is a storyteller. G. K. CHESTERTON

A comprehended god is no god. St. John Chrysostom (345?-407)

Here is a God who has both firmness and feeling. If we cannot comprehend we can perhaps apprehend, at least enough to adore. - Dale R Davis, Commentary on 1 Sam 15.p. 131

Let God operate in thee; Hand the work over to Him and do not disquiet thyself as to whether or no He is working with nature or above nature, for His are both nature and grace. .. Meister Eckhart (1260?-1327?

The enjoyment of [God] is the only happiness with which our souls can be satisfied. To go to heaven, fully to enjoy God, is infinitely better than the most pleasant accommodations here. Fathers and mothers, husbands, wives, or children, or the company of earthly friends, are but shadows; but God is the substance. These are but scattered beams, but God is the sun. These arebut streams. But God is the ocean. JONATHAN EDWARDS

True saints have their minds, in the first place, inexpressibly pleased and delighted with the sweet ideas of the glorious and amiable nature of the things of God. And this is the spring of all their delights, and the cream of all their pleasures.
JONATHAN EDWARDS - Religious Affections

Oh, the fullness, pleasure, sheer excitement of knowing God on Earth! I care not if I never raise my voice again for Him, if only I may love Him, please Him. Mayhap in mercy He shall give me a host of children that I may lead them through the vast star fields to explore His delicacies whose finger ends set them to burning. But if not, if only I may see Him, touch His garments, smile into His eyes -- ah then, not stars nor children shall matter, only Himself. ... Jim Elliot (1927-1956)

Nature is too thin a screen; the glory of the omnipresent God bursts through everywhere. Emerson (1803-1882)

If the men of our time had their way, God would be on the carpet all the time offering soothing explanations to angry questions.--Walter Farrell, _The Looking Glass_, 1951

God loves us the way we are, but too much to leave us that way. Leighton Ford

The Christian must trust in a withdrawing God. - WILLIAM GURNALL

He's [God] a hedonist at heart...He makes no secret of it; at His right hand are pleasures forevermore...He's vulgar, Wormwood. He has bourgeois mind. There are things for humans to do all day long...sleeping, eating, drinking, making love, playing, praying, working. Everything has to be twisted before it's of any use to us. C. S. LEWIS, Screwtape Letters

We are not necessarily doubting that God will do the best for us; we are wondering how painful the best will turn out to be. - C S Lewis

'Safe?' said Mr. Beaver...'Who said anything about safe? 'Course he isn't safe. but he's good. He's the King, I tell you.'
C S Lewis--The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

A man can no more diminish God's glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word, 'darkness' on the walls of his cell. C.S.Lewis: The Problem of Pain

The ancient man approached God (or even the gods) as the accused person approaches his judge. For the modern man the roles are reversed. He is the judge: God is in the dock. --C. S. Lewis, _God in the Dock_, September 1948

An "impersonal God"-- well and good. A subjective God of beauty, truth and goodness, inside our own heads -- better still. A formless life-force surging through us, a vast power which we can tap -- best of all. But God Himself, alive, pulling at the other end of the cord, perhaps, approaching an infinite speed, the hunter, king, husband -- that is quite another matter. There comes a moment when the children who have been playing at burglars hush suddenly: was that a real footstep in the hall? There comes a moment when people who have been dabbling in religion ("Man's search for God!") suddenly draw back. Supposing we really found Him? We never meant it to come to that! Worse still, supposing He had found us?
C. S. Lewis, "Miracles" (New York: Macmillan, 1960), p.94

We keep on assuming that we know the play. We do not even know whether we are in Act I or Act V. We do not know who are the major and who the minor characters. The Author knows. _The World's Last Night_, C. S. Lewis

One needs the sweetness to start one on the spiritual life but, once started, one must learn to obey God for his own sake, not for the pleasure. -- C. S. Lewis, Letter of 11/9/1931

In God you come up against something which is in every way immeasurably superior to yourself...As long as you are proud you cannot know God. --C. S. Lewis, _Mere Christianity_, Chapter 8, The Great Sin

We may think God wants actions of a certain kind, but God wants people of a certain kind. C. S. LEWIS, Mere Christianity

Whatever your heart clings to and confides in, that is really your God. --Martin Luther (1483-1546) _Large Catechism_ [1529], "The First Commandment"

It is the most ungodly and dangerous business to abandon the certain and revealed will of God in order to search into the hidden mysteries of God. MARTIN LUTHER

A God must have a God for company.
And lo! thou hast the Son-God to thy friend.
Thou honour'st his obedience, he thy law.
Into thy secret life-will he doth see;
Thou fold'st him round in live love perfectly--
One two, without beginning, without end;
In love, life, strength, and truth, perfect without a flaw.
George Macdonald, Diary of an Old Soul [1905]

God is the ruler of history. His times are well chosen The Roman Empire was an instrument in his hand. And so are the nations of the modern world. --J. Gresham Machen

Happily for us, the fundamental Christian message concerns not what we ought to do, but what God has done and what God is willing to do. In fellowship with Him and with others who are likewise trying to be like Him, we can be lifted up above our native possibilities.... Hugh Martin

Just are the ways of God,
And justifiable to men,
Unless there be who think not God at all.
If any be, they walk obscure;
For of such doctrine never was there school,
But the heart of the Fool,And no man therein doctor but himself.
John Milton. (1608 -1674). Samson Agonistes

for God
(Nothing more certain) will not long defer
To vindicate the glory of his name
Against all competition, nor will long
Endure it doubtful whether God be Lord
John Milton. (1608 -1674). Samson Agonistes

Trust in yourself and you are doomed to disappointment;....but trust in GOD, and you are never to be confounded in time or eternity. Give your life to God; he can do more with it than you can! ---Dwight L. Moody

The ethic of the bible reflects the character of the God of the Bible. Remove from Scripture the transcendent holiness, righteousness and truth of God and its ethic disappears. JOHN MURRAY

In the absence of any other proof, the thumb would convince me of God's existence. ... Isaac Newton (1642-1727)

We, as Christians, need to stop telling God how big our mountains are and start telling our mountains how big our God is!" --John Osteen

Faith keeps the soul at a holy distance from these infinite depths of divine wisdom, where it profits more by reverence and holy fear than any can do by their utmost attempt to draw nigh to that inaccessible light wherein these glories of the divine nature do dwell. John Owen (1616-1683)

A god whom we could understand exhaustively, and whose revelation of himself confronted us with no mysteries whatsoever, would be a god in man's image, and therefore an imaginary god. ~J. I. Packer, Knowing God.

There is a God shaped vacuum in the heart of every man which cannot be filled by any created thing, but only by God, the Creator, made known through Jesus. -- BLAISE PASCAL

For the Scriptures, . . . the existence of God is both a historical truth (God acted into history), and an existential truth (God reveals himself to every soul). His existence is both objectively and subjectively evident. It is necessary logically because our assumption of order, design, and rationality rests upon it. It is necessary morally because there is no explanation for the shape of morality apart from it. It is necessary emotionally because the human experience requires an immediate and ultimate environment. It is necessary personally because the exhaustion of all material possibilities still cannot give satisfaction to the heart. The deepest proof for God's existence, apart from history, is just life itself. God has created man in his image, and men cannot elude the implications of this fact. Everywhere their identity pursues them. Ultimately, there is no escape. .. Clark H. Pinnock (1937- ), Set Forth Your Case

It has been observed that nowhere does Scripture attempt a deductive argument for the existence of God, like those of Thomas Aquinas, for example. This fact ought not to be taken to imply, however, that such an effort is unjustifiable and necessarily useless. The distinctiveness of the Biblical approach is its immediacy. The theistic proofs for God's existence constitute a laborious, painstaking, and patient justification of theism. They attempt to set forth in rational argument what the soul grasps intuitively. But for the Bible, the deepest proof of God's existence is just life itself. The knowledge of God and man's knowledge of himself are closely intertwined. If only God could be written off neatly and cleanly, how simple things would be! But the hound of heaven pads after us all. He does not let us go. There is no escaping him...; when least expected, he closes in. The explanation for this is man's creation in the image of God. His identity is known theologically, in relation to the God who as a man in his true significance cannot survive permanently in isolation from his Maker. Without God, man is the chance product of unthinking fate, and so of little worth. The current loss of identity and the emergence of the faceless man in today's culture are testimony to the effects of losing our God. The knowledge of God is given in the same movement in which we know ourselves.... Clark H. Pinnock (1937- ), Set Forth Your Case

It is clear that there is one main message creation has to communicate to human beings, namely, the glory of God. Not primarily the glory of creation, but the glory of God. The glory of creation and the glory of God are as different as the love poem and the love, the painting and the landscape, the ring and the marriage. It would be a great folly and a great tragedy if a man loved his wedding band more than he loved his bride. --John Piper in _The Pleasures of God_

God has no deficiencies that I might be required to supply. He is complete in himself. He is overflowing with happiness in the fellowship of the Trinity.. The upshot of this is that God is a mountain spring, not a watering trough. --John Piper _The Pleasures of God: Meditations on God's Delight in Being God_ p. 208

God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him....the capacity to taste a thing must precede our desire for its sweetness...the chief end of man is to glorify God by enjoying Him forever and of living by faith in future grace...the essence of faith is being satisfied with all God is for us in Jesus. -- JOHN PIPER - Future Grace

How can man understand God, since he does not yet understand his own mind, with which he endeavors to understand Him?--John Ruskin (1819-1900)

Think it not hard if you get not your will, nor your delights in this life; God will have you to rejoice in nothing but himself.... Samuel Rutherford, a letter [1630]

The abstract metaphysical monotheism, the constant emphasis laid on God's unity and infinite and incomprehensible essence, could not give light to the mind or peace to the heart... How human is the God of the Old Testament -- the God who appears, speaks, guides, who loves and is loved, even as the Man of the New Testament, Christ Jesus, is divine! This difference between the idea of an absolute and infinite God and the God of Scripture is, after all, that which separates the true believer and Christian from the natural man. Adolph Saphir, Christ and Israel [1911]

In saying God is there, we are saying God exists, and not just talking about the word God, or the idea God. We are speaking of the proper relationship to the living God who exists. In order to understand the problems of our generation, we should be very alive to this distinction. Semantics (linguistic analysis) makes up the heart of modern philosophical study in the Anglo-Saxon world. Though the Christian cannot accept this study as a total philosophy, there is no reason why he should not be glad for the concept that words need to be defined before they can be used in communication. As Christians, we must understand that there is no word so meaningless as the word "god" until it is defined. No word has been used to reach absolutely opposite concepts as much as the word "god". Consequently, let us not be confused. There is much "spirituality" about us today that would relate itself to the word god or to the idea god; but this is not what we are talking about. Biblical truth and spirituality is not a relationship to the word god, or to the idea god. It is a relationship to the one who is there, which is an entirely different concept. ... Francis A. Schaeffer, The God Who is There [1968]

God of the Universe! I believe again! Though I renounced You, You were with me! = A Solzhenitsyn

We are called to live Coram Deo - in the presence of God, under the authority of God and to the glory of God. R. C. SPROUL

Some people tend to think that Muslims have one God and Christians another. While agree that the two CONCEPTS are very different indeed from each other, I cannot agree that they really worship two utterly different gods . . . When reading through the book of Psalms and Job I learnt anew the meaning of trust in God, and came to worship Him at the foot of the Cross, the basis of it all was the same God . . . my spiritual pilgrimmage in the faith in the Christian God was not absolutely disconnected with what was already in me.-Hassan Dehghani Tafti:, "Design of My world", London: Lutterworth, 1959, pp. 66-67.

We shall never learn to know ourselves except by endeavoring to know God; for, beholding His greatness, we realize our own littleness; His purity shows us our foulness; and by meditating upon His humility we find how very far we are from being humble.... Teresa of Avila (1515-1582)

We sometimes fear to bring our troubles to God, because they must seem small to Him who sitteth on the circle of the earth. But if they are large enough to vex and endanger our welfare, they are large enough to touch His heart of love. For love does not measure by a merchant's scales, not with a surveyor's chain. It hath a delicacy... unknown in any handling of material substance.- Reuben Archer (R. A.) Torrey

The interior journey of the soul from the wilds of sin into the enjoyed presence of God is beautiful. Ransomed men need no longer pause in fear to the Holy of Holies. God wills that we should push on into His presence and live our whole life there. ... A. W. Tozer (1897-1963), The Pursuit of God [1948]

When God would make His name known to mankind, He could find no better word than "I AM". "I am that I am," says God, "I change not." Everyone and everything else measures from that fixed point. ... A. W. Tozer (1897-1963), The Pursuit of God [1948]

You can see God from anywhere if your mind is set to love and obey Him. --A. W. Tozer

Constantly practice the habit of inwardly gazing upon God. You know that something inside your heart sees God. Even when you are compelled to withdraw your conscious attention in order to engage in earthly affairs, there is within you a secret communion always going on.... A. W. Tozer (1897-1963), The Pursuit of God [1948]

Nobody ever got anything from God on the grounds that he deserved it. Haven fallen, man deserves only punishment and death. So if God answers prayer it's because God is good. From His goodness, His lovingkindness, His good-natured benevolence, God does it! That's the source of everything. - A.W. Tozer The Works of A.W. Tozer The Attributes of God Page 47

So long as we imagine it is we who have to look for God, we must often lose heart. But it is the other way about - He is looking for us. SIMON TUGWELL

Faith is not a refuge from reality. It is a demand that we face reality, with all its difficulties, opportunities, and implications. The true subject matter of religion is not our own little souls, but the Eternal God and His whole mysterious purpose, and our solemn responsibility to Him. ... Evelyn Underhill (1875-1941), The School of Charity [1934]

God has made thee to love Him, and not to understand Him. --Voltaire (1694-1778), _La Henriade_

God keeps open house for hungry sinners (Isa. 45:1,2). - THOMAS WATSON

Our generation is rapidly growing deaf to the summons of the external God. He has been so internalised, so tamed by the needs of religious commerce, so submerged beneath the traffic of modern psychological need that he has almost completely disappeared. All too often, he now leans weakly upon the church, a passive bystander, a co-conspirator in the effort to dismantle two thousand years of Christian thought about God and what he has declared himself to be. That is to say, God has become weightless. The church continues its business of satisfying the needs of the self--needs defined by the individual--and God, who is himself viewed and marketed as a product, becomes powerless to change the definition of that need or to prescribe the means by which it might be satisfied. When the consumer is sovereign, the product (in this case God himself) must be subservient.
David Wells, God in the Wasteland

Q. 7. What is God?
A. God is a Spirit, in and of himself infinite in being, glory, blessedness, and perfection; all-sufficient, eternal, unchangeable, incomprehensible, everywhere present, almighty, knowing all things, most wise, most holy, most just, most merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth.
WESTMINSTER LARGER CATECHISM

People fashion their God after their own understanding. They make their God first and worship him afterwards. Oscar Wilde

We worship a mysterious not an anthropomorphic God ~Frances Young