The main thing is this: we should never blame anyone or anything for our defeats. No matter how evil their intentions may be, they are altogether unable to harm us until we begin to blame them and use them as excuses for our own unbelief.

Faith never means gullibility. The man who believes everything is as far from God as the man who refuses to believe anything.

To escape the error of salvation by works we have fallen into the opposite error of salvation without obedience.

To pray with your fists closed means you're hanging onto something. Let it go. Open your hands to God.

Any objection to the carryings on of our present gold-calf Christianity is met with the triumphant reply, ‘But we are winning them!’ Winning them to what? To true discipleship? To cross-carrying? To self-denial? To separation from the world? To crucifixion of the flesh? To holy living? To hard self-discipline ? To love for God? To total committal to Christ? Of course the answer to all these questions is...No.

What do we value most? What would we most hate to lose? What do our thoughts turn to most frequently when we are free to think of what we will? And finally, what affords us the greatest pleasure?

We wonder why we don't have faith; the answer is, faith is confidence in the character of God and if we don't know what kind of God God is, we can't have faith.