Sinclair B. Ferguson Quotes

Christian contentment, therefore, is the direct fruit of having no higher ambition than to belong to the Lord and to be totally at His disposal in the place He appoints, at the time He chooses, with the provision He is pleased to make.

Until we acknowledge our sin and guilt, we will never come to discover that it can be forgiven.

To be free from the possibility of discouragements would be more ‘spiritual’ than Jesus-and therefore not truly spiritual at all.

Where God is at the center of things, worship inevitably follows.

Most Christians have more Bibles than they know what to do with, but have little understanding of what is in them.

Spiritual growth depends on two things: first a willingness to live according to the Word of God; second, a willingness to take whatever consequences emerge as a result.

Our thinking about who we are as Christians should not begin with what we can discover about ourselves by self-analysis. Rather, it begins with what God says about those who trust in Christ.

True faith takes its character and quality from its object. Its strength therefore depends on the character of Christ. Even those of us who have weak faith have the same strong Christ as others!

No one can will the will to will what it will not will!

Knowing God is your single greatest privilege as a Christian

Secular humanism debases the human.

When you look at the Cross, what do you see? You see God’s awesome faithfulness. Nothing – not even the instinct to spare His own Son – will turn him back from keeping His word.

God made everything else but man "after its kind"' - that is, according to the purpose and destiny he envisaged for it. But he made man in His own image. Man is patterned on God! He was made to represent God - in created, human form.

Humility is not simply feeling small and useless - like an inferiority complex. It is sensing how great and glorious God is, and seeing myself in that light.

Probably no theologian in English language has ever rivaled Owen stressing the absolute centrality of Christ's penal substitution and therefore his as Priest. . . . For that reason alone The Priesthood of Christ is worth all the time it takes to read it with humility, care, and reflection.

Failure to deal with the presence of sin can often be traced back to spiritual amnesia – forgetting our new, true, real identity. As a believer, I am someone who has been delivered from the dominion of sin and who therefore is free and motivated to fight against the remnants of sin in my heart. You must know, rest in, think through, and act upon your new identity – you are in Christ

Every day we need our gaze redirected from ourselves to God.

Where God is at the center of things, worship inevitably follows. Where there is no spirit of worship, there God has been dethroned and displaced.

Jesus undid everything that Adam did, and did everything Adam failed to do.

This, then, is the foundation of sanctification in Reformed theology. It is rooted, not in humanity and their achievement of holiness or sanctification, but in what God has done in Christ, and for us in union with him. Rather than view Christians first and foremost in the microcosmic context of their own progress, the Reformed doctrine first of all sets them in the macrocosm of God's activity in redemptive history. It is seeing oneself in this context that enables the individual Christian to grow in true holiness.

Twentieth-century man needs to be reminded at times that work is not the result of the Fall. Man was made to work, because the God who made him was a 'working God.' Man was made to be creative, with his mind and his hands. Work is part of the dignity of his existence.

We [should not] make the mistake of thinking that marriage will provide the ultimate satisfaction for which we all hunger. To assume so would be to be guilty of blasphemy. Only God satisfies the hungry heart. Marriage is but one of the channels He uses to enable us to taste how deeply satisfying His thirst-quenching grace can be.

You cannot open the pages of the New Testament without realizing that one of the things that makes it so 'new,' in every way, is that here men and women call God 'Father.' This conviction, that we can speak of the Master of the universe in such intimate terms, lies at the heart of the Christian faith.

We can never reflect too much on God's grace.

Do I learn through dark providences, or simply seem relieved when they are over?

The weakest faith gets the same strong Christ as does the strongest faith.

If you are justified, you can no more be unjustified than Christ can be pulled down from heaven.

The foundation of our love for the Lord lies in the recognition of His holiness, our sinfulness, and His grace.

The Son of God came to dwell in human flesh for us in order that He might come to dwell in us by His Spirit.

True discernment means not only distinguishing the right from the wrong; it means distinguishing the primary from the secondary, the essential from the indifferent, and the permanent from the transient. And, yes, it means distinguishing between the good and the better, and even between the better and the best.

We are far too good at analyzing what is wrong with the culture and far too myopic at analyzing what is wrong in the church.

Jesus Christ is able to set us free because He has dealt with the sin that enslaves us.

Worship is not something we "work up," it is something that "comes down" to us, from the character of God.

God is God; you are but one of His creatures. Your only joy is to be found in obeying Him, your true fulfillment is to be found in worshiping Him, your only wisdom is to be found in trusting and knowing Him.

Be obedient even when you do not know where obedience may lead you

The fear of the Lord tends to take away all other fears... This is the secret of Christian courage and boldness.

We discover the will of God by a sensitive application of Scripture to our own lives.

The problem is not in the clarity of the revelation. The problem is in the darkness of the human mind.

You do not become a master musician by playing just as you please, by imagining that learning the scales is sheer legalism and bondage! No, true freedom in any area of life is the consequence of regular discipline. It is no less true of the life of prayer.

Love is not maximum emotion. Love is maximum commitment.

How do we bring glory to God? The Bible’s short answer is: by growing more and more like Jesus Christ.

Evil deeds are the fruit of an evil heart. They are not an aberration from our true self but a revelation of it.

Even those of us who have weak faith have the same strong Christ as others!

When man became the measure of all things what was lost was man.

My security as a Christian does not reside in the strength of my faith but in the indestructibili ty of my Savior.

I've often reflected on the rather obvious thought that when his disciples were about to have the world collapse in on them, our Lord spent so much time in the Upper Room speaking to them about the mystery of the Trinity. If anything could underline the necessity of Trinitarianism for practical Christianity, that must surely be it!

Repentance is a characteristic of the whole life, not the action of a single moment.