Some quotes that struck me today:

As the salt flavors every drop in the Atlantic, so does sin affect every atom of our nature.  It is so sadly there, so abundantly there, that if you cannot detect it, you are deceived. – C.H. Spurgeon

Very few people in the world would care to listen to the real defense of their own characters.  The real defense, the defense which belongs to the Day of Judgment, would make such damaging admissions, would clear away so many artificial virtues, would tell such tragedies of weakness and failure, that a man would sooner be misunderstood and censured by the world than exposed to that awful and merciless eulogy. – G.K. Chesterton

Saving grace makes a man as willing to leave his lusts as a slave is willing to leave his galley, or a prisoner his dungeon, or a thief his bolts, or a beggar his rags. – Thomas Brooks

God’s goal in saving you was not just to make your few years on planet Earth easier or more enjoyable.  He had an eternal end in view.  His intent was to make you holy, as He is holy, that you might perfectly glorify Him, that you might bring Him pleasure, and that you might enjoy intimate fellowship with Him for all eternity. – Nancy Leigh DeMoss

The message of the Bible provides the only answer to humanity’s most pressing need:  to know God himself.  Having been created by God for God, the “self” can never be “self-satisfied.”  Yet, having lost sight of the God revealed in the Bible, all we can see is our self, with its futile drive to meet its own ever-changing but never satisfied cravings for the second-rate pleasures of this world. – Scott Hafemann 

Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists. A baby feels hunger: well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim: well, there is such a thing as water…. If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. If none of my earthly pleasures satisfy it, that does not prove that the universe is a fraud. Probably, earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing. – C.S. Lewis 

A note of caution: be wary of idolizing the words of men and the men who speak those words.  Let them point you away from yourself (and away from themselves) towards God.

-Ben

And God spoke all these words, saying, “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me.” – Exodus 20:1-3

It doesn’t say, “If you have no other gods before me, I’ll bring out out of the land of Egypt.”

“I am God. I saved you already. Now worship me alone.”

For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. – Eph. 2:8-10

-Ben