Today I would like to post some inspirational quotations from J. C. Ryle that I pray will encourage your soul and challenge you to draw closer to Christ.1
“It costs something to be a real Christian, according to the standard of the Bible. There are enemies to be overcome, battles to be fought, sacrifices to be made, an Egypt to be forsaken, a wilderness to be passed through, a cross to be carried, a race to be run. Conversion is not putting a person in an arm-chair and taking them easily to heaven. It is the beginning of a mighty conflict, in which it costs much to win the victory.”
“Beware of manufacturing a God of your own: a God who is all mercy, but not just; a God who is all love, but not holy; a God who as a heaven for everybody, but a hell for none; a God who can allow good and bad to be side by side in time, but will make no distinction between good and broad in eternity. Such a God is an idol of your own, as truly an idol as any snake or crocodile in an Egyptian temple. The hands of your own fancy and sentimentality have made him. He is not the God of the Bible, and beside the God of the Bible there is no God at all.”
“If you love Christ, never be ashamed to let others see it and know it. Speak for Him. Witness for Him. Live for Him.”
“We must give up the vain idea of trying to please everybody. That is impossible, and the attempt is a mere waste of time. We must be content to walk in Christ’s steps, and let the world say what it likes.”
“God knew what we were before conversion – wicked, guilty, and defiled; yet He loved us. He knows what we will be after conversion – weak, erring, and frail; yet He loves us.”
“The highest form of selfishness is that of the man who is content to go to heaven alone.”
“Except a man be born again, he will wish one day he had never been born at all.”
“Our Lord has many weak children in his family, many dull pupils in his school, many raw soldiers in his army, many lame sheep in his flock. Yet he bears with them all, and casts none away. Happy is that Christian who has learned to do likewise with his brethren.”
“The world’s idea of greatness is to rule, but Christian greatness consists in serving.”
“Never does a person see any beauty in Christ as a Savior, until they discover that they are a lost and ruined sinner.”
“Our prayers may be weak, stammering, and poor in our eyes. But if they come from a right heart, God understands them. Such prayers are His delight.”
“To be born again is, as it were, to enter upon a new existence, to have a new mind, a new heart, new views, new principles, new tastes, new affections, new likings, new dislikings, new fears, new joys, new sorrows, new love to things once hated, new hatred to things once loved, new thoughts of God, and ourselves, and the world, and the life to come, and salvation.”
“True Christianity is not merely believing a certain set of dry abstract propositions: it is to live in daily personal communication with an actual living person – Jesus Christ.”
“Do not glory in your own faith, your own feelings, your own knowledge, or your own diligence. Glory in nothing but Christ.”
“Let us be very careful that we never exalt any minister, or sermon, or book, or friend above the Word of God.”
“According to the men of the world, few are going to hell; According to the Bible, few are going to heaven.”
“Wealth is no mark of God’s favor. Poverty is no mark of God’s displeasure.”
“If we are true Christians, we must not expect everything smooth in our journey to heaven. We must count it no strange thing, if we have to endure sicknesses, losses, bereavements, and disappointments, just like other men. Free pardon and full forgiveness, grace along the way, and glory at the end all this our Savior has promised to give. But He has never promised that we shall have no afflictions.”
“Let us cleave to Christ more closely, love Him more heartily, live to Him more thoroughly, copy Him more exactly, confess Him more boldly, and follow Him more fully.”
“The only way to be really happy in such a world as this, is to be ever casting all our cares on God.”
“Let us seek friends that will stir up our prayers, our Bible reading, our use of time, and our salvation.”
“No one ever said at the end of his days; ‘I have read my bible too much, I have thought of God too much, I have prayed too much, I have been too careful with my soul.’”
1 All of these quotations are from the website below:
TOP 25 QUOTES BY J. C. RYLE (of 374) | A-Z Quotes (azquotes.com)