Welcome to The Week In Words, where we share quotes from the last week’s reading. If something you read this past week inspired you, caused you to laugh, cry, think, dream, or just resonated with you in some way, please share it with us, attributing it to its source, which can be a book, newspaper, blog, Facebook — anything that you read. More information is here.
Here are a few that instructed and inspired me this week:
I forgot to note where I saw this:
This isn’t saying we should never interact with people who don’t believe just as we do, for, as Paul said, “then must ye needs go out of the world.” The Bible has much to say about unity but it also has much to say about separation and in what circumstances we should pursue one or the other.
And I failed to note where I saw this as well:
There may be genuine grievances; but what makes us bitter is that we ponder them and meditate upon them and stay with them; in other words, we nurse our grievances, we dwell on them, we pay great attention to them, and if we are tending to forget them we deliberately bring them back and allow them to work us up again into a state of bitterness. ~David Martyn Lloyd-Jones
That is so true. I read someone once who said that every time an incident comes to mind in which someone wronged us, we need to forgive them all over again, but I think rather, once we do forgive them, we need to remind ourselves that that transaction has already taken place and move on to verses about forbearance and loving the brethren.
There are two quotes from an Elisabeth Elliot devotional titled “Not One Thing Has Failed,” taken originally from her book Love Has a Price Tag:
Here she quotes from David Brainard’s diary:
And in the same article she writes:
Jessie Penn-Lewis’s book Thy Hidden Ones showed me God’s purpose in my isolation and helplessness. It was her words I sent in a letter to Jim: “In the Holy Spirit’s leading of the soul through the stripping of what may be called ‘consecrated self,’ and its activity, it is important that there should be a fulfillment of all outward duty, that the believer may learn to act on principle rather than on pleasant impulse.” It was a spiritual lesson that was to fortify me through countless later experiences when feelings or impulses contributed nothing to an inclination toward obedience. God allows the absence of feeling or, more often, the presence of strong negative feeling that we may simply follow, simply obey, simply trust.
God’s work and will are often so little related to how we feel — yet how often we tend to go by our feelings.
I shared a whole lot of quotes from the book 50 People Every Christian Should Know: Learning From Spiritual Giants of the Faith by author Warren Wiersbe here last week.
And you’d think I’d have something about love for Valentine’s Day! But I don’t have anything new. I posted some in past years here and here. And, just for fun, here are some Valentine’s jokes I posted a few years back.
If you’ve read anything that particularly spoke to you that you’d like to share, please either list it in the comments below or write a post on your blog and then put the link to that post (not your general blog link) in Mr. Linky below. I do ask that only family-friendly quotes be included. I hope you’ll visit some of the other participants as well and glean some great thoughts to ponder.
And please — feel free to comment even if you don’t have quotes to share!
Stray Thoughts 
That’s a powerful quote regarding bitterness…especially when something really awful and huge happens to you. I was really struck last year that Ephesians tells us to “forgive as Christ forgave us”…he remembers it no more…and he forgave for the sin of the WORLD…I agree with you…it’s not a matter of forgiving again necessarily…but reminding ourselves that it’s over and should be forgotten! Easier said than done!
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WOW, that Spurgeon quote is powerful.
“…whence I learn that it is good to follow the path of duty, though in the midst of darkness and discouragement.”
What a lesson to learn. When we’re questioning the worth of what we’re doing (or even the worth of ourselves!), it’s good to remember that even then we are to stay on the path of duty. It’s not about how we feel.
Thanks, Barbara. Needed these today!
Love the Spurgeon quote!
It’s a very busy day today, Barbara, and my quote for you isn’t particularly inspired. However, I thought I’d share
an “edible” tidbit I read this weekend, since it’s Valentine’s Day…
“In addition to the familiar paper cups, “cupcakes” got their name from the original recipe which called for everything in even measures – one cup flour, one cup butter, and one cup sugar.”
Have a Happy Valentine’s Day!
Blessings, e-Mom
That Spurgeon quote definitely makes me think–as do your comments!
I think that often we place unity and truth at opposite ends of a spectrum–as though we have a choice of either walking in unity or walking in truth. Either we have unity where “everything goes”, or we kick out everything that “doesn’t go” with our theological mindset. I’ve seen both in action.
Yet I think the heart of Christ as seen in Scripture is that the church walk in unity, mutually encouraging each other to walk in truth. We are called to recognize what items are essential (and to cling to them fiercely and to warn any who might call himself a brother but who denies such things) and what items are left to conscience (and to defer with humility to one another’s convictions).
Really, I think both of those opposites I described are proud positions: either taking pride in MY inclusiveness or in MY separateness. On the other hand, the truthful unity that the church is called to walk in is humble. We are to consider the other’s soul as we either rebuke his error or bear with his weakness in humility.
If you enjoyed and were fed by The Hidden Ones, you will probably love and be strengthened by her biography, Jessie Penn-Lewis.
“The soul must always have a heavenly vision to be drawn out of itself and away from the things of earth. The eye of the heart must be illuminated to know the hope of His calling. The clearer the vision the more abandonment there will be to the Holy Spirit, to have it fulfilled. The intense thirst for more of God becomes a furnace of desire for seeking. Only the Eternal Spirit can create such a desire. And this is the supreme condition for knowing God.” p.26
“You teach ‘clearly and grandly what the Spirit witnesses to you in the Bible and in our hearts . . . implicit trust in the Holy Spirit leads to resurrection triumph.'”
Oswald Chambers