272 Quotes About Service

When men do anything for God, the very least thing, they never know where it will end, nor what amount of work it will do for Him. Love's secret, therefore, is to be always doing things for God, and not to mind because they are such very little ones.

Deprived of meaningful work, men and women lose their reason for existence; they go stark, raving mad.

Each of us may be sure that if God sends us on stony paths He will provide us with strong shoes, and He will not send us out on any journey for which He does not equip us well.

I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something. And that which I can do, by the grace of God, I will do.

Have thy tools ready. God will find thee work.

The church's job is to equip the saints for works of service in the world.

Unless we are willing to pay the price, and sacrifice time and attention and what appear legitimate or necessary duties, for the sake of the heavenly gifts we need not look for a large experience of the power of the heavenly world in our work.

It is indeed praiseworthy for a believer to consecrate his life to the Lord, but he must never do so lightly or thoughtlessly. Before committing your life in service to God today, count the cost, for "No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God" (Luke 9:62).

We can serve God only with a clear conscience. An opaque one shall surely cause us to shrink back intuitively from God.

And this wise man asked me to stop. He said, "Stop asking God to bless what you're doing. Get involved in what God is doing -- because it's already blessed."

We need to realize that in all things our first duty and responsibility is to God Himself.

Have you ever realized that you can give things to God that are of value to Him? Or are you just sitting around daydreaming about the greatness of His redemption, while neglecting all the things you could be doing for Him? I'm not referring to works which could be regarded as divine and miraculous, but ordinary, simple human things - things which would be evidence to God that you are totally surrendered to Him.

If what they are saying about you is true, mend your ways. If it isn't true, forget it, and go on and serve the Lord.

It is not the nature of what you are doing that determines its spirituality, but the origin of what you are doing.

The Protestant work ethic finds its application in many contexts in the twenty-first century. Perhaps the most obvious is the phenomenon of 'faith based activism': religious groups using their faith both as a platform and a guiding principle for social engagement and voluntary work.

There is no work, however vile or sordid, that does not glisten before God.

Let us, therefore, not be weary of well-doing; for we shall reap an eternal harvest of comfort, if we faint not.

If you want to live in this world, doing the duty of life, knowing the blessings of it, doing your work heartily, and yet not absorbed by it, remember that the one power whereby you can so act is, that all shall be consecrated to Christ, and done for His sake.

It is more important that God be glorified then that I accomplish certain things in the line of service.

Life is an exciting business, and most exciting when it is lived for others.

God is so great, that he communicates greatness to the least thing that is done for his service.

A man's labor is not only his capital but his life. When it passes it returns never more. To utilize it, to prevent its wasteful squandering, to enable the poor man to bank it up for use hereafter, this surely is one of the most urgent tasks before civilization.

You cannot do God's work without God's power.

Here lies the tremendous mystery - that God should be all-powerful, yet refuse to coerce. He summons us to cooperation. We are honoured in being given the opportunity to participate in his good deeds. Remember how He asked for help in performing his miracles : Fill the waterpots, stretch out your hand, distribute the loaves.

George Macdonald said, 'If you knew what God knows about death you would clap your listless hands', but instead I find old people in North America just buying this whole youth obsession. I think growing older is a wonderful privilege. I want to learn to glorify God in every stage of my life.

Good works are indispensable to salvation - not as its ground or means, however, but as its consequence and evidence.

A man of a right spirit is not a man of narrow and private views, but is greatly interested and concerned for the good of the community, to which he belongs, and particularly of the city or village in which he resides, and for the true welfare of the society of which he is a member.

Faith and works should travel side by side, step answering to step, like the legs of men walking. First faith, and then works; and then faith again, and then works again--until they can scarcely distinguish which is the one and which is the other.

On my door is a cartoon of two turtles. One says, 'Sometimes I would like to ask why he allows poverty, famine and injustice when he could do something about it.' The other turtle says 'I am afraid that God might ask me the same question.'

He came to deliver us from our sinful dispositions, and create in us pure hearts, and when we have Him with us it will not be hard for us. Then the service of Christ will be delightful.

Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as ever you can.

The enemy of our salvation especially strives to draw our heart and mind away from God when we are about to serve Him, and endeavors to adulterously attach our heart to something irrelevant. Be always, every moment, with God, especially when you pray to Him. If you are inconstant, you will fall away from life, and will cast yourself into sorrow and straightness.

Do you find a single occasion in which Christ ever acted independently of God? If you walk in the same path it will be sweet to you to feel your entire dependency, finding in all difficulties the everlasting arms underneath.

Do not confound work and fruit. There may be a good deal of work for Christ that is not the fruit of the heavenly Vine.

A servant of God has but one Master. It ill becomes the servant to seek to be rich, and great, and honored in that world where his Lord was poor, and mean, and despised.

God has work to do in this world; and to desert it because of its difficulties and entanglements, is to cast off His authority. It is not enough that we be just, that we be righteous, and walk with God in holiness; but we must also serve our generation, as David did before he fell asleep. God has a work to do; and not to help Him is to oppose Him.

Jesus organized the church, which is His vineyard. He commands all to go into the vineyard and work. All who are united to Christ by faith, and are thus members of His mystical body, should be members of His visible church.

Until the great mass of the people shall be filled with the sense of responsibility for each other's welfare, social justice can never be attained.

When God gives us a plan, He will only give us the best plans that lead to the greatest glory for Him.

Your greatest fulfillment in life will come when you discover your unique gifts and abilities and use them to edify others and glorify the LORD.

To every toiling, heavy-laden sinner, Jesus says, Come to me and rest. But there are many toiling, heavy-laden believers, too. For them this same invitation is meant. Note well the words of Jesus, if you are heavy-laden with your service, and do not mistake it. It is not, Go, labor on, as perhaps you imagine. On the contrary, it is stop, turn back, Come to me and rest. Never, never did Christ send a heavy laden one to work; never, never did He send a hungry one, a weary one, a sick or sorrowing one, away on any service. For such the Bible only says, Come, come, come.

And how often pursuit after spiritual growth originates in the natural self perhaps only because we cannot bear the thought of falling behind or because we seek some personal gain. Bluntly state, the doing of good is not sin but the manner, methods, or motive in such good-doing may be surfeited with our self.

Let us remember, there is One who daily records all we do for Him, and sees more beauty in His servants' work than His servants do themselves... And then shall His faithful witnesses discover, to their wonder and surprise, that there never was a word spoken on their Master's behalf, which does not receive a reward.

The Lord has given us a table at which to feast, not an altar on which a victim is to be offered; He has not consecrated priests to make sacrifice, but servants to distribute the sacred feast.

The most eloquent prayer is the prayer through hands that heal and bless.

We do good deeds, but God works in us in the doing of them.

Too many people today ask God 'where' instead of 'what.'

A non-serving Christian is a contradiction in terms.

It is by acts and not by ideas that people live.

God does not have to come and tell me what I must do for Him, He brings me into a relationship with Himself where I hear His call and understand what He wants me to do, and I do it out of sheer love to Him. When people say they have had a call to foreign service, or to any particular sphere of work, they mean that their relationship to God has enabled them to realize what they can do for God.

I am not tired of my work, neither am I tired of the world; yet, when Christ calls me home, I shall go with gladness.

Labor is life: from the inmost heart of the worker rises his God-given force, the sacred celestial life-essence breathed into him by Almighty God!

All the blessings we enjoy are Divine deposits, committed to our trust on this condition, that they should be dispensed for the benefit of our neighbors.

We may sometimes think we're a forgotten commodity, but God remembers every one of us who serve Him.

A Christian ought to recognize the limits of his gift and to labor within those bounds.

When you cease from labor, fill up your time in reading, meditation, and prayer: and while your hands are laboring, let your heart be employed, as much as possible, in divine thoughts.

The Scriptures teach that the happiness or blessedness of believers in a future life will be greater or less in proportion to the service of Christ in this life. Those who love little, do little; and those who do little, enjoy less.

If we understand how much His work requires His great power, we shall be ashamed of our ideas and abashed by our self-reliance. We shall see that all our efforts are but "dead works."

One secret act of self-denial, one sacrifice of inclination to duty, is worth all the mere good thoughts, warm feelings, passionate prayers in which idle people indulge themselves.

Prayer strikes the winning blow; service is simply picking up the pieces.

Don't assume you have to be extraordinary to be used by God. You don't have to have exceptional gifts, talents, abilities, or connections. God specializes in using ordinary people whose limitations and weaknesses make them ideal showcases for His greatness and glory (1 Cor. 1:26-29).

Often the children of God cannot rise up to answer the Lord's call to service simply because, though their physical condition is good, their feelings are low, cold, and reluctant. Or even when their emotions are quite high, passionate, and willing, they find themselves unable to serve the Lord because now the body reacts lazily. The disciples found themselves in precisely that situation in the Garden of Gethsemane: "the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak" (Matt. 26:41)

The burdens of the spirit differ from the weights on the spirit. A burden of the spirit, on the other hand, is given by God to His child for the purpose of calling him to work, to pray, or to preach. It is a burden with purpose, with reason, and for spiritual profit.

Take heart therefore, O ye saints, and be strong; your cause is good, God himself espouseth your quarrel, who hath appointed you his own Son, General of the field, called 'the Captain of our salvation.'

Oh, is the Lord Jesus Christ a believer's life? Why, then, let no believer be disquieted, nor overwhelmed and dejected, for any loss or for any sorrow or suffering that he meets with for the Lord Jesus Christ's sake. Oh, what should a man then do for Jesus Christ, who is his life!

His daily prayer, far better understood in acts than in words, was simply doing good.

When the fruit of your service is out of all proportion to the gifts you possess, THAT is Blessing!

There is nothing more blessed than to be used of God.

Spiritual food is simply to do His will. Preoccupation with one's own supply causes lack, whereas concern with God's kingdom brings satisfaction.

We ought not to be weary of doing little things for the love of God, who regards not the greatness of the work, but the love with which it is performed.

What an encouragement to realize that God has reserved you and me for a special task in His great work. In His hands we're not only useful, but priceless.

It's not important how many people you lead, but how many you serve.

The servant is nothing, but God is everything.

If you cast away one cross, you will certainly find another, and perhaps a heavier.

If faith produces no works, I see that faith is not a living tree. Thus faith and works together grow, No separate life they never can know. They're soul and body, hand and heart, What God hath joined, let no man part.

When we are engaged in His work we are very close to Christ. We are expending our anxiety and affections on the same objects on which His heart is set.

We must seek to ask God where we fit in and where He would have us serve.

Do daily and hourly your duty; do it patiently and thoroughly. Do it as it presents itself; do it at the moment, and let it be its own reward. Never mind whether it is known and acknowledged or not, but do not fail to do it.

We must truly serve those whom we appear to command; we must bear with their imperfections, correct them with gentleness and patience, and lead them in the way to heaven.

God calls upon all His people to serve Him. The first thought many Christians have about service is that they are insufficient or incompetent to carry out such a holy and weighty task. Humanly speaking, they are right, but that is why God steps in and provides the competency or ability to do any task He calls them to do.

Life's most persistent and urgent question is, 'What are you doing for others?'

I wasn't sure what I was to do next, yet. I resolved to seek confirming signs along the way--the open door--to show me the right road.

Anyone who serves the Lord is going to be the target of Satan's attacks.

There is little doubt that the effective ministry of the Word today continues to be significantly undergirded by men and women who find great fulfillment in the supportive role entrusted to them by our heavenly Father.

God never gave a man a thing to do, concerning which it were irreverent to ponder how the Son of God would have done it.

Seeking to perpetuate one's name on earth is like writing on the sand by the seashore; to be perpetual it must be written on eternal shores.

This job has been given to me to do. Therefore, it is a gift. Therefore, it is a privilege. Therefore, it is an offering I may make to God. Therefore, it is to be done gladly, if it is done for Him. Here, not somewhere else, I may learn God's way. In this job, not in some other, God looks for faithfulness.

Want to snatch a day from the manacles of boredom? Do overgenerous deeds, acts beyond reimbursement. Kindness without compensation. Do a deed for which you cannot be repaid.

You are never used of God to bring blessing until God has opened your eyes and made you see things as they are.

A small demerit extinguishes a long service.

You are never used of God to bring blessing until God has opened your eyes and made you see things as they are.

Policy consists in serving God in such a manner as not to offend the devil.

Duty does not consist in suffering everything, but in suffering everything for duty. Sometimes, indeed, it is our duty not to suffer.

Does God ask us to do what is beneath us? This question will never trouble us again if we consider the Lord of heaven taking a towel and washing feet.

We can catch the Spirit of Christ and zealously and enthusiastically go out each day determined to serve God and be what we ought to be! Stay on the firing line!

Genuine spiritual work is aggressive towards Satan and travails in birth for believers. These in no wise can be termed joyous undertakings.

God has created me to do him some definite service; he has committed some work to me which he has not committed to another. I have my mission - I never may know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next.

Spiritual food of a believer is nothing more nor less than accomplishing God's work. The kingdom of God suffers greatly at the hands of "spiritual believers" who busy themselves with prayer and Bible study and attend only to their spiritual need.

Man sees your actions, but God your motives.

This is a sane, wholesome, practical, working faith: That it is a man's business to do the will of God; second, that God himself takes on the care of that man; and third, that therefore that man ought never to be afraid of anything.

Unless we are willing to pay the price, and sacrifice time and attention and what appear legitimate or necessary duties, for the sake of the heavenly gifts we need not look for a large experience of the power of the heavenly world in our work.

A good many are kept out of the service of Christ, deprived of the luxury of working for God, because they are trying to do some great thing. Let us be willing to do little things. And let us remember that nothing is small in which God is the source.

Whatsoever we beg of God, let us also work for it.

The man who has the will to undergo all labor may win to any good.

Recognize one thing only, the difference between man's work and God's.

For until men recognize that they owe everything to God, that they are nourished by His fatherly care, that He is the Author of their every good, that they should seek nothing beyond Him - they will never yield Him willing service. Nay, unless they establish their complete happiness in Him, they will never give themselves truly and sincerely to Him.

There's a difference between knowing God and knowing about God. When you truly know God, you have energy to serve him, boldness to share him, and contentment in him.

It is a greater glory to us that we are allowed to serve God, than it is to him that we offer him that service. He is not rendered happy by us; but we are made happy by him. He can do without such earthly servants; but we cannot do without such a heavenly Master.

Christian living moves from what God has freely done for us in Christ to what we should freely do for others.

We don't serve God to gain His acceptance; we are accepted so we serve God. We don't follow Him in order to be loved; we are loved so we follow Him.

Thank God every morning when you get up that you have something to do which must be done, whether you like it or not.

How many saints are there who serve purely because it is God's command? Or how many work just to produce fruits? Since God's work is eternal in nature, He demands men with faith to labor for Him.

When you get up in the morning have something that's on God's agenda, and do that.

Wherever thou goest, whatever thou dost at home, or abroad, in the field, or at church, do all in a desire of union with Christ, in imitation of His tempers and inclinations, and look upon all as nothing, but that which exercises, and increases the spirit and life of Christ in thy soul.

If Jesus Christ be God and died for me, then no sacrifice can be too great for me to make for Him.

If there's a job to be done, I always ask the busiest men in my parish to take it on and it gets done.

The Apostle is hence telling us that inasmuch as sinners cannot be saved through their efforts, so we who have been regenerated likewise cannot be perfected through any righteous acts of our flesh. How vain do such righteous deeds continue to be!

The only way you can serve God is by serving other people.

To court apparent success by merely whipping up people's enthusiasm results in a work without God.

Spiritual service consequently must be inaugurated by the Lord Himself calling us. It should not be initiated through the persuasion of preachers, the encouragement of friends, or the bent of our natural temperament.

A low standard of prayer means a low standard of character and a low standard of service. Those alone labor effectively among men who impetuously fling themselves upward towards God.

There are two freedoms - the false, where a man is free to do what he likes; the true, where he is free to do what he ought.

As long as I see anything to be done for God, life is worth having; but O how vain and unworthy it is to live for any lower end!

If it were only the exercise of the body, the moving of the lips, the bending of the knee, men would as commonly step to heaven as they go to visit a friend: but to separate our thoughts and affections from the world, to draw forth all our graces, and engage each in its proper object, and to hold them to it till the work prospers in our hands, this, this is the difficulty.

There's no room for turning around in Christ's service.

Not that our salvation should be the effect of our work, but our work should be the evidence of our salvation.

While we are zealous for good works, let us be careful not to put them in the place of Christ's righteousness, and not to advance anything which may betray others into so dreadful a delusion.

If others don't use their gifts, you get cheated, and if you don't use your gifts, they get cheated.

When Andrew went to find his brother, he little imagined how eminent Simon would become. You may be very deficient in talent yourself, and yet you may be the means of drawing to Christ one who shall become eminent in grace and service.

Unfortunately, many of God's servants frequently are pressed by environment or other factors into working mechanically. As soon as the individual is aware of it, he ought to inquire whether such "mechanical work" is desired by the Spirit or whether God would call him away to other service.

We can do more good by being good than in any other way.

God is not greater if you reverence Him, but you are greater if you serve Him.

If Christ has died for me - ungodly as I am, without strength as I am - then I can no longer live in sin, but must arouse myself to love and serve Him who has redeemed me. I cannot trifle with the evil that killed my best Friend. I must be holy for his sake. How can I live in sin when He has died to save me from it?

In the Kingdom of God, service is not a stepping-stone to nobility: it is nobility, the only kind of nobility that is recognized.

However dark and profitless, however painful and weary, existence may have become, life is not done, and our Christian character is not won, so long as God has anything left for us to suffer, or anything left for us to do.

As you spend time in God's Word and understand his love, the Holy Spirit will create new desires within you to love and serve others like never before.

To know the will of God, we need an open Bible and an open map.

The supreme test of service is this: For whom am I doing this? Much that we call service to Christ is not such at all....If we are doing this for Christ, we shall not care for human reward or even recognition.

Do all the good you can, in all the ways you can, to all the souls you can, in every place you can, at all the times you can, with all the zeal you can, as long as ever you can.

But because many endeavor to get knowledge rather than to live well, they are often deceived and reap little or no benefit from their labor.

Most people want to serve God, but only in an advisory capacity.

It is one of the worst of errors to suppose that there is any other path of safety except that of duty.

Faith shows itself by good works.

The greatest blunder Christians commit upon experiencing victory over sin lies in not using the way of victory to sustain it; instead they try to perpetuate the victory by their works and determination.

Let everyone regulate his conduct by the golden rule of doing to others as in similar circumstances we would have them do to us, and the path of duty will be clear before him.

Do not confound work and fruit. There may be a good deal of work for Christ that is not the fruit of the heavenly Vine.

We serve a gracious Master who knows how to overrule even our mistakes to His glory and our own advantage.

Timely service, like timely gifts, is doubled in value.

Unless we are willing to pay the price, and sacrifice time and attention and what appear legitimate or necessary duties, for the sake of the heavenly gifts we need not look for a large experience of the power of the heavenly world in our work.

Do today's duty, fight today's temptation; do not weaken and distract yourself by looking forward to things you cannot see, and could not understand if you saw them.

In order to the existence of such a ministry in the Church, there is requisite an authority received from God, and consequently power and knowledge imparted from God for the exercise of such ministry; and where a man possesses these, although the bishop has not laid hands upon him according to his traditions, God has Himself appointed him.

No one is useless in this world who lightens the burden of it for anyone else.

God appointed both the weights and measures of the sanctuary to be twice as large as those of the commonwealth, to shew that he expects much more of those that serve him there, than he doth of others.

What the Lord wants is that you shall go about the business to which He sets you, not asking for an easy post, nor grumbling at a hard one.

An ounce of cheerfulness is worth a pound of sadness to serve God with.

God is looking for people to use, and if you can get usable, he will wear you out. The most dangerous prayer you can pray is this: 'Use me.'

How imperfect is our willingness and how fickle is our condition!

The curse should no longer rest upon the world itself, but upon that which is sinful in it, and instead of monastic flight from the world the duty is now emphasized of serving God in the world, in every position in life.

Never confuse activity with productivity.

Many, I fear, would like glory, who have no wish for grace. They would [want to] have the wages, but not the work; the harvest, but not the labor; the reaping, but not the sowing; the reward, but not the battle. But it may not be.

What think we of Christ? Is He altogether glorious in our eyes, and precious to our hearts? May Christ be our joy, our confidence, our all. May we daily be made more like to Him, and more devoted to His service.

Nothing of spiritual significance comes without sacrifice. Your spirituality will always be measured by the size of your sacrifice.

If God is satisfied with the work, the work may be satisfied with itself.

I never knew any man in my life who could not bear another's misfortunes perfectly like a Christian.

God appointed both the weights and measures of the sanctuary to be twice as large as those of the commonwealth, to shew that he expects much more of those that serve him there, than he doth of others.

Trying to do the Lord's work in your own strength is the most confusing, exhausting, and tedious of all work. But when you are filled with the Holy Spirit, then the ministry of Jesus just flows out of you.

Your spiritual gifts were not given for your own benefit but for the benefit of others, just as other people were given gifts for your benefit.

My work is going to follow after me and yours is going to follow after you. Dear friend, I'm going to have about the same kind of works that follow after me that I had with me while I lived. There's no other way. Whether you like it or don't like it, if you live rotten, you are going to have some rotten works follow you.

Duties are ours, events are God's. This removes an infinite burden from the shoulders of a miserable, tempted, dying creature. On this consideration only can he securely lay down his head and close his eyes.

Not all deeds done for God are His deeds. Doing for Him is not enough; the question is, who is doing the doing?

If you have no opposition in the place you serve, you're serving in the wrong place.

When He separates any one to Himself, He plants the blood of Christ right behind them.

And doth not God deserve the best service thou canst do him in thy generation?

God first works in us to will and then works in us to work for His good pleasure.

Life is too short not to spend it doing what God wants us to do.

You are to think of yourself as only existing in this world to do God's will. To think that you are your own is as absurd as to think you are self-created. It is an obvious first principle that you belong completely to God.

Do not confound work and fruit. There may be a good deal of work for Christ that is not the fruit of the heavenly Vine.

We should always look upon ourselves as God's servants, placed in God's world, to do his work; and accordingly labor faithfully for him; not with a design to grow rich and great, but to glorify God, and do all the good we possibly can.

I have a secret thought from some things I have observed, that God may perhaps design you for some singular service in the world.

The humblest occupation has in it materials of discipline for the highest heaven.

There are many of us that are willing to do great things for the Lord, but few of us are willing to do little things.

The church is made up of individuals. It can do nothing except as its members work, and work together.

One's task is not to turn the world upside down, but to do what is necessary at the given place and with a due consideration of reality.

The flesh is condemned forever before God and by God is sentenced to death. Are we not attempting the impossible if we desire not its death but rather seek to adorn the flesh with the Holy Spirit that it may be more powerful in service? What is our intention after all? Personal attraction? Fame? Popularity? The admiration of spiritual believers? Success? Being pleasing to man? Self-edification? People with mixed motives, those of double mind, shall not be able to receive the baptism in the Holy Spirit.

I don't believe in any religion apart from doing the will of God.

The supreme test of service is this: For whom am I doing this? Much that we call service to Christ is not such at all....If we are doing this for Christ, we shall not care for human reward or even recognition.

Why seekest thou rest, since thou art born to labor?

He does not want our heart to be attached anywhere because He wants us to serve Him freely.

Community service has become a patch for morality. You can devote your life to community service and be a total schmuck.

Thanks be to God, there is hope to-day; this very hour you can choose Him and serve Him.

No good work is done anywhere without aid from the Father of Lights.

If we were all of us doing the work that God has got for us to do, don't you see how the work of the Lord would advance?

Activate yourself to duty by remembering your position, who you are, and what you have obliged yourself to be.

We are immortal till our work is done.

A believer should never regard spiritual labor as altogether joyous and jubilant.

Depart from discretion when it interferes with duty.

It is very remarkable, that in the book of life, we find some almost of all kinds of occupations, who notwithstanding served God in their respective generations, and shone as so many lights in the world.

Furthermore, through the believer's spirit the Holy Spirit is able to impart God's life to thirsty and dying men. However, this filling of the Holy Spirit differs from the baptism with the Holy Spirit, because the latter is for the purpose of service while the former solves the problem of life (naturally it will affect service too).

Nothing is ever wasted on the Lord.

All satanic works are performed from the outside inward; all divine works from the inside outward.

All men, if they work not as in the great taskmaster's eye, will work wrong, and work unhappily for themselves and for you.

Works make not the heart good, but a good heart makes the works good.

There is no man living that can do the work that God has got for me to do. No one can do it but myself. And if the work ain't done we will have to answer for it when we stand before God's bar.

I can work for the Lord in or out of prison.

The greatest pleasure I have known is to do a good action by stealth, and to have it found out by accident.

Nothing is more pathetic than having a small character in a big assignment. Many of us don't want to give attention to our character; we just want the big assignment from God.

The idea that the service to God should have only to do with a church altar, singing, reading, sacrifice, and the like is without doubt but the worst trick of the devil. How could the devil have led us more effectively astray than by the narrow conception that service to God takes place only in a church and by the works done therein. The whole world could abound with the services to the Lord, Gottesdienste - not only in churches but also in the home, kitchen, workshop, field.

It is doing some service to humanity, to amuse innocently. They know but little of society who think we can bear to be always employed, either in duties or meditation, without relaxation.

A believer does not perform good works to live - but he lives to perform good works. The Consistent Christian, 1660.

Cast off all bonds of prejudice and custom, and let the love of Christ, which is in you, have free course to run out in all conceivable schemes and methods of labor for the souls of men.

The Lord wants us to be used, yes; but what He is after is that we pour all we have, ourselves, to Him, and if that be all, that is enough.

The greatest man living may stand in need of the meanest, as much as the meanest does of him.

He was the bravest citizen of Rome that did most love and best serve his country; and he the saint among the Jews who most loved Zion.

The curse should no longer rest upon the world itself, but upon that which is sinful in it, and instead of monastic flight from the world the duty is now emphasized of serving God in the world, in every position in life.

When a man is right with God, God will freely use him.

God's people cannot be shamed into serving God; they need to be challenged.

At a certain point, I just felt, you know, God is not looking for alms, God is looking for action.

Real religion is to be severed from the world, to be married to Christ, and to bring forth fruit unto God.

If we give God service it must be because He gives us grace. We work for Him because He works in us.

Don't Just Do Something: Stand There. Don't Just Stand There: Do Something.

Perhaps you began to question God's love or His wisdom. Maybe you were afraid to say that He was wrong, but you sort of said, "God, you deceived me in letting me believe that this was the right thing to do. Why didn't you stop me?" A whole lot of wrong things can happen if you try to look at God from the middle of circumstances.