Psalms 55:16 “16 As for me, I will call upon God; and the Lord shall save me.” 17 Evening, and morning, and at noon, will I pray, and cry aloud: and he shall hear my voice."
[A Compilation]
“One way in which God’s voice is heard, is through the appeals of His Holy Spirit, making impressions upon the heart, which will be wrought out in the character.”—E. White Messages to Young People, p 156
“What then is the secret of (the Holy Spirit’s) fullness, of His abundant life of Peace, Power, and Love? We answer: The absolute unqualified surrender of our life to God, to do His will instead of our own. Thus, when we surrender our sins and believe, we receive the Holy Spirit; when we surrender our lives and believe, we are filled with the Holy Spirit. The receiving of the Spirit is God’s answer to repentance and faith; the fullness of the Spirit is God’s answer to surrender and faith. At conversion the Spirit enters; at surrender the Spirit, already entered, takes full possession. The supreme, human condition of the fullness of the Spirit is a life wholly surrendered to God to do His will.” —James McConkey, The Three-Fold Secret of the Holy Spirit, p 43
“God has made the provision but you must make the decision whether you will be Spirit-filled or not. There is a place in God’s dealing with men beyond which He cannot go. He Himself set this boundary line in man’s right to will. He sets the feast before you but He cannot compel you to eat. He opens the door into the abundant life but He cannot coerce you to enter. He places in the bank of God a deposit that makes you a spiritual multimillionaire but He cannot write your checks. God has done His part, now you must do yours.... The responsibility for fullness or lack of fullness is now in your hands. He will be limited in the giving of the fullness of His Spirit by one thing only—the room given to Him to fill. ‘You may have all the fullness you will make room for.’ To be Spirit-filled requires your active, hearty cooperation with God.... To yield the life unto God is the first step in a continuous walk in the Spirit. This step takes us by our own choice out of the realm of self-will into the realm of God’s will. It takes us back to our God-intended, God-provided center. It gives us a base for all future growth in spiritual things. It furnishes us with new headquarters from which all our future life will be directed. In yielding to Christ we definitely align ourselves with the perfect will of God and choose it to be the rule of our lives in all things forever afterward. We adopt the language of Christ which, whether in the great crises of life such as those in the wilderness, in Gethsemane or on Calvary, or in the ordinary walk and work of daily life in the carpenter shop and the home, was invariably ‘Thy will be done.’ In yielding to the sovereignty of the Lord Jesus Christ we deliberately choose from that time on to do His will instead of our own in all things and for all time.”—Ruth Paxson, Life on Highest Plane, pp 325, 326
“The clearer the insight into this great purpose of God, the more will the need be felt to enter very truly into God’s presence in a spirit of humble worship and holy adoration. The more we thus take time to abide in God’s presence, to enter fully into His mind and will, to get our whole soul possessed by the thought of His glorious purposes, the stronger will our faith become that God will Himself work out all the good pleasure of His will through our prayers. As the glory of God shines upon us, we shall become conscious of the depths of our helplessness and so rise up into the faith that believes that God will do above all that we can ask or think.”—Andrew Murray, The Secret of Adoration, pp 16, 17
“There is no time so profitably spent as the early hour that is given only to Jesus. Do we give sufficient attention to this hour? If possible, it should be redeemed: nothing can make up for it. We must take time to be holy? One other thought: When we bring our questions to God, do we not sometimes either go on to offer some other petition or leave our prayer time without waiting for replies? Does this not seem to show little expectation of an answer and little desire for one? Is that the way we would like to be treated? Quiet waiting before God would save many from mistakes and many from sorrows.”—Hudson Taylor, One With Christ, pp 20, 21
“This, then is the purpose of life, to see God, and to allow Him to bring us back to the old relationship of submission to Himself.... We must not rebel against this high purpose for us. Clay does not argue with the potter. It knows that the potter has every right to make it into whatever shape He chooses. Our highest good is achieved only in submitting. It has been said that there is a God-shaped blank in every man’s heart. It is also true that there is a man-shaped blank in God’s heart. It is because of the latter that God yearns so much for us and pursues us so relentlessly.... Only God Himself can fill that blank which is made in His shape.”—Roy & Revel Hession, We Would See Jesus, pp 16, 17
“The most important point to be attended to is this: Above all things, see to it that your souls are happy in the Lord. Other things may press upon you; the Lord’s work even may have urgent claims upon your attention; but I deliberately repeat, it is of supreme and paramount importance that you should seek above all things to have your soul truly happy in God Himself. Day by day seek to make this the most important business of your life.”—Roger Steer, Spiritual Secrets of George Müller, p 60, 61
“The Bible is God’s voice speaking to us just as surely as though we could hear Him with our ears. The word of the living God is not merely written, but spoken. Do we receive the Bible as the oracle of God? If we realized the importance of this Word, with what awe would we open it, and with what earnestness would we search its precepts. The reading and contemplating of the Scriptures would be regarded as an audience with the Most High.”—Ellen White, In Heavenly Places, p 134
“It is not lost time to let the Bible study wait, till you see whether you have the right attitude—waiting for the Father’s revelation in a meek and babe-like spirit. If you feel that you have not read your Bible in this spirit, confess and forsake at once the self-confident spirit of the wise and prudent. Do not only pray for the babe-like spirit, but believe that you will receive it.”—Andrew Murray, The Inner Life, p 67
“Taking a small portion of God’s Word, some definite command or duty of the new life, quietly receiving it into the will and the love of the heart, yielding the whole being to its rule, and vowing, in the power of the Lord Jesus, to perform it. This, and then going to do it, this is eating the Word, taking it so into our innermost being that it becomes a constituent part of our very life.”—Andrew Murray, The Inner Life, p 93
“The Bible will never really become ours until we have the consistent and persistent purpose to live what we learn.... So we need to be beware of mere head knowledge of the Bible. Apart from the Holy Spirit’s in-working of the Word of life into the very fabric of our being it has no saving or sanctifying power. This He cannot do unless there is an obedient response on our part. The Word is not given to us to make our intellects treasure-houses of heavenly wisdom but to make our hearts the sanctuaries of the heavenly One. God’s warnings have no value for (us) unless they are heeded; His precepts profit nothing unless they are followed and His commands can only bless as they are obeyed.”—Ruth Paxson, Life on Highest Plane, pp 387 - 392
“If God does bless us in reading His Word, He expects that we should be obedient children, and that we should accept the Word as His will, and carry it into practice. If this be neglected, you will find that the reading of the Word, even if accompanied by prayer, meditations and faith, will do you little good. God does expect us to be obedient children, and will have us practice what He has taught us. The Lord Jesus Christ says: ‘If you know these things, happy are ye if ye do them.’ And in the measure in which we carry out what our Lord Jesus taught, so much in measure are we happy children. And in such measure only can we honestly look for help from our Father, even as we seek to carry out His will.”—Roger Steer, Spiritual Secrets of George Müller, pp 69, 70
“In meditation the chief object is to appropriate and experience. A readiness to believe every promise implicitly, to obey every command unhesitatingly, to ‘stand perfect and complete in all the will of God,’ is the only true spirit of Bible study. It is in quiet meditation that this faith is exercised, that this allegiance is rendered, that the full surrender to God’s total will is made, and the assurance of grace to perform our vows is received.”—Andrew Murray, The Inner Life, p 62