The Precious Riches of the Church

“Also in the church in Rome was a godly man named Lawrence, who was a minister of the Gospel and in charge of distributing the church’s goods. Marcianus greedily demanded that Lawrence tell him where the church’s riches were hid, thinking he could take them for himself. Lawrence requested three days in which to gather the riches together and present them to the governor.”

“When the third day came, Marcianus demanded that Lawrence keep his promise. Whereupon Lawrence stretched out his arms over some poor Christians that he had gathered in the place with him and said ‘These are the precious riches of the Church. They are the treasures in which faith in Christ reigns, in whom Christ has His dwelling place. What more precious jewel can the Church have than those in whom Christ promised to dwell?’”

“…After many cruel torments, this meek slave of Christ was laid on his fiery bed. But in God’s providence, it was as a bed of soft feathers, and the godly Lawrence laid there and perished as if taking a nourishing rest.” – John Foxe, The New Foxe’s Book of Martyrs

Fire in the Charcoal

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“Take a piece of charcoal, and however much you may wash it its blackness will not disappear, but let the fire enter into it and its dark colour vanishes. So also when the sinner receives the Holy Spirit (who is from the Father and Myself, for the Father and I are one), which is the baptism of fire, all the blackness of sin is driven away, and he is made a light to the world (Matt. iii. 11, 14). As the fire in the charcoal, so I abide in My children and they in Me, and through them I make Myself manifest to the world.” – Sadhu Sundar Singh, At the Master’s Feet

Christ is Our Life

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“How easily we make things as way, truth, and life. Or, we call hot atmosphere as life, we label clear thought as life. We consider strong emotion or outward conduct as life. In reality, though, these are not life. We ought to realize that only the Lord is life. Christ is our life. And it is the Lord who lives out this life in us. Let us ask Him to deliver us from the many external and fragmentary affairs that we may touch only Him. May we see the Lord in all things-way, truth, and life are all found in knowing Him. May we really meet the Son of God and let Him live in us. Amen.” – Watchman Nee, Christ the Sum of All Spiritual Things

How Many Truths Have Made Us Free?

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“Brothers and sisters, just consider how many truths have actually made us free? The word of God states that the truth shall make us free, but how many times truth is merely a doctrine to us. Our eyes have not been opened to see Christ.” – Watchman Nee, Christ the Sum of All Spiritual Things

Our Heart Failure

“Most of our troubles are due not to our mental failure, but our heart failure really to grasp and apprehend the greatness of the Christ to whom we have been introduced, and to whose fellowship we have been brought by the grace of God. Is it not the need, the greatest need today everywhere, and particularly in the church of God, to recover something of this immensity of Christ?” – T. Austin Sparks, That He Might Fill All Things

Everything in Christ

God has through Christ, His Son, by the Eternal Spirit, created all things in Christ. That is, He has made Christ the encompassing, encircling sphere of all things in creation itself. The creation is bounded by Christ in the thought and intention of God. Eventually there will be no created thing in this universe outside of Christ, because they were all created in Him. If they have gone out, they have been given the option in this dispensation to return into Christ. If not, they are for ever expelled from the whole domain of Christ, and all that does remain is found, as was intended, in Christ. – T. Austin-Sparks, That He Might Fill All Things