John Flavel Quotes

A low view of God is the cause of a hundred lesser evils. A high view of God is the solution to ten thousand temporal problems.

To admit that there is any such thing as chance, in the common acceptation of the term, would be to attempt to establish a power independent of God.

Most Christians salute the sovereignty of God but believe in the sovereignty of man.

God is never at a loss because He cannot find someone to cooperate with Him in carrying out His plan. He so moves in the hearts of people - either Christians or non Christians, it makes no difference - that they willingly, of their own free will carry out His plans.

As long as you pretend to be self-sufficient, you short-circuit God's power in your life. You need to admit your inadequacy and say, "God, I can't handle this!"

To start the day without prayer is to suggest the devil is feeble, God is irrelevant, and we can handle things on our own.

God hath in Himself all power to defend you, all wisdom to direct you, all mercy to pardon you, all grace to enrich you, all righteousness to clothe you, all goodness to supply you, and all happiness to crown you.

Good when He gives, supremely good; Nor less when He denies: Afflictions, from His sovereign hand, Are blessings in disguise.

We unjustly defraud God of his right, unless each of us lives and dies in dependence on His sovereign pleasure.

We can have no power from Christ unless we live in a persuasion that we have none of our own.

Unfortunately, some Christians are guilty of throwing out an equivalent sentiment when they play the "God is sovereign" card as a way to trump every evil that comes your way.

The church persecuted is the church pure, and the church pure is the church powerful. I believe that Americans by and large have been cursed with blessings, and perhaps before long we'll be blessed with cursings. However, the assaults against the church will be turned around, and everything that the enemy meant for harm will ultimately be used for good.

According to Christian belief, man exists for the sake of God; according to the liberal church, in practice if not in theory, God exists for the sake of man.

God notices every one of us; there is not a sparrow or a worm that continues to live apart from His decrees.

A Christian builds his fortitude on a better foundation than stoicism; he is pleased with every thing that happens, because he knows it could not happen unless it first pleased God, and that which pleases Him must be best.

Nothing is a surprise to God; nothing is a setback to His plans; nothing can thwart His purposes; and nothing is beyond His control.

We have been preserved, these many years, in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth and power, as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving Grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us!

From Genesis to Revelation, here's the central message: God Almighty, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Spirit of God, the Triune God is in control of all things, period.

It consists in a watchful, minute attention to the particulars of our state, and to the multitude of God's gifts, taken one by one. It fills us with a consciousness that God loves and cares for us, even to the least event and smallest need of life; and that we actually have received, and do now possess as our own, gifts which come direct from God. It is a blessed thought, that from our childhood God has been laying His fatherly hands upon us, and always in benediction; that even the strokes of his hands are blessings, and among the chiefest we have ever received.

In seasons of severe trial, the Christian has nothing on earth that he can trust to, and is therefore compelled to cast himself on God alone. When no human deliverance can avail, he must simply and entirely trust himself to the providence and care of God. Happy storm that wrecks a man on such a rock as this! O blessed hurricane that drives the soul to God--and God alone!

One difficulty follows another very fast - but God reigns, not chance.

A blessed and indestructible being has no trouble himself and brings no trouble upon any other being; so he is free from anger and partiality, for all such things imply weakness.

Be assured that God does more in us than we for Him; and that what we do is only for Him in proportion as it is He Himself who works it in us.

God often hides His blessing in trouble or trial, which makes it all the sweeter when it comes our way.

Why work? The gods are there to lavish upon the faithful the good gifts of nature.