Vance Havner Quotes

If any man would come after me, let him deny himself." The disciple must say to himself the same words Peter said of Christ when he denied him: "I know not this man." Self-denial is never just a series of isolated acts of mortification or asceticism. It is not suicide, for there is an element of self-will even in that. To deny oneself is to be aware only of Christ and no more of self, to see only him who goes before and no more the road which is too hard for us. Once more, all that self denial can say is: "He leads the way, keep close to him.

The victorious Christian neither exalts nor downgrades himself. His interests have shifted from self to Christ.

To be a Christian is not only to believe the teaching of Christ, and to practice it; it is not only to try to follow the pattern and example of Christ; it is to be so vitally related to Christ that His life and His power are working in us. It is to be "in Christ," it is for Christ to be in us.

Faith implies four things: self-renunciation, reliance with utter confidence on Christ, obedience, and a changed life.

When an ecstatic is asked the question, What is it that love dares the self to do? she will answer: Love dares the self to leave itself behind, to enter into poverty.

A "godly" person is one who ceases to be self-centered in order to become God-centered.

I have now concentrated all my prayers into one, and that one prayer is this, that I may die to self, and live wholly to Him.

The glory of God always comes at the sacrifice of self.

The first lesson in Christ's school is self-denial.

The victorious Christian neither exalts nor downgrades himself. His interests have shifted from self to Christ. What he is or is not no longer concerns him. He believes that he has been crucified with Christ and he is not willing either to praise or deprecate such a man.

Dr. Bonar once said that he could tell when a Christian was growing. In proportion to his growth in grace he would elevate his Master, talk less of what he himself was doing, and become smaller and smaller in his own esteem, until, like the morning star, he faded away before the rising sun.

Christian joy is letting Christ live His life out through you so that what He is, you become.

No man can put on the robes of Christ’s righteousness till he has taken off his own.

It costs something to be a true Christian. It will cost us our sins, our self-righteousn ess, our ease and our worldliness.

Humility - the discipline of putting others ahead of self, the choice to value others above self - is, at its core, a matter of faith.

O Lord, self-renunciation is not the work of one day, nor children's sport; yea, rather in this word is included all perfection.

People talk about imitating Christ, and imitate Him in the little trifling formal things, such as washing the feet, saying His prayer, and so on; but if anyone attempts the real imitation of Him, there are no bounds to the outcry with which the presumption of that person is condemned.

The transformation toward eternal life is gradual. The heavy gross energy of body, mind, and spirit must first be purified and uplifted. When the energy ascends... then self mastery can be sought.

Making conclusions about life is a sure way to deny yourself the possibility of a human being transforming himself into the Divine.

That we may give our body and our blood over to suffering and pain, like Christ - not for Self, but to give harvests of peace and justice to our People.

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.

The hardest part of being a Christian is surrendering and that is where the real struggle happens. Once we have overcome our own desire to be elevated, our own desire to be recognized, our own desire to be independent and all those things that we value very much because we are Americans and we are part of this American culture. Once we have overcome that struggle then God can use us as a part of His body to accomplish what the body of Christ was left here to accomplish.

Oh thrice fools are we who like new-born princes weeping in the cradle know not that there is a kingdom before them then let our Lord's sweet hand square us and hammer us and strike off the knots of pride self-love and world-worship and infidelity that He may make us stones and pillars in His Father's house.

Authentic spirituality... does not render the self content, it renders it undone.

The Christian religion and morality extols the glory of the Hereafter, and therefore remains indifferent to the horrors of the earth. Indeed, the idea of self-denial and of all that makes for pain and sorrow is its test of human worth, its passport to the entry into heaven.