J. C. Ryle Quotes

I got freed of all of my addictions January 16, 2009, but at that point I didn't do a full surrender to Jesus. I didn't give a full surrender until February 18, 2017, so there's quite a story in between where God was still chasing me.

Saw so much of the wickedness of my heart that I longed to get away from myself...I felt almost pressed to death with my own vileness. Oh what a body of death is there in me...Oh the closest walk with God is the sweetest heaven that can be enjoyed on earth!

Men often take their imagination for their heart; and they believe they are converted as soon as they think of being converted.

But after he was pleased to reveal himself to me I did presently, like Abraham, run to Hagar. And after that he did let me see the atheism of my own heart, for which I begged of the Lord that it might not remain in my heart.

The anguish of the neurotic individual is the same as that of the saint. The neurotic, the saint are engaged in the same battle. Their blood flows from similar wounds. But the first one gasps and the other one gives.

I went to America to convert the Indians, but, oh, who shall convert me? Who, what, is he that will deliver me from this evil heart of unbelief?

My life is such a contradiction. My soul yearns for holiness and then runs from the mortification necessary to attain it.

The dark night of the soul comes just before revelation.

The mind is either at war with God or it is being renewed. There is no middle ground.

Our demons are our own limitations, which shut us off from the realization of the ubiquity of the spirit . . . each of these demons is conquered in a vision quest.

Conversion for me was not a Damascus Road experience. I slowly moved into an intellectual acceptance of what my intuition had always known.

I hate how hard spiritual transformation is and how long it takes. I hate thinking about how many people have gone to church for decades and remain joyless or judgmental or bitter or superior.

I'm not an evangelist Christian at all. I can't try to convert anybody. It's not in me to do that. But my faith has given me such an appreciation of people and meaningful relationships, and a world view which I didn't have before. And although I will fail every day, it gives me something to aspire to.

A life is either all spiritual or not spiritual at all. No man can serve two masters. Your life is shaped by the end you live for. You are made in the image of what you desire.

Everybody wants to go to Heaven, but no one wants to die to get there!

Man tells his aspiration in his God; but in his demon he shows his depth of experience.

A religious life is a struggle and not a hymn.

Darkness is the only path to light. It is not our wonderful gifts that make us closer to God: it's using our garbage to transform ourselves. This is the key that unlocks the door that opens to God.

Little by little he came to recognize the difference between the spirits that agitated him, one from the enemy and one from God.

I always intended the title, 'WARRIOR,' to be about spiritual warfare and warrior lives outside of the cage.

At a certain point, I felt the need to submit to a higher level of religiosity... to move away from my intuition and to accept an ultimate truth. I felt that in order to become a good person, I needed rules - lots of them - or else I would somehow fall apart. I am reclaiming myself. Trusting my goodness and my divine mission.

There has already been the karmic work: that what life has transformed in me, this initiation brought on, of necessity, by trials.

Whether we call it religion or faith, we all battle for a balanced integrated soul.

I can remember the night I became a Christian. And man, this weight came off of me and all that kind of stuff. What I didn't realize was, that was just the beginning - of a huge journey.

All other ways of mortification are vain, all helps leave us helpless, it must be done by the Spirit.