Brother Lawrence Quotes

God comes first - if I don't love him, I can't love anybody, and if I can't love me I can't love nobody.

I'm not ashamed to say that I want to be good. And I've found in my life that it has been critically important to establish this intention between me and the Lord so that I knew that HE knew which way I committed my agency. I went before Him and said, 'I'm not neutral, and you can do with me what you want. If you need my vote-it's there. I don't care what you do with me and you don't have to take anything from me because I give it to you-everything. All I own. All I am.' And THAT has made all the difference.

Renunciation is the central sun, round which devotion, knowledge and the rest revolve like planets.

Prayer and sacrifice can touch souls better than words.

Such self-denial 'may appear demanding,' but it will allow you, so to speak, to be and to breathe within the heart of the church.

Pray till prayer makes you forget your own wish, and leave it or merge it in God's will.

What shall befall me in the pursuance of this work, I refer to the disposal of Almighty God, whose glory is dearer to me, not only than my liberty, but than my life.

True strength lies in submission which permits one to dedicate his life, through devotion, to something beyond himself.

I see everything I do as an extension of the ministry. It's all about service.

Christianity taught men that love is worth more than intelligence.

Think of God; attachments will gradually drop away. If you wait till all desires disappear before starting your devotion and prayer, you will have to wait for a very long time indeed.

Christian life means sacrifice.

I've never seen service as separate from my spiritual practice or my spiritual teaching.

Obviously, with my faith, too, I don't want to seem like it's all about me, me, me. It takes away from what I do for Him, for the Lord.

The mark of spirituality is the fragrance of Christ in our lives and the fragrance of Christ in every aspect of who we are as a person.

First and foremost, I live for God now. His plans for me are better than whatever I can think.

Even though I am playing against others, and it is important to get there and win, I believe that Jesus is much more important than all of that.

God doesn't want something from us. He simply wants us.

God, I pray Thee, light these idle sticks of my life and may I burn for Thee. Consume my life, my God, for it is Thine. I seek not a long life, but a full one, like you, Lord Jesus.

Trust me, I have not earned your dear rebuke, I love, as you would have me, God the most; Would lose not Him, but you, must one be lost, Nor with Lot's wife cast back a faithless look Unready to forego what I forsook; This say I, having counted up the cost, This, tho' I be the feeblest of God's host, The sorriest sheep Christ shepherds with His crook. Yet while I love my God the most, I deem That I can never love you overmuch; I love Him more, so let me love you too; Yea, as I apprehend it, love is such I cannot love you if I love not Him. I cannot love Him if I love not you.

Knowledge and devotion, to be true, have to stand the test of renunciation of the fruits of action.

All the science of the Saints is included in these two things: To do, and to suffer. And whoever had done these two things best, has made himself most saintly.

As long as you are proud, you cannot know God.

I learned that faith isn’t about knowing all of the right stuff or obeying a list of rules. It’s something more, something more costly because it involves being present and making a sacrifice.

A saint isn't somebody who tries harder, but someone who trusts more.