George MacDonald Quotes

Let us die as soon as possible, and by whatever process God shall appoint. And when we are dead to the world, and nature, and self, we shall begin to live to God.

It is almost impossible to overestimate the value of true humility and its power in the spiritual life. For the beginning of humility is the beginning of blessedness and the consummation of humility is the perfection of all joy. Humility contains in itself the answer to all the great problems of the life of the soul. It is the only key to faith, with which the spiritual life begins: for faith and humility are inseparable. In perfect humility all selfishness disappears and your soul no longer lives for itself or in itself for God: and it is lost and submerged in Him and transformed into Him.

A crucified Savior will never be content to have a self-pleasing, self-indulging, worldly-minded people.

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

The good life begins with Christ and ends with me. I need to stop following me and stop trying to make life all about me.

To identify with the death of Jesus Christ means that we must die to everything that was never a part of Him.

True love, unlike popular sentimental substitutes, is willing to suffer. Love is not "luv." Love is the cross. Our problem at first, the sheer problem of suffering, was a cross without Christ. We must never fall into the opposite and equal trap of a Christ without a cross.

Look at Christ, my dear friend: His life was divine through and through, full of self-denial, and He did everything for mankind, finding His satisfaction and His delight in the dissolution of His material being.

Trying to do Christianity properly is tough. Life as a priest is rigorous and disciplined. It involves sacrifices.

If you knew that only a few would care that you came, would you still come? If you knew that those you loved would laugh in your face, would you still care? If you knew that the tongues you made would mock you, the mouths you made would spit at you, the hands you made would crucify you, would you still make them? Christ did.

True liberty does violence to self and, like Christ, who disregarded that he was sovereign becomes a slave to serve others.

He is truly great that is great in charity. He is truly great that is little in himself, and maketh no account of any height of honor. And he is truly learned that doeth the will of God, and forsaketh his own will.

Like Jesus we belong to the world living not for ourselves but for others. The joy of the Lord is our strength.

Let the name of Whitefield perish, but Christ be glorified

The gospel costs nothing but it demands everything.

God always wants what's best for us, just as you want what's best for someone you really love. You put them before you, and God does that too. God puts us before His Son, who He sacrificed for our salvation. But the Son did it voluntarily because He has the love of the Father before us.

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 decision to give ourselves to others is a daily taking up of the cross.

Jesus calls men, not to a new religion, but to life.

Crucified preaching only can give life. Crucified preaching can come only from a crucified man.

If Jesus Christ be God and died for me, then no sacrifice can be too great for me to make for Him.

Jesus modeled a purpose-driven life, and he taught others how to live it, too. That was the "work" that brought glory to God.

We may never be martyrs but we can die to self, to sin, to the world, to our plans and ambitions. That is the significance of baptism; we died with Christ and rose to new life.

The measure of all love is its giving. The measure of the love of God is the cross of Christ.

The life of Jesus is a life for others. It is a life of service.