John Flavel Quotes

Often God will send us what we need in a package we don't want. Why? To let us know He's God and we cannot second-guess Him. We cannot search for answers merely with our heads; we must seek Him and His provision with our hearts. Scripture cannot be interpreted from our limited human mental understanding. There must be a breath of the Spirit of God. He alone gives wise counsel and correct application.

Never believe that the so-called random events of life are anything less than God’s appointed order. Be ready to discover His divine designs anywhere and everywhere.

It is not the multitude of hard duties, it is not the constraint and contention that advance us in our Christian course. On the contrary, it is the yielding of our wills without restriction and without choice to tread cheerfully every day in the path in which Providence leads us. It is to seek nothing, to be discouraged by nothing, to see our duty in the present moment, and to trust all else without reserve to the will and power of God.

But it's God who gives us the ability to do things, even to gain wealth; and we must remember that what we do is only successful when we do it - His Way.

Blind unbelief is sure to err, And scan his work in vain; God is his own interpreter, And he will make it plain.

When you acknowledge God, He will go before you and make the crooked places straight.

Our duty is found in the revealed will of God in the Scriptures. Our trust must be in the sovereign will of God as He works in the ordinary circumstances of our daily lives for our good and His glory.

I testify that when the Lord closes one important door in your life, He shows His continuing love and compassion by opening many other compensating doors through your exercise of faith. He will place in your path packets of spiritual sunlight to brighten your way....They point the way to greater happiness, more understanding, and strengthen your determination to accept and be obedient to His will.

Won't You guide me through the dark night of the soul That I may better understand Your way... Let me purify my thoughts and words and deeds That I may be a vehicle for Thee... Give me my rapture today.

Two things make a relationship providential: when we hear from God through someone and when we see God in someone.

God leads us step by step, from event to event. Only afterward, as we look back over the way we have come and reconsider certain important moments in our lives in the light of all that has followed them, or when we survey the whole progress of our lives, do we experience the feeling of having been led without knowing it, the feeling that God has mysteriously guided us.

I attribute my talent and my success to God, but I believe that the only way you can manifest what He has ordained for you is by being close to Him and by making it happen. But we have to stay close to Him in order to be an image of Him.

All the dark, intricate, puzzling providences at which we were sometimes so offended...we shall [one day] see to be to us, as the difficult passage through the wilderness was to Israel, "the right way to the city of habitation".

An essential virtue is humility. ... The principle of humility and prayer leads one to feel a need of divine guidance. Self-reliance is a virtue, but with it should go a consciousness of the need of superior help-a consciousness that as you walk firmly in the pathway of duty, there is a possibility of your making a misstep; and with that consciousness is a prayer, a pleading that God will inspire you to avoid that false step

Pray and read, read and pray; for a little from God is better than a great deal from men.

Moreover, a true Christian will not ascribe any prosperity to his own diligence, industry, or good fortune, but he will acknowledge that God is the author of it.

Shoulders are from God and burdens too.

God's goal is not to get what you want; it is to get you what you need.

Rarely has any people enjoyed greater prosperity than we are now enjoying. For this we render heartfelt and solemn thanks to the Giver of Good; and we seek to praise Him -not by words only -but by deeds, by the way in which we do our duty to ourselves and to our fellow men.

The temple endowment was given by revelation. Thus, it is best understood by revelation, prayerfully sought with a sincere heart.

It is the duty of the saints, especially in times of straights, to reflect upon the performances of Providence for them in all the states and through all the stages of their lives.

Don’t concern yourself with being right in others’ eyes. And don’t secretly hope that their lives will fall apart so that your opinion will be vindicated. Instead, concentrate on obeying God in your own life and, when possible, helping others to obey Him as well. You don’t have to prove others wrong to continue on the course you know God has shown you.

Nothing is more honoring to your heavenly Father than making life decisions based upon what he has claimed about himself.

[D]ivine Providence... keeps the universe open in every direction to the soul.

All Christian life is to be measured by Scripture; by every word thereof.