William Ames Quotes

I discipline churchgoers with godly lessons and sharp words if they do not change their ways. My goal is to open their hearts so that they seek forgiveness.

Repentance allows God's mercy to come forth because it recognizes that the sin committed was against God. It also bares contriteness of the heart and the desire to walk in the Spirit and not in the flesh so that particular sin will never be repeated.

For Christians, they need to access the power of Jesus and not look at Christianity as a religion. It is our Lord Jesus that makes you change, and Christians need to actualize it and put it into practice.

When we enter into a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, something wonderful happens: God begins to change our desires, and we want to be more like Him.

Religion is essentially the art and the theory of the remaking of man. Man is not a finished creation.

To abstain from sin when one can no longer sin is to be forsaken by sin, not to forsake it.

Sanctification is not to be understood here as a separation from ordinary use or consecration to some special use, although this meaning is often present in Scripture, sometimes referring to outward and sometimes to inward or effectual separation.

Holiness is the strength of the soul. It comes by faith and through obedience to God's laws and ordinances. God then purifies the heart by faith, and the heart becomes purged from that which is profane and unworthy.

With faith and obedience practiced long enough, the Holy Ghost becomes a constant companion, our natures change, and endurance becomes certain.

We take what we think are the tools of spiritual transformation into our own hands and try to sculpt ourselves into robust Christlike specimens. But spiritual transformation is primarily the work of the Holy Spirit. He is the Master Sculptor.

You can pour holy oil and holy water on a thug until you have emptied buckets of both; but at the end he will be a consecrated thug, but a thug all the same unless interior intentions and a disciplined man are present.

Sanctification is the outcome and inseparable consequence of regeneration. He who is born again and made a new creature receives a new nature and a new principle and always lives a new life.

As we lay hold upon the truth of God, its influence must affect us. It must elevate us. It must remove from us every imperfection.

Being reminded about the incredible power of God's love, and living as He intended, is the most powerful motivation to change.

Conversion is an enlarging, a deepening, and a broadening of the undergirding base of testimony. It is the result of revelation from God, accompanied by individual repentance, obedience, and diligence.

Sanctification is not regeneration.

Becoming Christlike is a lifetime pursuit and very often involves growth and change that is slow, almost imperceptible.

You've got to walk and talk with God to go to heaven... I have the devil in me! If I didn't have, I'd be Christian!

There's a part of you - the born-again part, your spirit - that's dead to sin. That's why it bothers you now when you sin. The 'wilderness' part of you - your soul - is your unrenewed mind, out-of-control emotions, and stubborn will.

Pastoral ministry is about an ongoing confrontation with the god of this world, with blindness, hardness of heart, remaining sin.

God will never tell us to do something that gratifies the flesh.

The mystery of the Christian life is that Christ expects us to flee sin and the devil, but does not expect us to rid ourselves of either on this side of glory. Repentance is a way of life, and so is the pursuit of godliness. I wish every Christian could be reminded of these two things.

Only the holy spirit, the spirit of the lord, can transform us.

I have the ability to create and be in touch with God. I can't change bread and wine into body and blood, but I can take the scum or the slime of the earth and make it into a man or woman.

We ought to fly away from earth to heaven as quickly as we can; and to fly away is to become like God, as far as this is possible; and to become like him is to become holy, just, and wise.