J. C. Ryle Quotes

'Accepting the Christ' is merely a shift in self-perception.

I'm a born-again Christian, but that's not the coat that I wear. It's just how my heart's been changed.

Every story of conversion is the story of a blessed defeat.

For our vanity is such that we hold our own characters immutable, and we are slow to acknowledge that they have changed, even for the better.

When I left boxing in 1977 to be a preacher, I couldn't make a fist after I learned about Jesus Christ.

God wants to free us from ourselves, and there's nothing like suffering to show us that we need something bigger than our abilities and our strength and our explanations.

I'm not speaking as someone who has reached satori or anything else. I'm a student.

The scriptures record remarkable accounts of men whose lives changed dramatically, in an instant, as it were: Alma the Younger, Paul on the road to Damascus, Enos praying far into the night, King Lamoni.

I came to Christ when I was thirty-eight. That transformed my life.

Only a person who has passed through the gate of humility can ascend to the heights of the spirit.

After several different marriages and failures, my mom started turning to the Lord. So she brought us to church. We got involved with the youth programs, and I got on fire a couple months in, like, 'Wow, this feels good.' At 10 years old, you don't know. It felt good.

When I'm not as humble as I ought to be, I tend to get knocked down. What I do is to glorify God.

I wasn't raised Christian. I certainly had to seek Him out and find Him, and it's changed my life. I'm so glad I did.

I said, 'Okay, Jesus, I'll try you,' and I haven't looked back since.

He that places himself neither higher nor lower than he ought to do exercises the truest humility.

If conversion to Christianity makes no improvement in a man's outward actions – if he continues to be just a snobbish or spiteful or envious or ambitious as he was before – then I think we must suspect that his 'conversion' was largely imaginary.

Discard yourself and thereby regain yourself. Spread the trap of humility and ensnare love.

Force yourself to be humble, until it becomes second nature. Then it will be an unconscious activity.

I don't put myself above anyone, and I have as many shortcomings as any non-believer. I just choose to turn to a higher power to help me gain wisdom and, I hope, improve over time.

Real spiritual growth is always growth downward, so to speak, into profounder humility, which in healthy souls will become more and more apparent as they age.

Your world could grow infinitely bigger if you were only willing to become...appropri ately small.

I make mistakes every day. I'm not perfect in my behavior, but I want to be and that's what God is after, a heart that wants to be.

If worship does not change us it has not been worship.

In these simple words, Lord, is it I? lies the beginning of wisdom and the pathway to personal conversion and lasting change.

Dr. Bonar once said that he could tell when a Christian was growing. In proportion to his growth in grace he would elevate his Master, talk less of what he himself was doing, and become smaller and smaller in his own esteem, until, like the morning star, he faded away before the rising sun.