Vance Havner Quotes

Christians already? It seems to me that it takes a lifetime of work.

Walk more closely with God. Get nearer to Christ. Seek to exchange hope for assurance. Seek to feel the witness of the Spirit more closely and distinctly every year. Lay aside every weight, and the sin that so easily threatens you. Press towards the mark more earnestly. Fight a better fight, and war a better warfare every year you live. Pray more. Read more. Subdue self more. Love the brethren more. Oh that you may endeavor to grow in grace every year, that the end of your Christian course may be better than the beginning!

What the purpose of my life is about is I want to become the kind of person that God wants me to become, and through my study of the scriptures, I can articulate the kind of person that God would be happy if I become.

We are fighting the greatest battle of all time with the most untrained army on earth. If strict discipline is necessary in art and athletics, how can we expect to be advanced Christians and stay in kindergarten?

It is profitable for Christians to be often calling to mind the very beginnings of grace with their souls.

When a Christian stops growing, help is needed. If you are the same Christian you were a few months ago, be careful.

The goal of the Christian is to grow up into Christ.

Immerse yourself in the curriculum of grace.

The goal of the pastor is not to get people to show up but to get people to grow up.

The man who is deeply discontented with himself is probably growing fast into the full likeness of Christ.

...if God teaches us victory in Christ Jesus day by day, we live in the constant awareness of His greatness and His sufficiency. Hard lessons are often long-lasting lessons. Never forget that God is far more interested in our getting to know the Deliverer than simply being delivered.

No matter what changes God has performed in you, never rely on them. Build only on a Person, the Lord Jesus Christ, and on the Spirit He gives.

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.

When I speak of a man growing in grace, I mean simply this - that his sense of sin is becoming deeper, his faith stronger, his hope brighter, his love more extensive, his spiritual mindedness more marked.

Repentance grows as faith grows. Do not make any mistake about it; repentance is not a thing of days and weeks, a temporary penance to be got over as fast as possible! No; it is the grace of a lifetime, like faith itself. God's little children repent, and so do the young men and the fathers. Repentance is the inseparable companion of faith.

Becoming like Christ is a long, slow process of growth.

I am certain that I never did grow in grace one-half so much anywhere as I have upon the bed of pain.

God’s priority isn’t your destination but your development. God’s priority isn’t the dream but the dreamer.

Whatever we may mean by 'Christian growth,' it is ultimately this: less faith in me, more faith in God.

We never become truly spiritual by sitting down and wishing to become so. You must undertake something so great that you cannot accomplish it unaided.

From the very beginning, I started preaching when I was 16 years old. So I began studying Scripture very seriously. I had done over a hundred revivals in Baptist churches before I was 20. So I am studying the Scripture as a kid and I'm noticing that Christians often wanted to excuse God from things that God doesn't need excusing from.

I want to live so that I am truly submitted to the Spirit's leading on a daily basis. Christ said its better for us that the Spirit came and I want to live like that is true. I don't want to keep crawling when I have the ability to fly.

The gospel doesn't just ignite the Christian life but it keeps Christians growing and growing every day. There's no reason to move beyond the gospel. There's only movement more into it.

... religion (ought to be if it isn't) a great deal more than mere gratification of the instinct for worship linked with the straight-teaching of irreproachable credos. Religion must be life made true; and life is action, growth, development--begun now and ending never.

God wants to produce the character of Christ in our lives because he knows that the more we become like him, the more fulfilled we will be.