QUOTES FROM J.C. RYLE

 

QUOTES FROM J.C. RYLE We must give up the vain idea of trying to please everybody. That is impossible, and the attempt is a mere waste of time. We must be content to walk in Christ’s steps, and let the world say what it likes. The highest form of selfishness is that of the man who is content to go to heaven alone. Except a man be born again, he will wish one day he had never been born at all. Our Lord has many weak children in his family, many dull pupils in his school, many raw soldiers in his army, many lame sheep in his flock. Yet he bears with them all, and casts none away. Happy is that Christian who has learned to do likewise with his brethren. The world’s idea of greatness is to rule, but Christian greatness consists in serving. To be born again is, as it were, to enter upon a new existence, to have a new mind, a new heart, new views, new principles, new tastes, new affections, new likings, new dislikings, new fears, new joys, new sorrows, new love to things once hated, new hatred to things once loved, new thoughts of God, and ourselves, and the world, and the life to come, and salvation. True Christianity is not merely believing a certain set of dry abstract propositions: it is to live in daily personal communication with an actual living person – Jesus Christ. Wealth is no mark of God’s favor. Poverty is no mark of God’s displeasure. Let us cleave to Christ more closely, love Him more heartily, live for Him more thoroughly, copy Him more exactly, confess Him more boldly, and follow Him more fully. John Charles Ryle (1816-1900) was an English Anglican bishop, preacher, and writer.