Sinclair B. Ferguson famous quotes

How do we bring glory to God? The Bible’s short answer is: by growing more and more like Jesus Christ.
-- Sinclair B. Ferguson

#Jesus #Answers #Growing

God is God; you are but one of His creatures. Your only joy is to be found in obeying Him, your true fulfillment is to be found in worshiping Him, your only wisdom is to be found in trusting and knowing Him.
-- Sinclair B. Ferguson

#Knowing #Joy #Worship

Jesus Christ is able to set us free because He has dealt with the sin that enslaves us.
-- Sinclair B. Ferguson

#Jesus #Able #Sin

We [should not] make the mistake of thinking that marriage will provide the ultimate satisfaction for which we all hunger. To assume so would be to be guilty of blasphemy. Only God satisfies the hungry heart. Marriage is but one of the channels He uses to enable us to taste how deeply satisfying His thirst-quenching grace can be.
-- Sinclair B. Ferguson

#Mistake #Heart #Thinking

Where God is at the center of things, worship inevitably follows.
-- Sinclair B. Ferguson

#Worship

We can never reflect too much on God's grace.
-- Sinclair B. Ferguson

#Grace #Too Much

The weakest faith gets the same strong Christ as does the strongest faith.
-- Sinclair B. Ferguson

#Strong #Doe #Christ

My security as a Christian does not reside in the strength of my faith but in the indestructibili ty of my Savior.
-- Sinclair B. Ferguson

#Christian #Doe #Savior

When I know that Christ is the one real sacrifice for my sins, that His work on my behalf has been accepted by God, that He is my heavenly Intercessor - then His blood is the antidote to the poison in the voices that echo in my conscience, condemning me for my many failures. Indeed, Christ's shed blood chokes them into silence!
-- Sinclair B. Ferguson

#Real #Sacrifice #Echoes

The fear of the Lord tends to take away all other fears... This is the secret of Christian courage and boldness.
-- Sinclair B. Ferguson

#Christian #Secret #Lord

True faith takes its character and quality from its object. Its strength therefore depends on the character of Christ. Even those of us who have weak faith have the same strong Christ as others!
-- Sinclair B. Ferguson

#Strong #Character #Quality

There is nothing more important to learn about Christian growth than this: Growing in grace means becoming like Christ.
-- Sinclair B. Ferguson

#Christian #Mean #Grace

True discernment means not only distinguishing the right from the wrong; it means distinguishing the primary from the secondary, the essential from the indifferent, and the permanent from the transient. And, yes, it means distinguishing between the good and the better, and even between the better and the best.
-- Sinclair B. Ferguson

#Mean #Essentials #Indifferent

When you look at the Cross, what do you see? You see God’s awesome faithfulness. Nothing – not even the instinct to spare His own Son – will turn him back from keeping His word.
-- Sinclair B. Ferguson

#Son #Looks #Faithfulness

You do not become a master musician by playing just as you please, by imagining that learning the scales is sheer legalism and bondage! No, true freedom in any area of life is the consequence of regular discipline. It is no less true of the life of prayer.
-- Sinclair B. Ferguson

#Prayer #Discipline #Musician

There is a difference between a well-instructed congregation and a well-nourished one.
-- Sinclair B. Ferguson

#Differences #Wells #Congregation

The holiness of God teaches us that there is only one way to deal with sin- radically, seriously, painfully, constantly. If you do not so live, you do not live in the presence of the Holy One of Israel.
-- Sinclair B. Ferguson

#Israel #Holiness #Way

Love is not maximum emotion. Love is maximum commitment.
-- Sinclair B. Ferguson

#Love #Inspirational #Inspiring

Knowing God is your single greatest privilege as a Christian
-- Sinclair B. Ferguson

#Christian #Knowing #Privilege

Appearances can be deceptive. The fact that we cannot see what God is doing does not mean that He is doing nothing. The Lord has His own timetable. It is we who must learn to adjust to it, not vice versa. When God's time comes nothing will stand in His way. We can therefore wait for Him with this happy confidence: "As for God, His way is perfect" (2 Samuel 22:31).
-- Sinclair B. Ferguson

#Mean #Perfect #Waiting

For worship is, essentially, the reverse of sin. Sin began (and begins) when we succumb to the temptation, "You shall be as gods." We make ourselves the center of the universe and dethrone God. By contrast, worship is giving God his true worth; it is acknowledging Him to be the Lord of all things, and the Lord of everything in our lives. He is, indeed, the Most High God!
-- Sinclair B. Ferguson

#Giving #Temptation #Worship

If you desire anything less for yourself than absolute obedience to God, a life of total devotion to the Lord, a life of absolute sin-less-ness - if you desire anything less, you are fighting against God's desire for you.
-- Sinclair B. Ferguson

#Fighting #Desire #Sin

Christianity is Christ because there isn't anything else. There is no atonement that somehow can be detached from who the Lord Jesus is. There is no grace that can be attached to you transferred from Him. All there is, is Christ and your soul.
-- Sinclair B. Ferguson

#Jesus #Grace #Soul

Be obedient even when you do not know where obedience may lead you
-- Sinclair B. Ferguson

#May #Obedience

The foundation of worship in the heart is not emotional...it is theological.
-- Sinclair B. Ferguson

#Heart #Emotional #Foundation

Even those of us who have weak faith have the same strong Christ as others!
-- Sinclair B. Ferguson

#Strong #Christ #Weak

Spiritual growth depends on two things: first a willingness to live according to the Word of God; second, a willingness to take whatever consequences emerge as a result.
-- Sinclair B. Ferguson

#Spiritual #Two #Growth

No one can will the will to will what it will not will!
-- Sinclair B. Ferguson

It is God who gives us the spirit of worship (Psalm 133:3), and it is what we know of God that produces this spirit of worship. We might say that worship is simply theology, doctrine, what we think about God, going into top gear! Instead of merely thinking about Him, we tell Him, in prayer and praise and song, how great and glorious we believe Him to be!
-- Sinclair B. Ferguson

#Song #Prayer #Believe

When the New Testament speaks about the fullness of grace which we find in Christ, it does not mean only forgiveness, pardon and justification. Christ has done much more for us. He died for us, but he also lived for us. Now he has sent his own Spirit to us so that we might draw on his strength. He grew in grace, and when we draw on his power we shall likewise grow in grace.
-- Sinclair B. Ferguson

#Mean #Grace #Doe

You must know, rest in, think through, and act upon your new identity - you are in Christ
-- Sinclair B. Ferguson

#Thinking #Identity #Christ

Those who are most conscious of forgiveness are invariably those who have been most acutely convicted of their sin.
-- Sinclair B. Ferguson

#Sin #Conscious

Man's insulting God is not reversed by our insulting man.
-- Sinclair B. Ferguson

#Men #Insulting

Our thinking about who we are as Christians should not begin with what we can discover about ourselves by self-analysis. Rather, it begins with what God says about those who trust in Christ.
-- Sinclair B. Ferguson

#Christian #Thinking #Self

God's guidance will require patience on our part. His leading is not usually a direct assurance, a revelation, but His sovereign controlling of the circumstances of our lives, with the Word of God as our rule. It is therefore, inevitable that the unfolding of His purposes will take time - sometimes a very long time.
-- Sinclair B. Ferguson

#Long #Purpose #Sovereign

The determining factor of my existence is no longer my past.
-- Sinclair B. Ferguson

#Jesus #Past #Christ

The Son of God came to dwell in human flesh for us in order that He might come to dwell in us by His Spirit.
-- Sinclair B. Ferguson

#Son #Order #Flesh

Evil deeds are the fruit of an evil heart. They are not an aberration from our true self but a revelation of it.
-- Sinclair B. Ferguson

#Heart #Self #Evil

When I look at the cross, I learn to say: 'The Son of God loved me, and gave Himself for me' (Galatians 2:20). I begin to believe with Paul that if God did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up to the cross for me, then He loves me so much He will always give me only what will bring me blessing (Romans 8:32).
-- Sinclair B. Ferguson

#Believe #Son #Blessing

Thoughts for Young Men abounds in reliable counsel and says - with a rare combination of seriousness and graciousness - the very things we need to hear. Young men, for whom it was written, will find it invaluable; but all Christians, men or women, young or old, can read it with lasting benefit. It deserves to be widely read and circulated, and will do spiritual good to every reader.
-- Sinclair B. Ferguson

#Christian #Spiritual #Men

God does something to us as well as for us through the cross. He persuades us that He loves us.
-- Sinclair B. Ferguson

#Doe #Crosses #Wells

It is only when we want to take our lives out of the Father’s hands and have them under our own control that we find ourselves gripped with anxiety. The secret of freedom from anxiety is freedom from ourselves and abandonment of our own plans. But that spirit emerges in our lives only when our minds are filled with the knowledge that our Father can be trusted implicitly to supply everything we need.
-- Sinclair B. Ferguson

#Father #Hands #Anxiety

Jesus undid everything that Adam did, and did everything Adam failed to do.
-- Sinclair B. Ferguson

#Jesus #Adam

Most Christians have more Bibles than they know what to do with, but have little understanding of what is in them.
-- Sinclair B. Ferguson

#Christian #Understanding #Littles

God can be trusted even when he cannot be seen or understood.
-- Sinclair B. Ferguson

#Understood #Trusted

Regeneration, however it is described, is a divine activity in us, in which we are not the actors but the recipients.
-- Sinclair B. Ferguson

#Actors #Divine #Regeneration

Probably no theologian in English language has ever rivaled Owen stressing the absolute centrality of Christ's penal substitution and therefore his as Priest. . . . For that reason alone The Priesthood of Christ is worth all the time it takes to read it with humility, care, and reflection.
-- Sinclair B. Ferguson

#Stress #Humility #Reflection

This, then, is the foundation of sanctification in Reformed theology. It is rooted, not in humanity and their achievement of holiness or sanctification, but in what God has done in Christ, and for us in union with him. Rather than view Christians first and foremost in the microcosmic context of their own progress, the Reformed doctrine first of all sets them in the macrocosm of God's activity in redemptive history. It is seeing oneself in this context that enables the individual Christian to grow in true holiness.
-- Sinclair B. Ferguson

#Christian #Views #Achievement

No short-cut that tries to bypass the patient unfolding of the true character of God, and our relationship to him as his children, can ever succeed in providing long-term spiritual therapy.
-- Sinclair B. Ferguson

#Spiritual #Children #Character

Anyone who comes to grips with the issues raised in The Marrow of Modern Divinity will almost certainly grow by leaps and bounds in understanding three things: the grace of God, the Christian life, and the very nature of the gospel itself.
-- Sinclair B. Ferguson

#Christian #Issues #Grace

Where God is at the center of things, worship inevitably follows. Where there is no spirit of worship, there God has been dethroned and displaced.
-- Sinclair B. Ferguson

#Spirit #Worship

The conviction that Christian doctrine matters for Christian living is one of the most important growth points of the Christian life.
-- Sinclair B. Ferguson

#Christian #Growth #Important

There is a difference between going to a service "for the worship" and going to a service "to worship the Lord." The distinction appears to be a minor one, but it may imply the difference between the worship of God and the worship of music!
-- Sinclair B. Ferguson

#Differences #May #Worship

The foundation of worship in the heart is not emotional ("I feel full of worship" or "The atmosphere is so worshipful"). Actually, it is theological. Worship is not something we "work up," it is something that "comes down" to us, from the character of God.
-- Sinclair B. Ferguson

#Heart #Character #Emotional

The Father did not require the death of Christ to persuade Him to love us. Christ died because the Father loves us.
-- Sinclair B. Ferguson

#Father #Christ

To be free from the possibility of discouragements would be more ‘spiritual’ than Jesus-and therefore not truly spiritual at all.
-- Sinclair B. Ferguson

#Spiritual #Jesus #Would Be

The goal of theology is the worship of God. The posture of theology is on one's knees. The mode of theology is repentance.
-- Sinclair B. Ferguson

#Goal #Knees #Worship

You cannot open the pages of the New Testament without realizing that one of the things that makes it so 'new,' in every way, is that here men and women call God 'Father.' This conviction, that we can speak of the Master of the universe in such intimate terms, lies at the heart of the Christian faith.
-- Sinclair B. Ferguson

#Christian #Lying #Father

Secular humanism debases the human.
-- Sinclair B. Ferguson

#Secular Humanism #Secular #Humans

We best defend the Lord's glory by speaking first TO Him about unbelieving men rather than speaking first ABOUT Him to unbelieving men.
-- Sinclair B. Ferguson

#Men #Firsts #Glory

Failure to deal with the presence of sin can often be traced back to spiritual amnesia – forgetting our new, true, real identity. As a believer, I am someone who has been delivered from the dominion of sin and who therefore is free and motivated to fight against the remnants of sin in my heart. You must know, rest in, think through, and act upon your new identity – you are in Christ
-- Sinclair B. Ferguson

#Spiritual #Real #Heart

Jesus has a special, compassionate concern for those who are broken and needy.
-- Sinclair B. Ferguson

#Jesus #Broken #Special

It's the centrality of the Word and not the person who preaches it that's important.
-- Sinclair B. Ferguson

#Important #Persons

I've often reflected on the rather obvious thought that when his disciples were about to have the world collapse in on them, our Lord spent so much time in the Upper Room speaking to them about the mystery of the Trinity. If anything could underline the necessity of Trinitarianism for practical Christianity, that must surely be it!
-- Sinclair B. Ferguson

#World #Rooms #Mystery

Humility is not simply feeling small and useless - like an inferiority complex. It is sensing how great and glorious God is, and seeing myself in that light.
-- Sinclair B. Ferguson

#Humility #Light #Feelings

The notion that we are children of God, his own sons and daughters, lies at the heart of all Christian theology, and is the mainspring of all Christian living.
-- Sinclair B. Ferguson

#Christian #Daughter #Children

Christian contentment, therefore, is the direct fruit of having no higher ambition than to belong to the Lord and to be totally at His disposal in the place He appoints, at the time He chooses, with the provision He is pleased to make.
-- Sinclair B. Ferguson

#Christian #Ambition #Contentment

Thinking that I deserve heaven is a sure sign I have no understanding of the gospel.
-- Sinclair B. Ferguson

#Thinking #Heaven #Understanding

The true church is too different for the world to tolerate it.
-- Sinclair B. Ferguson

#Church #Different #World

Thankfulness grows best in the seed-bed of conviction, just as some plants must be placed in the soil in the winter if they are to flower in the summer.
-- Sinclair B. Ferguson

#Summer #Flower #Winter