Occupied with the Love of Christ

“View [this petition: ‘That ye might be filled with all the fulness of God’ Eph. 3:19] as intimating what the Christian, every Christian, may legitmately aspire to and what he ought daily to pray for.  …having our hearts and minds constantly ocupied with the love of Christ is an essential preparation for our becoming ‘filled with all the fulness of God.’  …Is there not a glorious fitness in God’s imparting His fulness to us through our knowledge of the love of Christ? …Christ is the perfect, final, climactic revelation of God.”  –Arthur W. Pink “Gleanings from Paul:  Studies in the Prayers of the Apostle” p. 184-185

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A Perfect Righteousness

“The imputed righteousness of Christ is the only true basis for a believer to build his happiness, joy, comfort, peace and quiet his conscience upon. … The law looks for perfect obedience, and because the sinner cannot come up to it, it pronounces him accursed.  The sinner seeks hard for mercy, yet the law shows none!! When the believing sinner casts his eye upon the righteousness of Christ, it is a perfect and exact righteousness.  God imputes to me the perfect holiness and obedience of my blessed Savior.”  –Thomas Brooks, quoted in “Voices from the Past” ed. by Richard Rushing

Filled with All the Fulness of God

“Ephesians 3:19:  ‘…filled with all the fulness of God.’  Christian people, do we know this enjoyment?  This is Christianity!  It was in order to make this possible that the Son of God left heaven, came on earth, and went to the Cross on Calvary’s hill.  He died that we might be ‘filled with all the fulness of God’ — here in this life!  Not when you are dead and have passed into heaven and into glory, but here and now!  We shall have it in greater fulness there, but we are to be filled to the brim here and now.  That is what Paul was praying for these Ephesians.  It is not a vague ideal which he is setting before them; he is praying that they may truly know this, even as he himself knew it.  This is Christianity!”  –Martyn Lloyd-Jones “Ephesians 3:19” p. 299-300

One Way to Live the Christian Life

“There is only one way to live the truly Christian life; it is to be ‘filled with the Spirit.’ It is a waste of time to appeal to people to be better… Man cannot do it.  Man needs a new nature.  He needs to be changed; and the Spirit of God alone can do that.  Man needs to be ‘filled with the Spirit.’ Then he will be able to do these things, and not until then.” –Martyn Lloyd-Jones “Ephesians 5:18” p. 39

Governing Hand of God

“Throughout the Old Testament, behind the processes of nature, the march of history and the fortunes of each individual life alike, there is steadily kept in view the governing hand of God working out His preconceived plan–a plan broad enough to embrace the whole universe of things, minute enough to concern itself with the smallest details, and actualizing itself with inevitable certainty in every event that comes to pass.”  –B.B. Warfield “Works…” Vol. 2 p. 13

The Lord’s Hand

“Whoever is situated, as it were, like Elijah at Zarephath; whoever is precluded from outward activity and usefulness in the world by want of means and opportunities, or of gifts and influence, or by weakness or age, let him think with Elijah, that it is the Lord’s hand which has thus laid him aside…”  –F.W. Krummacher “Elijah the Tishbite” p. 52

Protection of Our Almighty Savior

“And that we live so peacefully and quietly in our dwellings, and that our lives are so safe, though in the midst of dangers, is altogether owing to the protection of our almighty Savior, who neither slumbers nor sleeps; who never remits his vigilance over us day or night; who with his mighty angels encamps about his people, and is himself their bulwark.” –F.W. Krummacher “Elijah the Tishbite”