John Stott on the Christian Life

"He called us to Christ and holiness, to freedom and peace, to suffering and glory. More simply, it was a call to an altogether new life in which we know, love, obey and serve Christ, enjoy fellowship with him and with each other, and look beyond our present suffering to the glory which one day will be revealed. This is the hope to which he has called you. Paul prays that our eyes may be opened to know it." John Stott

Richard Steele on being upright

"A single Christ is enough for a single heart; hence holy David prayed in

Psalm 86:11: “Unite my heart to fear thy name.” That is, “Let me have but one

heart and mind, and let that be Thine.”

As there are thousands of beams and rays, yet they all meet and center in the

sun. So an upright man, though he has a thousand thoughts, yet they all (by his

good will) meet in God. He has many subordinate ends—to procure a

livelihood, to preserve his credit, to provide for his children—but he has no

supreme end but God alone. Hence he has that steadiness in his resolutions,

that undistractedness in his holy duties, that consistency in his actions, and that

evenness in the frame of his heart, which miserable hypocrites cannot attain..."

Richard Steele

Richard Steele on being upright

"An upright saint is like an apple with rotten specks, but a hypocrite is like the apple with a rotten core. The sincere Christian has a speck of passion here, there one of worldliness, and there one of pride. But cut him up and anatomize him, and he is sound at heart; there Christ and Christianity live and reign…Though his hand cannot do all that God bids, yet his heart is sincere in all he does. His soul is bent for perfect purity, and so he has his name from that. “Blessed are the pure in heart” (Mat 5:8). In his words he sometimes fails and also in his thoughts and deeds. But open his heart, and there is a love, a desire, a design, and an endeavor after real and absolute purity. He is not legally pure, that is, free from all sin; but he is evangelically pure, free from the reign of all sin." Richard Steele

A.W. Pink on the cross

"Christ was pure; absolutely pure. He was the Holy One. He had an infinite abhorrence of sin. He loathed it. His holy soul shrank from it. But on the cross our iniquities were all laid upon him, and sin - that vile thing - enwrapped itself around him like a horrible serpent’s coils. And yet, he willingly suffered for us! Why? Because he loved us: "Having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end" A.W. Pink