“Take away the cross of Christ, and the Bible is a dark book.” (J.C. Ryle)
“A cheap Christianity, without a cross, will prove in the end a useless Christianity, without a crown.” (J.C. Ryle)
“I would like to buy about three dollars worth of gospel, please. Not too much – just enough to make me happy, but not so much that I get addicted. I don’t want so much gospel that I learn to really hate covetousness and lust. I certainly don’t want so much that I start to love my enemies, cherish self-denial, and contemplate missionary service in some alien culture. I want ecstasy, not repentance; I want transcendence, not transformation. I would like to be cherished by some nice, forgiving, broad-minded people, but I myself don’t want to love those from different races – especially if they smell. I would like enough gospel to make my family secure and my children well behaved, but not so much that I find my ambitions redirected or my giving too greatly enlarged. I would like about three dollars worth of the gospel, please.” (taken from D. A. Carson, Basics for Believers: An Exposition of Philippians, pp. 12-13, Baker, 1996)
“You have made us for Thyself, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in Thee.” (Augustine, from Confessions)
“And when you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions, having canceled out the certificate of debtconsisting of decrees against us and which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.” (Colossians 2:13-14 NASB)
“The best of men are only men at their very best. Patriarchs, prophets, apostles, martyrs, church fathers, reformers, puritans – all are sinners who need a Savior.” (J.C. Ryle)
“Every time we look at the cross, Christ seems to say to us, ‘I am here because of you. It is your sin I am bearing, your curse I am suffering, your debt I am paying, your death I am dying.’ Nothing in history or in the universe cuts us down to size like the cross. All of us have inflated views of ourselves, especially in self-righteousness, until we have visited a place called Calvary. It is there, at the foot of the cross, that we shrink to our true size.” (John R. W. Stott, The Message of Galatians, London, 1968, page 179.)
“Jesus gave his life for me, to take my life from me, to live his life through me.” (Alistair Begg)
“Grace is not simply leniency when we have sinned. Grace is the enabling gift of God not to sin. Grace is power, not just pardon.” (John Piper, from The Pleasures of God)
“For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. It teaches us to say ‘No’ to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to liveself-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age.” (Titus 2:11-12)
“Calvary shows how far men will go in sin, and how far God will go for man’s salvation.” (H.C. Trumball)
“When Satan tells me I am a sinner he comforts me immeasurably, since Christ died for sinners.” (Martin Luther)
“The strength of all sin, whether simple or scandalous, is the lie that God can’t do what it [sin] can.” (Sam Storms)
“It is easier to cry against one-thousand sins of others than to kill one of your own.” (John Flavel)
“But may it never be that I should boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.” (Galatians 6:14 NASB)