Tim Keller

The gospel isn't advice: It's the good news that you don't need to earn your way to God; Jesus has already done that for you. And it's a gift that you receive by sheer grace -- through God's thoroughly unmerited favor.

David Livingstone

I never made a sacrifice. We ought not to talk of sacrifice when we remember the great sacrifice that he made who left his Father’s throne on high to give himself for us.

John Calvin

Men cannot open their eyes without being compelled to see Him [and] wherever you cast your eyes, there is no spot in the universe wherein you cannot discern at least some sparks of His glory.

John Piper

When people cast fear to the wind and spend themselves and risk their lives and fortune in the cause of God’s truth, and in love for other people, then God is revealed for who He really is: infinitely valuable and satisfying – so much so that His people don’t need the fleeting pleasures of sin in order to be content.

H. Wayne House

In addition to the outward general call to salvation, which is made to everyone who hears the Gospel, the Holy Spirit extends to the elect a special inward call that inevitably brings them to salvation.  The external call (which is made to all without distinction) can be, and often is, rejected; whereas the internal call (which is made only to the elect) cannot be rejected; it always results in conversion.  By means of this special call the Spirit irresistibly draws sinners to Christ.  He is not limited in His work of applying salvation to man's will, nor is He dependent on man's cooperation for success.  The Spirit graciously causes the elect sinner to cooperate, to believe, to repent, to come freely and willingly to Christ.  God's grace, therefore, is invincible; it never fails to result in the salvation of those to whom it is extended.

Don Whitney

During the Protestant Reformation of the 1500s, Martin Luther articulated a timeless distinction between two approaches to knowing God.  He labeled one a “theology of glory,” and applied it to those who believe they can attain to a glorious knowledge of God by human goodness, religious effort, mystical experiences, or the wisdom of human reason.  According to this view, God manifests Himself most often through blessings, victory, success, miracles, power, and other exhilarating experiences of “glory.”  By contrast, Luther argued that the biblical way to know God goes through a “theology of the cross.”  God has “hidden” Himself where human wisdom would not expect to find Him, that is, in the lowliness and suffering of the man Jesus Christ, and especially in His humiliating death on a Roman cross.  As Luther put it, “true theology and recognition of God are in the crucified Christ.”  So rather than finding God by ascending to Him through our efforts, wisdom, or self-initiated experiences, God has descended to us in Jesus whose glory was in the least-expected of places – the cross – and in a way where He can be found by faith alone.

Augustine

You have made us for Yourself and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in Thee.