Hold everything earthly with a loose hand, but grasp eternal things with a death-like grip
Interpretation
Prioritize spiritual over material possessions, holding the latter lightly while being committed to the former.
This quote by Charles Spurgeon emphasizes the importance of valuing eternal truths and spiritual significance over temporary material possessions. It suggests that while one should not cling tightly to earthly belongings, which are transient and can lead to disappointment, one should hold on firmly to the truths and values that define one's existence and purpose.
In practice
In a sermon about detachment from materialism, you can use this quote to illustrate the importance of focusing on spiritual wealth.
Amusement should be used to do us good “like a medicine”: it must never be used as the food of the man...Many have had all holy thoughts and gracious resolutions stamped out by perpetual trifling. Pleasure so called is the murderer of thought. This is the age of excessive amusement: everybody craves for it, like a babe for its rattle.
When you see no present advantage, walk by faith and not by sight. Do God the honor to trust Him when it comes to matters of loss for the sake of principle.
It is far easier to fight with sin in public than to pray against it in private.
You will never glory in God till first of all God has killed your glorying in yourself.
After faith comes repentance, or, rather, repentance is faith's twin brother and is born at the same time.
["All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth unto such as keep his covenant."] The original Hebrew word that has been translated "paths" means "well-worn roads' or "wheel tracks," such ruts as wagons make when they go down our green roads in wet weather and sink in up to the axles. God's ways are at times like heavy wagon tracks that cut deep into our souls, yet all of them are merciful.
In South Africa, I feel I am a stranger, at best an animal.
Very well then; emancipation from usury and money, that is, from practical, real Judaism, would constitute the emancipation of our time.
As every student in Philosophy 101 learns, nothing can force me to believe that anyone except me is conscious. This power to deny that other people have feelings is not just an academic exercise but an all-too-common vice, as we see in the long history of human cruelty.
Why does no one confess his sins? Because he is yet in them. It is for a man who has awoke from sleep to tell his dreams.
Far from being the smartest possible biological species, we are probably better thought of as the stupidest possible biological species capable of starting a technological civilization - a niche we filled because we got there first, not because we are in any sense optimally adapted to it.
No one has ever been accused for not providing ornaments, but for those who neglect their neighbour a hell awaits with an inextinguishable fire and torment in the company of the demons. Do not, therefore, adorn the church and ignore your afflicted brother, for he is the most precious temple of all.
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