Most of the grand truths of God have to be learned by trouble; they must be burned into us with the hot iron of affliction, otherwise we shall not truly receive them.
Interpretation
True understanding often comes from experiencing hardships.
This quote by Charles Spurgeon emphasizes that profound truths and insights about God and life are often gained through suffering and adversity. It suggests that without the challenges posed by affliction, one may not fully comprehend or appreciate these important truths, as they need to be 'burned' into one's being through experience.
In practice
This quote can inspire a group discussion about the importance of resilience in a community service meeting.
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.
There comes a point in time when you must know that everything you have already given or done is enough. This is not something anyone else can tell you. You must know. Giving without receiving doesn't prove anything except that you know how to be taken advantage of.
You have to feed your soul and spirit, but you also have to be a professional and remember the business that you're in. Everything is not your passion project.
The heart is like a mirror. When we dust it off, we are able to see ourselves. The dust is all our stuff - guilt, anger - this stuff is reflected back to us. Practice removes the dust from the mirror of our hearts.
Doubts and mistrust are the mere panic of timid imagination, which the steadfast heart will conquer, and the large mind transcend.
And for all these people alike, the key to healing turned out to be the same. Each had a hurt he had to forgive.
Ideas are nothing. They're irrelevant. If you think your idea is so important, you're doomed. The reality is if you don't like one idea, I've got 299 more. If I tell you my idea, and you can execute better against that idea than I can - great; I get to play a terrific game.
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