You will win as many souls as God gives you, but no one will be converted by your own power.
Interpretation
True conversion comes through divine influence, not human effort.
This quote by Charles Spurgeon emphasizes the belief that spiritual transformation in others is ultimately the result of divine intervention rather than simply human persuasion or ability. It suggests a humbling approach to influencing others, recognizing that true change comes from a higher power, and that one's role is to be a vessel rather than the source of power.
In practice
During a church sermon to emphasize reliance on God.
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.
The cost of a loaf is a simple thing, and so a loaf is often sought, but some things are past valuing: laughter, land, and love are never bought.
Anthroposophy does not want to impart knowledge. It seeks to awaken life.
Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness.
How can I know anything about the past or the future, when the light of the Beloved shines only Now.
Don't compete with me: firstly, I have more experience, and secondly, I have chosen the weapons.
It is this idea 'decency' should be attached to wealth -and 'indecency'' to poverty - that forms the core of one strand of skeptical complaint against the modern status-ideal. Why should failure to make money be taken as a sign of an unconditionally flawed human being rather than of a fiasco in one particular area if the far larger, more multifaceted, project of leading a good life? Why should both wealth and poverty be read as the predominant guides to an individual's morals ?
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.