William Barclay Quotes
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Endurance is not just the ability to bear a hard thing, but to turn it into glory.
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We will often find compensation if we think more of what life has given us and less about what life has taken away.
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One of the highest of human duties is the duty of encouragement...It is easy to laugh at men's ideals; it is easy to pour cold water on their enthusiasm; it is easy to discourage others. The world is full of discouragers. We have a Christian duty to encourage one another. Many a time a word of praise or thanks or appreciation or cheer has kept a man on his feet. Blessed is the man who speaks such a word.
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Strict orthodoxy can cost too much if it has to be bought at the price of love. All the orthodoxy in the world will never take the place of love.
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When we believe that God is Father, we also believe that such a father's hand will never cause his child a needless tear. We may not understand life any better, but we will not resent life any longer.
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True prayer is asking God what He wants.
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Prayer is not a way of making use of God; prayer is a way of offering ourselves to God in order that He should be able to make use of us.
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The only victory love can enjoy is the day when its offer of love is answered by the return of love. The only possible final triumph is a universe loved by God and in love with God.
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If we find ourselves becoming critical of other people we should stop examining them, and start examining ourselves.
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God does not choose a person for ease and comfort and selfish joy but for a task that will take all that head and heart and hand can bring to it. God chooses a man in order to use him.
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God tested Abraham. Temptation is not meant to make us fail; it is meant to confront us with a situation out of which we emerge stronger than we were. Temptation is not the penalty of manhood; it is the glory of manhood.
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When we accept Christ we enter into three new relationships: (1) We enter into a new relationship with God. The judge becomes the father; the distant becomes the near; strangeness becomes intimacy and fear becomes love. (2) We enter into a new relationship with our fellow men. Hatred becomes love; selfishness becomes service; and bitterness becomes forgiveness. (3) We enter into a new relationship with ourselves. Weakness becomes strength; frustration becomes achievement; and tension becomes peace.
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The Christian is called upon to be the partner of God in the work of the conversion of men.
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The simple fact is that the World is too busy to give the Holy Spirit a chance to enter in.
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The essential fact of Christianity is that God thought all men worth the sacrifice of his son.
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It may well be that the world is denied miracle after miracle and triumph after triumph because we will not bring to Christ what we have and what we are. If, just as we are, we would lay ourselves on the altar of service of Jesus Christ, there is no saying what Christ could do with us and through us.
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It may well be a sign of the decadence of the Church and the failure of Christianity that gifts have to be coaxed out of people, and that often they will not give at all unless they get something for their money in the way of entertainment or of goods. Giving which is real giving has a certain recklessness in it.
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But the best definition of it is to say that heaven is that state where we will always be with Jesus, and where nothing will separate us from Him any more
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So long as we judge ourselves by human comparisons, there is plenty of room for self-satisfaction, and self-satisfaction kills faith, for faith is born of the sense of need. But when we compare ourselves with Jesus Christ, and through Him, with God, we are humbled to the dust, and then faith is born, for there is nothing left to do but to trust to the mercy of God.
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A saint is someone whose life makes it easier to believe in God.
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If we are to accept the teaching of Jesus at all, then the only test of the reality of a man's religion is his attitude to his fellow men. The only possible proof that a man loves God is the demonstrated fact that he loves his fellow men.
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Jesus was clear that He had come, not to make life easy, but to make men great.
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Christianity does not think of man finally submitting to the power of God, it thinks of Him as finally surrendering to the love of God. It is not that man's will is crushed, but that man's heart is broken.
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There is only one way to bring peace to the heart, joy to the mind, and beauty to the life; it is to accept and do the will of God.