John Calvin

Words fail to explain how necessary prayer is, and in how many ways the exercise of prayer is profitable.

I’m happy to announce that I’ve signed a book contract with @Christian_Focus! I’m writing a book on Christian contentment. Working title: “A Call to Contentment: Rediscovering the Best Possible State of Inner Well-Being for Your Soul.” Hope it’s a blessing to those who read it.

All the blessings we enjoy are Divine deposits, committed to our trust on this condition, that they should be dispensed for the benefit of our neighbors.

The gospel is not a doctrine of the tongue, but of life. It cannot be grasped by reason and memory only, but it is fully understood when it possesses the whole soul and penetrates to the inner recesses of the heart.

A perfect faith is nowhere to be found, so it follows that all of us are partly unbelievers.

A dog barks when his master is attacked. I would be a coward if I saw that God's truth is attacked and yet would remain silent.

Studying theology should be accompanied by prayer and obedience.

For we know how reluctant man is to lower himself, in order to set other creatures above him.

The most audacious despiser of God is most easily disturbed, trembling at the sound of a falling leaf.

Even the wicked themselves, therefore, are an example of the fact that some idea of God always exists in every human mind.

By piety I mean that union of reverence and love to God which the knowledge of his benefits inspires.

The effect of our knowledge rather ought to be, first, to teach us reverence and fear; and, secondly, to induce us, under its guidance and teaching, to ask every good thing from him, and, when it is received, ascribe it to him.

The pastor ought to have two voices: one for gathering the sheep, and another for warding off and driving away wolves and thieves.

Hence that dread and amazement with which as Scripture uniformly relates, holy men were struck and overwhelmed whenever they beheld the presence of God.

Every person, therefore, on coming to the knowledge of himself, is not only urged to seek God, but is also led as by the hand to find him.

And it becomes us to remember that Satan has his miracles, which, although they are tricks rather than true wonders, are still such as to delude the ignorant and unwary.

There is no worse screen to block out the Spirit than confidence in our own intelligence.

We are accordingly urged by our own evil things to consider the good things of God; and, indeed, we cannot aspire to Him in earnest until we have begun to be displeased with ourselves.

Ignorance of providence is the ultimate of all miseries; the highest blessedness lies in the knowledge of it.

Each year, month, and day is governed by a new, a special, providence of God.