Alexander MacLaren
Alexander MacLaren
flower heart voice
As the flowers follow the sun, and silently hold up their petals to be tinted and enlarged by its shining, so must we, if we would know the joy of God, hold our souls, wills, hearts, and minds, still before Him, whose voice commands, whose love warns, whose truth makes fair our whole being. God speaks for the most part in such silence only. If the soul be full of tumult and jangling voices, His voice is little likely to be heard.
spring love-is soul
Logically, faith comes first, and love next; but in life they will spring up together in the soul; the interval which separates them is impalpable, and in every act of trust, love is present; and fundamental to every emotion of love to Christ is trust in Christ.
heart shining may
We must have Christ in our hearts, that He may shine forth from our lives.
summer lying land
The grace of God, says Luther, "is like a flying summer shower." It has fallen upon more than one land, and passed on. Judea had it, and lies barren and dry. These Asiatic coasts had it, and flung it away.
prayer heart agony
As we look upon that agony and those tearful prayers, let us not only look with thankfulness; but let that kneeling Saviour teach us that in prayer alone can we be forearmed against our lesser sorrows; that strength to bear flows into the heart that is opened in supplication; and that a sorrow which we are made able to endure is more truly conquered than a sorrow which we avoid
nature father joy
All things and all acts and this whole wonderful universe proclaim to us the Lord our Father, Christ our love, Christ our hope, our portion, and our joy. Oh, brethren, if you would know the meaning of the world, read Christ in it. If you would see the beauty of earth, take it for a prophet of something higher than itself.
grief dark night
"Oh, when we are journeying through the murky night and the dark woods of affliction and sorrow, it is something to find here and there a spray broken, or a leafy stem bent down with the tread of His foot and the brush of His hand as He passed; and to remember that the path He trod He has hallowed, and thus to find lingering fragrance and hidden strength in the remembrance of Him as "in all points tempted like as we are," bearing grief for us, bearing grief with us, bearing grief like us."
god christian spring
God is His own motive. His love is not drawn out by our loveableness, but wells up, like an artesian spring, from the depths of His nature.
experience tribulation parentheses
You cannot put patience and experience into a parenthesis, and, omitting them, bring hope out of tribulation.
mistake fool sin
Every sin is a mistake, as well as a wrong; and the epitaph for the sinner is, "Thou fool!"
religious knowledge character
Let me always remember that it is not the amount of religious knowledge which I have, but the amount which I use, that determines my religious position and character.
jesus father long
The tears of Christ are the pity of God. The gentleness of Jesus is the long-suffering of God. The tenderness of Jesus is the love of God. He that hath seen me hath seen the Father.
men christ ifs
If you would know Christ at all, you must go to Him as a sinful man, or you are shut out from Him altogether.
men doe reason
Here is the manliness of manhood, that a man has a good reason for what he does, and has a will in doing it.