Category: Quotations

You have many things to keep: you are attentive to keep your life, your property, your reputation, your family; but above all these things, attend to the keeping of the heart, that it is not entangled with sin.

John Owen, in Indwelling Sin in Believers.

It is quite easy to focus solely on those things that Owen describes here, but to forget the heart. That is, if we are considering our belongings, our schedules, our leisure apart from the affections, desires, and attitudes of the heart, we risk losing much more than those temporal, earthly things.

We may sing on Sunday morning, “Rescue the perishing, care for the dying, snatch them in pity from sin and the grave,” but our actions during the week might be proclaiming, “I really couldn’t care less.”

— Timothy K. Beougher, Overcoming Walls to Witnessing

Here’s another compelling way that Randy Alcorn (Money, Possessions & Eternity) challenges our typical views on Christian discipleship, particularly how we view possessions and wealth:

Today there are still two kinds of disciples — one who gives up his income and possessions to further the cause in full-time ministry, and one who earns an income to generously support the same cause. (We should be careful not to discourage one another from either of these callings.)

There is not, however, a third kind of disciple, who does whatever he or she feels like with money and possessions and fails to use them for the kingdom. Such people are common today, but by New Testament standards they are not disciples.

(emphasis in original).