I don't want to earn my living, I want to live.

Our waking life's desire to shape the world to our convenience invites all manner of paradox and difficulty.

The fact that God is sovereign over the distribution of gifts (1 Cor. 12:7) is no reason not to seek the gifts. God is sovereign over our food too, but though he desires to provide it for his children (see Matt. 6:25—34) and wants us to seek his kingdom first (Matt. 6:9—10, 33), he expects us to pray for him to provide our food (Matt. 6:11; 7:7—11).

In almost any subject, your passion for the subject will save you. If you care enough for a result, you will most certainly attain it. If you wish to be good, you will be good. If you wish to be rich, you will be rich. If you wish to be learned, you will be learned. Only then you must really wish these things and wish them with exclusiveness and not wish one hundred other incompatible things just as strongly.

Good Working Habit No. 2: Do Things in the Order of Their Importance.

Delight thyself also in the LORD: and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart. PSALM 37:4

Actually, only God can satisfy a Christian's heart; man cannot. The failure of many is to seek from man what can be found only in God. All human affection is empty; the love of God alone is able to fully satisfy one's desire. The moment a Christian seeks a love outside God his spiritual life immediately falls.

It is not a matter of how many loaves we have in our hands, but whether or not God has blessed them.

God's ways with us are all designed to establish in us this other principle, namely, that our work for Him springs out of our ministering to Him. I do not mean that we are going to do nothing; but the first thing for us must be the Lord Himself, not His work.

we make self the center of everything and take the Lord merely as a helper to us. Indeed, God wants to bless us; but He desires even more greatly for us to enter His kingdom and to be under His government.

to offer one-tenth to God; but under the new covenant, ten-tenths are required.

Emma once told me that some people spend their whole lives trying to outrun God, maybe get someplace He's never been. She shook her head and smiled, wondering why. Trouble is, she said, they spend a lifetime searching and running, and when they arrive, they find He's already been there.