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Joy: Quotations from Burning Words

"The joy of the Lord is your strength," my brother. Nothing else is. No vehement resolutions, no sense of your own sinfulness, nor even contrite remembrance of your own failures, ever made a man strong yet. It made him weak that he might become strong; and when it had done that, it had done its work. For strength there must be hope, for strength there must be joy— ALEXANDER MACLAREN

When we speak of joy, we do not speak of something we are after, but of something that will come to us, when we are after God and duty. It is a prize unbought, and is freest, purest in its flow, when it comes unsought. No getting into heaven as a place will compass it. You must carry it with you, or else it is not there. You must have it in you, as the music of a wellordered soul, the fire of a holy purpose, the welling up, out of the central depths, of eternal springs that hide their waters there. It is the rest of confidence, the blessedness of eternal light and outflowing benevolence, - the highest form of life and spiritual majesty. Being the birth of character, it has eternity in it. Rising from within, it is sovereign over all circumstances and hindrances. -— HORACE BUSHNELL

God offers to fill our homes aud our hearts with joy and gladness if we will only let Him do it. We cannot create the canary-birds; but we can provide cages for them, and fill our dwellings with their music. Even so we cannot create the heavenly gifts which Jesus offers; but they are ours if we provide heart-room for them. The birds of peace and contentment and joy and praise will fly in fast enough if we will only invite Jesus Christ, and set the windows of our souls open for His coming.— T. L. CUYLER

God is merely tuning the soul, as an instrument, in this life. And these joys of the Christian, are only the notes and chords that are sounded out in the preparation - preludes to the perfect harmony that shall flood the soul - forerunners of the perfected and rapturous joy that shall bless the soul, in that exceeding and eternal weight of glory.— HERRICK JOHNSON

Joy in God is the strength of work for God; but work for God is the preparation of joy in God. Nobody can commit his way unto the Lord who has not begun by delighting in the Lord; and nobody can rest in the Lord who has not committed his way to the Lord.— ALEXANDER MACLAREN

If a man is dying for want of bread, and you give him bread, is that to make him gloomy? That is what Christ is to the soul - the Bread of Life. You will never have true pleasure or peace or joy or comfort until you have found Christ.— D. L. MOODY

Rejoice evermore in your Redeemer,- in His truth - His person His almighty grace - His everlasting faithfulness - His precious blood whose efficacy reaches farther than the eye of your conscience ever penetrated, and cleanses you from a sinfulness more inveterate than you have ever conceived to be yours.— RICHARD FULLER

As the skillful artist, in making a good portrait, finds it essentially necessary to use the dark and bright colors alternately, so the Divine Artist dips His pencil, by turns, in Marah and Elim. In Marah first, and the background is laid in darkness black as midnight; and then in Elim, and the blackness is relieved with the colors of the rainbow.— ALEXANDER DICKSON

These are the marks of a heart that is living in the joy of the resurrection. It lives out of itself; and living out of itself, by this unselfish joy, it has a joy in itself which comes from the presence of Jesus Christ; the overflow of His peace which passeth all sense, the consciousuess of that twofold relationship— His relation to us, our relation to Him, and our mutual and

indissoluble love.— MANNING

We ask God to forgive us for our evil thoughts and evil temper, but rarely, if ever, ask Him to forgive us for our sadness. Joy is regarded as a happy accident of the Christian life, an ornament and a luxury, rather than a duty.— R. W. DALE