Understanding By Obeying

"Men would understand; they do not care to obey. They try to understand where it is impossible they could understand except by obeying. They would search into the work of the Lord instead of doing their part in it—thus making is impossible for the Lord to go on with his work, and for themselves to become capable of seeing and understanding what he does."

- George MacDonald

Source: MacDonald, George. Knowing the Heart of God. Compiled by Michael R. Phillips. Bethany House Publishers, 1990: p. 213.

What makes a Christian

"A Christian is one who does what the Lord Jesus tells him. Neither more nor less than that makes a Christian. It is not even understanding the Lord Jesus that makes one a Christian. It is doing what he tells us that makes us Christians, and that is the only way to understand him."

- George MacDonald

Source: MacDonald, George. Knowing the Heart of God. Compiled by Michael R. Phillips. Bethany House Publishers, 1990: p. 254.

The Rich, Young Ruler And The Rest Of Us

"There are good people who. . . cannot believe [the rich, young ruler] would have been better off without his wealth. The multitude of those who thus read the tale are of the same mind as the youth himself—in his worst moment, as he turned and went—with one vast difference: they are not sorrowful."

- George MacDonald

Source: MacDonald, George. Knowing the Hearth of God. Compiled by Michael R. Phillips. Bethany House Publishers, 1990: p. 202.

Possess The Kingdom, Inherit The Earth

"If we are the Lord's we possess the kingdom of heaven, and so inherit the earth. How many who call themselves by his name would have it otherwise: they would rather possess the earth and inherit the kingdom! Such as these fill our churches every Sunday: anywhere is suitable for the worship of Mammon."

- George MacDonald

Source: MacDonald, George. Knowing the Heart of God. Compiled by Michael R. Phillips. Bethany House Publishers, 1990: p. 200.

The Dust Of Self-Satisfaction

"The man who is proud of any accomplishment has not reached it. He is only proud of himself, and imagining a cause for his pride. If he had truly reached something worthwhile, he would already have begun to forget, for he who delights in contemplating what he has attained is not merely sliding back, but is already in the dust of self-satisfaction."

- George MacDonald

Source: MacDonald, George. Knowing the Heart of God. Compiled by Michael R. Phillips. Bethany House Publishers, 1990: p. 185.

Why God Gives His Spirit

"Each must carry the question that perplexes him to the Light of the World. To what purpose is the Spirit of God promised to them that ask it, if not to help them order the behavior of their way aright?"

- George MacDonald

Source: MacDonald, George. Knowing the Heart of God. Compiled by Michael R. Phillips. Bethany House Publishers, 1990: p. 175.

Goodness Is Not Boring

"Dull are those—at least they can have little of Christian imagination—who think that where all are good, things must be dull. It is because there is so little good yet in them that they know so little of the power and beauty of the merest life divine."

- George MacDonald

Source: MacDonald, George. Knowing the Heart of God. Compiled by Michael R. Phillips. Bethany House Publishers, 1990: p. 137.

An Essential Part Of Our Being

"In how many souls has not the very thought of a real God awakened a longing to be different, to be pure, to be good? The fact that this feeling is possible, that a soul can become dissatisfied with itself, reveals that God is an essential part of its being."

- George MacDonald

Source: MacDonald, George. Knowing the Heart of God. Compiled by Michael R. Phillips. Bethany House Publishers, 1990: p.162.

Too Good To Be True

"To think anything too good to be true is to deny God..."

- George MacDonald

Source: MacDonald, George. Knowing the Heart of God. Compiled by Michael R. Phillips. Bethany House Publishers, 1990: p. 147.

True Faith

"The faith which will thus remove mountains is that confidence in God which comes from seeking nothing but His will. A man who was thus faithful would die of hunger sooner than say to the stone, 'Be bread.'"

- George MacDonald

Source: MacDonald, George. Unspoken Sermon Series I., II., and III. Public Domain Books, 2009. Electronic.

The Privilege Of Giving Your Riches Away

"Do you find comfort in the fact that perhaps the Lord does not require of you what he required of the rich Jewish youth? Then I am sorry for you. Your relief is to know that the Lord does not require you to part with your money and possessions, but he also does not offer you himself instead! You did not sell him for thirty pieces of silver, but you are glad not to buy him with all that you have?"

- George MacDonald

Source: MacDonald George. Knowing the Heart of God. Edited by Michael R. Phillips. Bethany House Publishers, 1990: p. 58.

Burning the Destructible

"That which is immortal in God shall remain in man. The death that is in them shall be consumed. It is the law of Nature--that is, the law of God--that all that is destructible shall be destroyed. When that which is immortal buries itself in the destructible--when it receives all the messages from without, through the surrounding region of decadence, and none from within, from the eternal doors--it cannot, though immortal still, know its own immortality. The destructible must be burned out of it, or begin to be burned out of it, before it can _partake_ of eternal life."

- George MacDonald

Source: MacDonald, George. Unspoken Sermon Series I., II., and III. Johannesen, 1997. Digital.

Pursuing Knowledge vs. Pursuing Life

"It may be my reader will desire me to say how the Lord will save him from his sin. That is like the lawyer's question, 'Who is my neighbor?' . . . Such questions spring from the passion for the fruit of the tree of knowledge, not the fruit of the tree of life."

- George MacDonald

Source: MacDonald, George. Knowing the Heart of God. Edited by Michael R. Phillips. Bethany House Publishers, 1990: p. 213.

False Explanations About God

"I hardly know which error is worse--the untruth of Christians who have erected a false system of doctrines to explain a God whose heart they have not sought to know, or the untruth of non-Christians who foolishly do not look beyond such flimsy fabrications. Neither side, it seems, is hungry to find the real truth, but only to build up or tear down something that is not even there!"

- George MacDonald

Source: MacDonald, George. Knowing The Heart Of God. Compiled, arranged, and edited by Michael R. Phillips. Bethany House Publishers, 1990: p. 19.

God on High

"God, let thy mighty heart beat into mine, And let mine answer as a pulse to thine. See, I am low; yea, very low; but thou Art high, and thou canst lift me up to thee. I am a child, a fool before thee, God; But thou hast made my weakness as my strength. I am an emptiness for thee to fill; My soul, a cavern for thy sea. I lie Diffused, abandoning myself to thee.... --I will look up, if life should fail in looking."

- George MacDonald

Source: MacDonald, George. The Poetical Works of George MacDonald in Two Volumes. Volume 1.  General Books LLC, 2010.

Prayer

"If our prayers were heard only in accordance with the idea of God to which we seem to ourselves to pray, how miserably would infinite wants wants be met!"

- George MacDonald

Source: Lewis, C. S. George MacDonald: An Anthology. HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. New York: 1946. Pg 132.

Denying the Self

"There is no forgetting of ourselves but in the finding of our deeper, our true self—God's idea of us when He devised us—the Christ in us. Nothing but that self can displace the false, greedy, whining self, of which most of us are so fond and proud. And that self no man can find for himself...'but as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God.'"

- George MacDonald

Source: Lewis, C. S. George MacDonald: An Anthology. HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. New York: 1946. Pg 151.

Contentment

"I do not think that the road to contentment lies in despising what we have not got. Let us acknowledge all good, all delight that the world holds, and be content without it."

- George MacDonald

Source: Lewis, C. S. George MacDonald: An Anthology. HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. New York: 1946. Pg 131.

Desiring God

"I do not mean that God would have even His closest presence make us forget or cease to desire that of our friend. God forbid! The Love of God is the perfecting of every love. He is not the God of oblivion but of eternal remembrance. There is no past with Him."

- George MacDonald

Source: Lewis, C. S. George MacDonald: An Anthology. HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. New York: 1946. Pg 110.

Condemnation

"No man is condemned for anything he has done: he is condemned for continuing to do wrong. He is condemned for not coming out of the darkness, for not coming to the light."

- George MacDonald

Source: Lewis, C. S. George MacDonald: An Anthology. HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. New York: 1946. Pg 109.