J. C. Ryle Quotes

It costs something to be a real Christian, according to the standard of the Bible. There are enemies to be overcome, battles to be fought, sacrifices to be made, an Egypt to be forsaken, a wilderness to be passed through, a cross to be carried, a race to be run. Conversion is not putting a person in an arm-chair and taking them easily to heaven. It is the beginning of a mighty conflict, in which it costs much to win the victory.

If we are true Christians, we must not expect everything smooth in our journey to heaven. We must count it no strange thing, if we have to endure sicknesses, losses, bereavements, and disappointments, just like other men. Free pardon and full forgiveness, grace along the way, and glory at the endall this our Savior has promised to give. But He has never promised that we shall have no afflictions.

Walk more closely with God. Get nearer to Christ. Seek to exchange hope for assurance. Seek to feel the witness of the Spirit more closely and distinctly every year. Lay aside every weight, and the sin that so easily threatens you. Press towards the mark more earnestly. Fight a better fight, and war a better warfare every year you live. Pray more. Read more. Subdue self more. Love the brethren more. Oh that you may endeavor to grow in grace every year, that the end of your Christian course may be better than the beginning!

Except a man be born again, he will wish one day he had never been born at all.

We must give up the vain idea of trying to please everybody. That is impossible, and the attempt is a mere waste of time. We must be content to walk in Christ's steps, and let the world say what it likes.

Never does a person see any beauty in Christ as a Savior, until they discover that they are a lost and ruined sinner.

True Christianity is not merely believing a certain set of dry abstract propositions: it is to live in daily personal communication with an actual living person - Jesus Christ.

Beware of manufacturing a God of your own: a God who is all mercy, but not just; a God who is all love, but not holy; a God who as a heaven for every body, but a hell for none; a God who can allow good and bad to be side by side in time, but will make no distinction between good and broad in eternity. Such a God is an idol of your own, as truly an idol as any snake or crocodile in an Egyptian temple. The hands of your own fancy and sentimentality have made him. He is not the God of the Bible, and beside the God of the Bible there is no God at all.

There is more Bible buying, Bible selling, Bible printing and Bible distributing than ever before in our nation. We see Bibles in every bookstore - Bibles of every size, price and style. There are Bibles in almost every house in the land. But all this time I fear we are in danger of forgetting that to HAVE the Bible is one thing, and to READ it quite another.

No one ever said at the end of his days; 'I have read my bible too much, I have thought of God too much, I have prayed too much, I have been too careful with my soul'

If you love Christ, never be ashamed to let others see it and know it. Speak for Him. Witness for Him. Live for Him.

Our prayers may be weak, stammering, and poor in our eyes. But if they come from a right heart, God understands them. Such prayers are His delight.

Backsliding, generally first begins with neglect of private prayer.

A religion that costs nothing is worth nothing. A cheap Christianity, without a cross, will prove in the end a useless Christianity, without a crown.

There is only one door, one bridge, one ladder, between earth and heaven - the crucified Son of God.

According to the men of the world, few are going to hell; According to the Bible, few are going to heaven.

To be born again is, as it were, to enter upon a new existence, to have a new mind, a new heart, new views, new principles, new tastes, new affections, new likings, new dislikings, new fears, new joys, new sorrows, new love to things once hated, new hatred to things once loved, new thoughts of God, and ourselves, and the world, and the life to come, and salvation.

I fear we are in danger of forgetting that to HAVE the Bible is one thing, and to READ it quite another.

The highest form of selfishness is that of the man who is content to go to heaven alone.

Read the Bible daily. Make it part of your everyday business to read and meditate on some portion of God's Word. Gather your manna fresh every morning. Choose your own seasons and hours. Do not scramble over and hurry your reading. Give your Bible the best, and not the worst, part of your time. But whatever plan you pursue, let it be a rule of your life to visit the throne of grace and the Bible every day.

A Christian is a walking sermon. They preach far more than a minister does, for they preach all week long.

Wealth is no mark of God’s favor. Poverty is no mark of God’s displeasure.

It costs something to be a true Christian. It will cost us our sins, our self-righteousn ess, our ease and our worldliness.

Let us cleave to Christ more closely, love Him more heartily, live to Him more thoroughly, copy Him more exactly, confess Him more boldly, and follow Him more fully.

No time is so well spent in every day as that which we spend upon our knees.

Let us receive nothing, believe nothing, follow nothing which is not in the Bible, nor can be proved by the Bible.

It is neglect of the Bible which makes so many a prey to the first false teacher whom they hear.

Beware of manufacturing a God of your own: a God who is all mercy, but not just. Such a God is an idol of your own.

Do not glory in your own faith, your own feelings, your own knowledge, or your own diligence. Glory in nothing but Christ.

It must not content us to take our bodies to church if we leave our hearts at home.

And I believe it to be a signal evidence of the Spirit's presence when the Word is really precious to a man 's soul.

The only way to be really happy in such a world as this, is to be ever casting all our cares on God.

How is it that many who profess and call themselves Christians, do so little for the Savior whose name they bear?

The 'means of grace' are such as Bible reading, private prayer, and regularly worshiping God in Church, wherein one hears the Word taught and participates in the Lord's Supper.

‎"A humble and prayerful person will find a thousand things in the Bible, which the proud student will utterly fail to discern." ~ J.C. Ryle

True repentance begins with KNOWLEDGE of sin. It goes on to work SORROW for sin. It leads to CONFESSION of sin before God. It shows itself before a person by a thorough BREAKING OFF from sin. It results in producing a DEEP HATRED for all sin.

We must read our Bibles like men digging for hidden treasure.

There is a common, worldly kind of Christianity in this day, which many have, and think they have enough-a cheap Christianity which offends nobody, and requires no sacrifice-which costs nothing, and is worth nothing.

God knew what we were before conversion - wicked, guilty, and defiled; yet He loved us. He knows what we will be after conversion - weak, erring, and frail; yet He loves us.

It is not hard to deceive ministers, relatives and friends. But it is impossible to deceive Christ.

Wherever we may be, or whatever our circumstances, the Lord Jesus sees them. We are never beyond the reach of His care.

Whatever you read, read the Bible first. Beware of bad books: there are plenty in this day. Take heed what you read.

To say that we are sorry for our sins is mere hypocrisy, unless we show that we are really sorry for them, by giving them up. Doing is the very life of repentance.

The Gospel which we possess was not given to us only to be admired, talked of, and professed - but to be practiced.

If God has given His Son to die for us, let us beware of doubting His kindness and love in any painful providence of our daily life.

Let your Christianity be so unmistakable, your eye so single, your heart so whole, your walk so straightforward, that all who see you may have no doubt whose you are, and whom you serve.

HATE SIN! Instead of loving it, cleaving to it, excusing it, playing with it, we ought to hate it with a deadly hatred.

In Christ alone God’s rich provision of salvation for sinners is treasured up: by Christ alone God’s abundant mercies come down from heaven to earth. Christ’s blood alone can cleanse us; Christ’s righteousness alone can cleanse us; Christ’s merit alone can give us a title to heaven. Jews and Gentiles, learned and unlearned, kings and poor men--all alike must either be saved by the Lord Jesus, or lost forever.

Our Lord has many weak children in his family, many dull pupils in his school, many raw soldiers in his army, many lame sheep in his flock. Yet he bears with them all, and casts none away. Happy is that Christian who has learned to do likewise with his brethren.

Trials are intended to make us think, to wean us from the world, to send us to the Bible, to drive us to our knees.