I do not know a warning that I judge more necessary to be given to those who are called this day, than to charge them not to trade too much with their natural gifts, and abilities, and learning. These are talents in their kind but it is the Spirit that must manage all that learning they have, or it will prejudice them, and you also. I have known some good men who have been so addicted to their study, that they have thought the last day of the week sufficient to prepare for their ministry, though they employ all the rest of the week in other studies. But your business is to trade with your spiritual abilities.... A man may preach a very good sermon, who is otherwise himself but he will never make a good minister of Jesus Christ, whose mind and heart are not always in the work. Spiritual gifts will require continual ruminating on the things of the Gospel in our minds.
More Quotes from John Owen:
There is a state of perfect peace with God which can be attained under imperfect obedience.John Owen
Temptation is like a knife, that may either cut the meat or the throat of a man; it may be his food or his poison, his exercise or his destruction.
John Owen
I wish thy lot, now bad, still worse, my friend, for when at worst, they say, things always mend.
John Owen
In the divine Scriptures, there are shallows and there are deeps; shallows where the lamb may wade, and deeps where the elephant may swim.
John Owen
Do you mortify? Do you make it your daily work? Be always at it whilst you live; cease not a day from this work; be killing sin or it will be killing you.
John Owen
Some relate ... that the eagle tries the eyes of her young by turning them to the sun which if they cannot look steadily on, she rejects them as spurious. We may truly try our faith by immediate intuitions of the Sun of Righteousness. Direct faith to act itself, immediately and directly on the incarnation of Christ and His mediation and if it be not the right kind and race, it will turn its eyes aside to anything else.
John Owen
Readers Who Like This Quotation Also Like:
Based on Topics: Abilities Quotes, Business & Commerce Quotes, Charity Quotes, Christianity Quotes, Education Quotes, Jesus Christ Quotes, Learning Quotes, Man Quotes, Mind Quotes, Religions & Spirituality Quotes, Work & Career QuotesBased on Keywords: ruminating
Luckily, in my case, I have managed, by writing, to do the one thing that I always wanted to do.
Jonathan Coe
At times, we forget the magnitude of the havoc we can wreak by off-loading our minds onto super-intelligent machines, that is, until they run away from us, like mad sorcerers' apprentices, and drag us up to the precipice for a look down into the abyss.
Richard Dooling
Dark impulses certainly exist in me and, I think, in most people.
Stephen Hopkins