When the loss of any temporal enjoyment casts us into excessive despondency and dejection it is evident that what we have lost, was the object of our inordinate love. The most innocent attachments cease to be innocent, when they press too strongly upon us! To cleave to any created object, and to look for happiness from it – is to make an idol of it – and set it up in God’s place. Should this object be a friend, a brother, a wife, or a child, the idolatry is still odious in the eyes of that God, to whom we owe our chief affection. Our warmest passions, our most fervent love, desires, hopes, and confidences should always have God for their object. It is His desire that our happiness should not center in any of the good things of this life.
— John Fawcett (1740–1817), Baptistenpastor, Theologe, Hymnendichter
Topics: Temptation & Struggle, Faith & Trust
Occasions: For Reflection
John Fawcett
John Fawcett (1740–1817) war ein britischer Baptistenpastor, Theologe und Kirchenlieddichter, der über Jahrzehnte in ländlichen Gemeinden in Yorkshire wirkte. Bekannt wurde er vor allem durch den Choral „Blest Be the Tie That Binds“, theologische Schriften zur praktischen Frömmigkeit und sein Engagement in der Ausbildung junger Prediger. Für heutige Bibelleser vermitteln seine Lieder und Kommentare Impulse zu christlicher Gemeinschaft, Sanftmut und treuem Dienst in der Ortsgemeinde.
All quotes by John Fawcett (8)
The devil is a better theologian than any of us, and he is still a devil.
A.W. Tozer
Discipline is choosing what you want most over what you want now.
Craig Groeschel
Martin Luther
Fyodor Dostoevsky
And Satan trembles when he sees, the weakest saint upon his knees.
William Cowper
Our old man is crucified, but he is long at dying.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Dante Alighieri
Gilbert Keith Chesterton