Below are a few memorable quotes in memory of a magnificent saint, Elisabeth Elliot, who “fell asleep in Jesus” (1Thes 4:14) and entered through gates of splendor into the glorious presence of Jesus Christ on June 15, 2015 (1926–2015).
There is nothing worth living for, unless it is worth dying for.
Faith does not eliminate questions. But faith knows where to take them.
The fact that I am a woman does not make me a different kind of Christian, but the fact that I am a Christian makes me a different kind of woman.
Of one thing I am perfectly sure: God’s story never ends with ashes.
Does God ask us to do what is beneath us? This question will never trouble us again if we consider the Lord of heaven taking a towel and washing feet.
Freedom begins way back. It begins not with doing what you want but with doing what you ought – that is, with discipline.
God is God. Because He is God, He is worthy of my trust and obedience. I will find rest nowhere but in His holy will that is unspeakably beyond my largest notions of what He is up to.
We want to avoid suffering, death, sin, ashes. But we live in a world crushed and broken and torn, a world God Himself visited to redeem. We receive his poured-out life, and being allowed the high privilege of suffering with Him, may then pour ourselves out for others.
Maturity starts with the willingness to give oneself.
I have one desire now – to live a life of reckless abandon for the Lord, putting all my energy and strength into it.
Where does your security lie? Is God your Refuge, your Hiding Place, your Stronghold, your Shepherd, your Counselor, your Friend, your Redeemer, your Saviour, your Guide? If He is, you don’t need to search any further for security
God never withholds from His child that which His love and wisdom call good. God’s refusals are always merciful—‘severe mercies’ at times, but mercies all the same. God never denies us our hearts’ desire except to give us something better.
Waiting on God requires the willingness to bear uncertainty, to carry within oneself the unanswered question, lifting the heart to God about it whenever it intrudes upon one’s thoughts.
I do know that waiting on God requires the willingness to bear uncertainty, to carry within oneself the unanswered question, lifting the heart to God about it whenever it intrudes upon one’s thoughts. Its easy to talk oneself into a decision that has no permanence—easier sometimes than to wait patiently.
If we hold tightly to anything given to us unwilling to allow it to be used as the Giver means it to be used we stunt the growth of the soul. What God gives us is not necessarily “ours” but only ours to offer back to him, ours to relinquish, ours to lose, ours to let go of, if we want to be our true selves. Many deaths must go into reaching our maturity in Christ, many letting goes
The will of God is not something you add to your life. It’s a course you choose. You either line yourself up with the Son of God . . . or you capitulate to the principle which governs the rest of the world.
Does it make sense to pray for guidance about the future if we are not obeying in the thing that lies before us today? How many momentous events in Scripture depended on one person’s seemingly small act of obedience! Rest assured: Do what God tells you to do now, and, depend upon it, you will be shown what to do next.
To be a follower of the Crucified means, sooner or later, a personal encounter with the cross. And the cross always entails loss.
Worry is the antithesis of trust. You simply cannot do both. They are mutually exclusive.
One does not surrender a life in an instant. That which is lifelong can only be surrendered in a lifetime.
Worship is not an experience. Worship is an act, and this takes discipline. We are to worship ‘in spirit and in truth.’ Never mind about the feelings. We are to worship in spite of them.
When obedience to God contradicts what I think will give me pleasure, let me ask myself if I love Him.
The will of God is never exactly what you expect it to be. It may seem to be much worse, but in the end it’s going to be a lot better and a lot bigger.
To love God is to love His will. It is to wait quietly for life to be measured by One who knows us through and through. It is to be content with His timing and His wise appointment.
The life of faith is lived one day at a time, and it has to be lived—not always looked forward to as though the ‘real’ living were around the next corner. It is today for which we are responsible. God still owns tomorrow.
The world looks for happiness through self-assertion. The Christian knows that joy is found in self-abandonment. ‘If a man will let himself be lost for My sake,’ Jesus said, ‘he will find his true self.”
Is the distinction between living for Christ and dying for Him so great? Is not the second the logical conclusion of the first?
We never know what God has up His sleeve. You never know what might happen; you only know what you have to do now.
By trying to grab fulfillment everywhere, we find it nowhere.
Money holds terrible power when it is loved.
It is God to Whom and with Whom we travel, and while He is the end of our journey, He is also at every stopping place.
The Word of God I think of as a straight edge, which shows up our own crookedness. We can’t really tell how crooked our thinking is until we line it up with the straight edge of Scripture.
It is in our acceptance of what is given that God gives Himself.
Our vision is so limited we can hardly imagine a love that does not show itself in protection from suffering. The love of God is of a different nature altogether. It does not hate tragedy. It never denies reality. It stands in the very teeth of suffering.
The secret is Christ in me, not me in a different set of circumstances.
God knows what He is doing and He is not under any obligation to make us any explanation
Until the will and the affections are brought under the authority of Christ, we have not begun to understand, let alone to accept, His lordship.
If your goal is purity of heart, be prepared to be thought very odd.
Cruelty and wrong are not the greatest forces in the world. There is nothing eternal in them. Only love is eternal.
Don’t dig up in doubt what you planted in faith.
A young woman asked the great preacher Charles Spurgeon if it was possible to reconcile God’s sovereignty and man’s responsibility. “Young woman,” said he. “You don’t reconcile friends”
You can never lose what you have offered to Christ.
God has promised to supply our needs. What we don’t have now we don’t need now.
God has never promised to solve our problems. He has not promised to answer our questions … He has promised to go with us.
The work of God is done on God’s timetable. His answers to our prayers come always in time—his time. His thoughts are far higher than ours, His wisdom past understanding.
You can’t get to tomorrow morning without going through tonight.
Restlessness and impatience change nothing except our peace and joy. Peace does not dwell in outward things, but in the heart prepared to wait trustfully and quietly on Him Who has all things safely in His hands.
Leave it all in the Hands that were wounded for you.
Elisabeth Elliot’s life was a life well spent, one that wonderfully redeemed the time and one that forever “will shine brightly like the brightness of the expanse of heaven.” (Daniel 12:3+)
Father, may you cause her “tribe” to increase for the glory of the Lamb! Amen
THOUGHT - Ponder your brief life in light of eternity as you listen to this beautiful song “When It’s All Been Said and Done”
- Shadow of the Almighty - The Life and Testament of Jim Elliot
- The journals of Jim Elliot
- Through Gates of Splendor
- The Savage my Kinsman
- Loneliness - It can be a wilderness. It can be a pathway to God
- God's Guidance - A Slow and Certain Light with Study Guide
- Be Still my Soul
- Trusting God in a twisted world
- A Lamp for my Feet - The Bible's light for daily living.
- Passion and Purity - Learning to bring your love life under Christ's control.
- The Mark of a Man
- Discipline, the Glad Surrender
- The Liberty of Obedience; Some Thoughts on Christian Conduct and Service
- Quest for Love : True Stories of Passion and Purity
- Marriage is a gift ...
- The Music of His promises : listening to God with love, trust, and obedience
- Love has a Price Tag
- These Strange Ashes
- Furnace of the Lord: Reflections on the Redemption of the Holy City
- Taking flight : Wisdom for your Journey
- A Path through Suffering - Discovering the relationship between God's mercy and our pain
- Let me be a Woman: notes on Womanhood for Valerie
- Twelve Baskets of Crumbs
- The Shaping of a Christian Family
- Who shall ascend : the life of R. Kenneth Strachan of Costa Rica
- Amy Carmichael and A chance to die : the life and legacy of Amy Carmichael
- No Graven Image : a novel