It may be very well to do this and that for good fellowship; but it will never do to lose the friendship of God in order to keep on good terms with men.
Interpretation
Prioritizing one's relationship with God is more important than maintaining good relationships with people at the expense of that connection.
This quote by Charles Spurgeon emphasizes the importance of divine friendship over human relationships. It suggests that while it's good to maintain harmony and fellowship with others, one should never compromise their spiritual connection or integrity to please people. True loyalty to God should take precedence over the transient approval of others, highlighting the depth and permanence of divine friendship as essential to one's moral and spiritual life.
In practice
This quote can be shared in a sermon to emphasize the importance of faith over societal acceptance.
Amusement should be used to do us good “like a medicine”: it must never be used as the food of the man...Many have had all holy thoughts and gracious resolutions stamped out by perpetual trifling. Pleasure so called is the murderer of thought. This is the age of excessive amusement: everybody craves for it, like a babe for its rattle.
When you see no present advantage, walk by faith and not by sight. Do God the honor to trust Him when it comes to matters of loss for the sake of principle.
It is far easier to fight with sin in public than to pray against it in private.
You will never glory in God till first of all God has killed your glorying in yourself.
After faith comes repentance, or, rather, repentance is faith's twin brother and is born at the same time.
["All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth unto such as keep his covenant."] The original Hebrew word that has been translated "paths" means "well-worn roads' or "wheel tracks," such ruts as wagons make when they go down our green roads in wet weather and sink in up to the axles. God's ways are at times like heavy wagon tracks that cut deep into our souls, yet all of them are merciful.
They always threw their arms around and hugged me while crying our Yiddish endearments. Yet none of them believed in God. They believed in social justice, good works, Israel, and Bette Midler. I was nearly thirty before I met a religious Jew.
A desire for social connection is fundamentally hardwired into our psychology, and so being deprived of it has devastating mental and physical consequences. Yet we live in a society which has become ever more fragmented and atomised.
Many people believe that introversion is about being antisocial, and that's really a misperception. Because actually it's just that introverts are differently social. So they would prefer to have a glass of wine with a close friend as opposed to going to a loud party full of strangers.
We always deceive ourselves twice about the people we love - first to their advantage, then to their disadvantage.
You always think that a bolt of lightning is going to strike and your parents will magically change into the people you wish they were, or back into the people they used to be.
The table is a meeting place, a gathering ground, the source of sustenance and nourishment, festivity, safety, and satisfaction. A person cooking is a person giving: even the simplest food is a gift.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.