Excerpts from "Heart Breathings"
By Leonard Ravenhill

Strings for Your Harp

     Part II. The Christian

        B. Spiritual Maturity

          Spiritual maturity comes not by book knowledge
          but by strict compliance to the revealed
          will of God.

          I believe in instant purity for the believer,
          but I do not believe in instant maturity by God
          in Grace.
          Cleansing is immediate - by the Blood.
          Conformity is progressive - by the rod!

          Through the atoning death of Christ, heart
          purity is instant-
          but progress is constant.

          The law of spiritual progress goes like this:
          Process then crisis,
          followed by a process then crisis,
          ad infinitum.

          There is a "deeper life."
          It is deep as a personal Gethsemane
          and costly as a personal Calvary.

          We are, each of us, as spiritual as we want to
          be.
          The throttle is in our own hands.

          Too many of us want to make a peace treaty
          with Christ, but will not make a total surrender
          to Christ.

          A secret of victory:
                    To do what God wants me to do;
                    To do it as He wants it to be done;
                    To do it when He wants it done.

          There may be no more theological frontiers to
          explore,
          but there are new dimensions of spirituality to
          explore -
          new possibilities of Grace!

          The Christian has every right to tell God he
          wants to be a saint, but the Christian has no
          right to tell God how to make him one.

          It is much easier to wear a cross
          than to bear a cross.

          Whom the Lord loveth, He corecteth.
          Correction is criticism in action.

          Sanctification is not isolation (Simon Stylite's
          style), but rather constant, Spirit-operated
          purification in a world of militant corruption.

          Knowledge is not character, but character is
          developed from knowledge and obedience.

          Lord, let nothing live in me that should die
          and let nothing die in me that should live.

          The worst thing that God gives us
          is better than the best thing Satan offers.

          No fruit is better than its tree.

          I do not know the weather ahead,
          I do know the path that I must tread.

          Truth can be a mental idol until it gets into the
          "blood stream."
          It then becomes a motivating force.

          The Beatitudes should really "be" attitudes of
          the Christian's life.

          The Beatitudes should "be" attitudes in our
          daily walk with God.

          Cultivate cheerfulness.

          Every mother is a career woman.

          "He anointeth my head with oil."
          If He does not anoint it, no one else can.

          "He anointeth my head with oil."
          Without the anointing, what use is a bishop's
          miter?

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