Gerhard Tersteegen Quotes & Sayings

Let none, however difficult the circumstances, consider himself as debarred from the way of holiness. Have we but God and the cross of Christ, we have the means for becoming altogether holy in our walk and conversation. What dungeon is there that can shut us out from this? Only let us use the present location and means faithfully and truly, taking them from God's hand, and we shall find him able to free us from all that is really a hindrance. Let us each one desire to be a saint in his own place and calling, instead of building 'castles in the air' of future holiness. — Gerhard Tersteegen

Prayer brings to us blessings which we need, and which only God can give, and which prayer can alone convey to us ... This service of prayer is not a mere rite, a ceremony through which we go, a sort of performance. Prayer is going to God for something needed and desired. Prayer is simply asking God to do for us what he has promised us he will do if we ask him ... Asking is man's part. Giving is God's part. The praying belongs to us. The answer belongs to God. — Gerhard Tersteegen

The love ofChrist is my prayer-book — Gerhard Tersteegen

A God comprehended is no God. — Gerhard Tersteegen

He brings to naught, destroys and rejects all that is not His own work; how He draws everything to Himself and absorbs it, that at last He may live and work in us and through us and reign alone as king. Happy the soul who refuses nothing to love, but places everything at His disposal, for only thus may all our works be done more and more in God. — Gerhard Tersteegen

To walk before God and in His presence, is the ground and the costly jewel of true Christian living. I would have you above all things to grasp this firmly,because, when it is rightly understood and practiced, it includes all else. — Gerhard Tersteegen

Your own self-will and anxiety, your hurry and labor, disturb your peace and prevent Me from working in you. Look at the little flowers, in the serene summer days; they quietly open their petals, and the sun shines into them with its gentle influences. So I will do for you, if you will yield yourself to me. — Gerhard Tersteegen