Pithy gems from David Brainerd

(1718 – 1747)

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Lord, let me make a difference for you that is utterly disproportionate to who I am!

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Let me forget the world—and be swallowed up in the desire to glorify God.

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I have received my all from God.
Oh, that I could return my all to God!

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There is a God in Heaven who overrules all things for the best—and this is the comfort of my soul.

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I love to live on the brink of eternity!

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It is sweet to be nothing and less than nothing—so that Christ may be all in all.

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Give yourself to prayer, to reading and meditation on divine truths. Strive to penetrate to the bottom of them and never be content with a superficial knowledge.

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Oh! it is sweet to be thus weaned from friends, and from myself, and dead to the present world—that so I may live wholly to and upon the blessed God!

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Here am I, send me—send me to the ends of the earth! Send me to the rough savage lost in the wilderness. Send me from all that is called comfort on earth; send me even to death itself, if it be but in your service, and to promote your kingdom.

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Oh! one hour with God infinitely exceeds all the pleasures and delights of this lower world!

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I see nothing else in the world that can yield any satisfaction besides living to God, pleasing Him, and doing his whole will.

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O how vain and unworthy it is to live for any lower end than the glory of God!

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I care not where I go, or how I live, or what hardships I endure—just so that I may save souls. When I sleep I dream of them; when I awake they are first in my thoughts.

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Take heed that you faithfully perform the business you have to do in the world, from a regard to the commands of God; and not from an ambitious desire of being esteemed better than others.

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We should always look upon ourselves as God's servants, placed in God's world, to do his work; and accordingly labor faithfully for him; not with a design to grow rich and great—but to glorify God, and do all the good we possibly can.

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I hardly ever so longed to live to God and to be altogether devoted to Him. I want to wear out my life in His service, and for His Glory!

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I longed to be a flame of fire continually glowing in the divine service and building up of Christ's kingdom to my last and dying breath.

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If you hope for happiness in the world, hope for it from God, and not from the world.

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The whole world appears to me like a huge vacuum, a vast empty space, whence nothing desirable, or at least satisfactory, can possibly be derived. I long daily to die more and more to it.

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There is nothing in the world worth living for—but doing good and finishing God's work. I see nothing else in the world that can yield any satisfaction—besides living to God, pleasing Him, and doing His whole will.

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We are a long time in learning that all our strength and salvation is in God.

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God designs that those whom He sanctifies, shall tarry awhile in this present evil world, that their own experience of temptations may teach them how great the deliverance is, which God has wrought for them.

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No amount of scholastic attainment, of able and profound exposition of brilliant and stirring eloquence—can atone for the absence of a deep impassioned sympathetic love for human souls!