John R. Rice Quotes of the Week

I am neither Calvinistic nor Arminian. By that I mean that I do not believe that anybody is predestined to be lost. I do not believe that anybody is predestined to be saved except as he turns to Christ in repentance and faith. So I am not a genuine Calvinist. On the other hand, I do believe that people are saved by grace, not of works, and that they are kept the same way, wholly on the merits of Christ's atoning blood. I do not believe people deserve salvation and do not believe they can earn it or keep it. I believe God gives salvation free and that it is all of grace. So I believe God saves people and changes their hearts and makes them into children of God and then keeps His own children. So I am not Arminian. Why not just follow the Bible instead of following either Calvin or Arminius? - John R. Rice

Oh, if people would only get the idea out of their heads that salvation is by man's good doing instead of the grace of God! "For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast." That is God's plan according to Ephesians 2:8, 9. So a suicide who has not been born again is lost. A suicide who has been born again is saved. - John R. Rice

The new nature is our joy and our hope. We are born of God, we are made partakers of the divine nature. That makes Heaven certain for one who is truly born again. But the old nature is our daily problem, our grief, and our struggle. May God give us grace to recognize the old nature, not to lie about it, not to falsely claim that it is gone, but to face it day by day and conquer it and buffet it and mortify it, to the glory of God. - John R. Rice

Real holy living, in the Bible sense, consists in daily being set apart for God by confessing and forsaking sin, by feeding on the Word of God and by being led by the Spirit of God so that we can have daily strength and guidance and protection. - John R. Rice

While we are careful to give as much as a tithe, we have usually given far more. Even in the days of our greatest poverty when we bought one pint of milk every other day, when a ten-cent soup bone furnished the best of our food for two days (soup one day and hash the next), we joyfully gave an average of more than twenty per cent of our income, and I think we can say truthfully that we have had no worry about food or clothes and have taken great joy in the Lord's service. - John R. Rice

All we have belongs to God. The tithe is a token of acknowledgment that all is His. Beyond that we should give out of grateful hearts even in our poverty in a way that properly expresses our gratitude and love and earnest desire to carry the Gospel to every creature in Jesus' Name. - John R. Rice

I know there is a great temptation to buy on credit. In my own case I have sometimes bought larger things on time, such as a car; but in the days I was the poorest I felt it not wise even to run a grocery account on credit so we could budget the money more carefully, and thus what we didn't have, we didn't spend.
In other words, if one counts the cost and knows he can keep his expenditures low enough not to embarrass him, he might buy some things on credit. But generally I th...ink installment buying should be discouraged, and that people are generally happier when they do not have to worry about installment payments. You can pray about it and find the will of God, but I would not buy on credit unless the budget was carefully figured out ahead of time that I knew it would not embarrass me and would not tempt me to use the Lord's money for myself. - John R. Rice