If you want to be popular, preach happiness. If you want to be unpopular, preach holiness.
Holiness
John White
There are no shortcuts to holiness. There is no easy way to conquer the flesh. Christian character is a matter of growth, not of secrets or formulas. Growth takes time. It also takes the discipline of prayer, of study, of heart searching, of sensitivity to the Holy Spirit’s pleading, and of consistent obedience. It must always begin with a renewed thankfulness for the never-ending grace of God, and a sense of being set free repeatedly to a life of holiness.
James H Aughey
Holiness consists of three things – separation from sin, dedication to God, transformation into Christ’s image. It is in vain that we talk about the last, unless we know something experimentally about the first.
J.C. Ryle
Doctrine is useless if it is not accompanied by a holy life. It is worse than useless; it does positive harm. Something of ‘the image of Christ’ must be seen and observed by others in our private life, and habits, and character, and doings.
Samuel Logan Brengle
Holiness has not legs and does not go walking about visiting idle people, as a lazy Christian seemed to think who told me that he thought the experience would “come” to him “someday.”
A.W. Tozer
The true Christian is uncommon for the reason that he is not in the majority; he is as different from the world in which he lives as Abraham was different from the inhabitants of Canaan. He is likely to be a lowly, humble, approachable man with no claims to greatness or superiority, but his moral standards, his attitudes toward fame, money, earthly pleasures, life and death, mark him as a being from another world.
Edward McKendree (E. M.) Bounds
The holier a man is, the more does he estimate prayer; the clearer does he see that God gives himself to the praying ones, and that the measure of God’s revelation to the soul is the measure of the soul’s longing, importunate prayer for God.
Samuel Chadwick
The Holy Spirit cannot conquer the world with unbelief, nor can He save the world with a worldly Church. He calls for a crusade, a campaign, and an adventure of saving passion. For this enterprise, He wants a separated, sanctified and sacrificial people.
Kevin DeYoung
It sounds really spiritual to say God is interested in a relationship, not in rules. But it’s not biblical. From top to bottom, the Bible is full of commands. They aren’t meant to stifle a relationship with God, but to protect it, seal it, and define it. Never forget: first God delivered the Israelites from Egypt, then He gave them the law. God’s people were not redeemed by observing the law. But they were redeemed so that they might obey the law.”
John Wesley
The neglect of prayer is a grand hindrance to holiness.