Tradition wears a snowy beard, romance is always young..-John Greenleaf Whittier, 1807 - 1892

We cannot attain to the understanding of Scripture either
by study or by the intellect. Your first duty is to begin by
prayer. Entreat the Lord to grant you, of His great mercy, the
true understanding of His Word. There is no other interpreter
of the Word of God than the Author of this Word, as He Himself
has said, "They shall be all taught of God." (John 6:45) Hope
for nothing from your own labors, from your own understanding:
trust solely in God, and in the influence of His Spirit.
Believe this on the word of a man who has experience.-Martin Luther (1483-1546), in a letter (see What Luther Says: An Anthology, #233), quoted in History of the Great Reformation of the Sixteenth Century in Germany, Jean Henri Merle d'Aubigne, London: Walther, 1838, p. 320

Contentment comes when we remember that what God chooses is far better than what we choose.-Unknown

There must be a constant and increasing appreciation that
though sin still remains it does not have the mastery. There is
a total difference between surviving sin and reigning sin, the
regenerate in conflict with sin and the unregenerate complacent
to sin. It is one thing for sin to live in us: it is another
for us to live in sin... It is of paramount concern for the
Christian and for the interests of his sanctification that he
should know that sin does not have the dominion over him, that
the forces of redeeming, regenerative, and sanctifying grace
have been brought to bear upon him in that which is central in
his moral and spiritual being, that he is the habitation of God
through the Spirit, and that Christ has been formed in him the
hope of glory.-John Murray (1898-1975), Redemption, Accomplished and Applied, Grand Rapids: W. B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., 1955, p. 145-146