“Walking Without Fainting” by J. D. Jones

Notes from Chapter 9 of Paul’s Certainties by J. D. Jones. This chapter contains a sermon called “Walking Without Fainting” based on Isaiah 40:31, “Those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.”

“It is a finer proof of the power of the grace of God that it enables a man to run without being weary than it is that it enables him to mount up with wings as eagles.”

“We all start life full of high enthusiasms and lofty hopes. We set glorious ambitions before ourselves, and are confident of realizing them. But the years bring their disappointments to us, and we are soon taught the humbling lesson that we are not going to carry things with a rush, as we thought.”

“It is the final evidence of the power of the grace of God, that amid the disillusionment of life, when the radiance has gone out of our dreams and the glow from our hopes, that it still keeps us faithful to our first and holiest ambitions, not soaring or running, perhaps, but still ’ walking without being faint.’”

“To be faithful in difficult times is a harder thing than to be enthusiastic in bright and prosperous times.”

“An outburst of heroism is not nearly so fine a thing as patient continuance in well-doing in the daily and commonplace routine of life.”

“When we enter Christ’s service, what dreams we dream and what hopes we cherish! We all begin by believing we are going to do wonders.”

“But we are not long in the work before the disappointments begin. We find that somehow the millennium does not come, and men are far more hard and obdurate than we took them for. Instead of turning the world upside down, we find the world too much for us.”

“Fidelity, in spite of discouragement and difficulty, is a far nobler gift of the grace of God than the enthusiasm of inexperience.”

“It is a joyous sight to see a young man beginning the Christian life. But it is a still finer sight to see an old and white-haired man who has known the difficulties of the Christian life—who has faced trial and sorrow and death; it is a still finer sight to see him still clinging to his faith, still pressing towards the Lord.”

“In the history of Christianity many have begun, and were not able to finish. Their early enthusiasm was like the flame of straw—one fierce blaze, and over.”

“It is a comparatively easy thing to kindle religious emotions, but what we find terribly difficult is to live the Christian life.”

“You have your times when you mount up with wings as eagles; but when you come back to earth again are you able to walk without fainting?”