You need what only he can give, and he delights to give it. Receive him with thanks, and get accustomed to feeling unworthy and on the receiving end of blessings. Be willing to benefit from his life and sacrifice.

There are still many things Jesus said that I don’t quite understand. This one certainly stands out.
So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink.” (John 6:53–55)
Jesus is speaking to a diverse group of Jews—some believed, and some wanted to see if he would do a few more miracles like when he fed the five thousand. In such situations, Jesus could be more provocative and cryptic. Yet, at the same time, his purpose was that the people would believe in him, the Son of Man, sent from God. For those with ears to hear, what were they thinking about him at this point? Eat his flesh? Drink his blood?
Perhaps the most similar use of this concept is found in a lovely episode in David’s life (2 Samuel 23). While on the run from his enemies, David openly mused about the wells of Bethlehem and how pleasant it would be to drink from them, which was impossible given that the Philistines were garrisoned there. These were the words of a man who had been on the run for a while, and his thoughts were returning to things familiar. Little did he know that three of his “mighty men” heard these words and considered it an opportunity to bless this man whom they loved like a brother. At great risk to their own lives, they brought David water from the Bethlehem well.But he [David] would not drink of it. He poured it out to the LORD and said, “Far be it from me, O LORD, that I should do this. Shall I drink the blood of the men who went at the risk of their lives?” (2 Samuel 23:16–17)
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It is hoped these 27 quotes will spur you on to read more of the man. “Most Christians are not joyful persons because they are not holy persons and they are not holy persons because they are not filled with the Holy Spirit, and they are not filled with the Holy Spirit because they are not separated persons. The Spirit cannot fill whom He cannot separate, and whom He cannot fill He cannot make holy, and whom He cannot make holy, He cannot make happy!”

In my irregular series of articles featuring key quotes from key Christians, I have done a number of them on the matter of holiness. No believer can deny that holiness is one of the most important and most often addressed themes in all of Scripture.
And I take it that most believers would know that one of the great Christians to speak and write on this biblical truth so often was the great American pastor A. W. Tozer. Those who want to know more about him can check out this article: https://billmuehlenberg.com/2009/10/02/notable-christians-a-w-tozer/
Most of Tozer’s sermons and writings in one way or another returned to this grand topic of holiness. Some of his books were totally given over to this topic. One of his most notable works is The Knowledge of the Holy. But any of his books and articles are also worth reading on this.
Here I provide, without references, just a few of many inspiring quotes, listed from shorter ones to longer ones. It is hoped these 27 quotes will spur you on to read more of the man.
“The true Christian ideal is not to be happy but to be holy.”
“Christians don’t tell lies they just go to church and sing them.”
“You knew one thing about a man who was carrying a cross out of the city… you knew he wasn’t coming back.”
“Every man is as holy as he really wants to be.”
“The holy man is not one who cannot sin. A holy man is one who will not sin.”
“It is because of the hasty and superficial conversation with God that the sense of sin is so weak and that no motives have power to help you to hate and flee from sin as you should.”
“No man should desire to be happy who is not at the same time holy. He should spend his efforts in seeking to know and do the will of God, leaving to Christ the matter of how happy he should be.”
“The vague and tenuous hope that God is too kind to punish the ungodly has become a deadly opiate for the consciences of millions.”
“I cannot think of even one lonely passage in the New Testament which speaks of Christ’s revelation, manifestation, appearing or coming that is not directly linked with moral conduct, faith and spiritual holiness.”
“Although God wants His people to be holy as He is holy, He does not deal with us according to the degree of our holiness but according to the abundance of His mercy. Honesty requires us to admit this.”
“You cannot study the Bible diligently and earnestly without being struck by an obvious fact – the whole matter of personal holiness is highly important to God!”
“The spiritual giants of old would not take their religion the easy way nor offer unto God that which cost them nothing. They sought not comfort but holiness, and the pages of history are still wet with their blood and their tears.”
“We know nothing like the divine holiness. It stands apart, unique, unapproachable, incomprehensible and unattainable.”
“To love is also to hate. The heart that is drawn to righteousness will be repulsed by iniquity in the same degree. The holiest man is the one who loves righteousness most and hates evil with the most perfect hatred.”
“God is holy; and because He is holy, He is actively hostile toward sin. He must be. God can only burn on and burn on and burn on against sin forever. Never let any spiritual experience or any interpretation of Scripture lessen your hatred for sin.”
“We Christians must stop apologizing for our moral position and start making our voices heard, exposing sin as the enemy of the human race and setting forth righteousness and true holiness as the only worthy pursuits for moral beings.”
“Holy is the way God is. To be holy he does not conform to a standard. He is that standard. He is absolutely holy with an infinite, incomprehensible fullness of purity that is incapable of being other than it is. Because he is holy, all his attributes are holy; that is, whatever we think of as belonging to God must be thought of as holy.”
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In mercy, God vents his just wrath on Christ as our substitute and does not give us what our sins deserve saying, “‘whosoever believes in Him shall not perish,’ for Christ perished in your place!” Though mercy is a gospel all by itself, worthy of the endless praises of men and angels, in Christ, God gives more grace saying, “whosever believes in him shall not perish, but have everlasting life!” You see, if mercy is not receiving what is deserved, then grace is receiving that which is undeserved. 

One day, during my senior year of high school, I noticed someone in the gym I’d never seen before. He was a juggernaut of a man I assumed to be a trainer, brought in to work with the football team. Turns out, he was brought in to work with the team but as the new quarterback. It was a 16-year-old named Timmy Tebow. Nobody knew him then, but we all know him now! We know him for championships, broken records, Heisman trophies, NFL highlight reels, and bestselling books.
But I think his greatest feat took place on January 8th, 2009, when he led the Gators to a championship victory with “John 3:16” written in silver sharpie on his eye blacks. He later told reporters that he chose John 3:16 because it was “the essence of our Christianity and the essence of our hope.” Astonishingly, 94 million people Googled “John 3:16” during the game and read the good news for themselves: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”
Luther agreed, hailing John 3:16 as “the Gospel in miniature,” and Spurgeon called it “the North Star of Scripture.” It’s one of the first verses we teach our children at the start of life and one to which we cling at life’s end. We see it everywhere from billboards to bumper-stickered tailgates and tattooed forearms. But frequent handling causes callouses. Perhaps, John 3:16 has become to you like the patinaed engagement ring with a dusty diamond, worn everyday but scarcely looked at. How beneficial then, to shine the gem and remind our forgetful hearts that God gave his Son for us because he loved us.
The God of Love “For God so loved the world…”
This good news wasn’t trumpeted by Jesus during a mountain-top sermon but late one night after Jerusalem’s Passover crowds had ceased, to a pharisee named Nicodemus. To Pharisees, God was chiefly a master who commands, an inspector who scans, a judge who renders a verdict, an executioner who punishes, not a Father who loves. But the love of God and the God of love was first and foremost in the heart of Jesus.
There are four Greek words translated as “love”: philia, the love of friends; storge, the love of family; and eros, the romantic love of a spouse. But here, Jesus chose the greatest, agape love to express God’s divine motivation in the salvation of sinners. The Bible says God’s agape love is: a sovereign love in which, “God predestined us for adoption to himself” before the foundation of the world (Ephesians 1:5); an unbreakable love which “neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation” can sever (Romans 8:38-39); a great love by which he “made us alive together with” Christ when we were dead in sin and trespasses (Ephesians 2:4); an infinite love whose breadth, length, height and depth surpass all knowledge (Ephesians 3:19); and an unconditional love shown in that “while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son” (Romans 5:10).
There are two tragic mistakes we make regarding God’s love. First, we misprioritize God’s love and see it as one grape in the cluster of his attributes, forgetting that “God is love” (1 John 4:8 & 16). Harry Ironside said, “[Love] is his very nature. We can say that God is gracious, but we cannot say that God is grace. We can say that God is compassionate but we cannot say that God is compassion. God is kind, but God is not kindness. But we can say, God is love.” Can you say that? Or have you exchanged the Bible’s God of love for the cold, grey deity of the pharisee? Yes, we must press on to know God’s eternal power, holiness, and justice but we must remember that it is only by God’s love that he is these things for us! God’s love is the bridge by which he comes to us to rescue us from our sins for himself.
We also misplace the love of God, putting love at the end of the salvation equation as a product; believing that Jesus bled and died for our sins to make God love us. But Christ puts God’s love at the beginning of the equation as the chief factor, saying, “For God so loved the world he sent his only begotten son.” That means the cross of Christ is not the place God started loving his people, but the ultimate sign of his love for them which had been burning in his breast for all eternity. “Love,” wrote Thomas Watson, “made Christ suffer for us, love was the chain that fastened him to the cross.” This love Spurgeon said, “flows from its own secret source in the eternal Deity, and it owes nothing to any earth-born rain or rivulet; it springs from beneath the everlasting throne, and fills itself full from the springs of the infinite. God loved because he would love.”
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