"The ancient lie is put into men's hearts again and again and again that the only way to attain a state higher than innocence is to have experience of sin in order to see what sin is like....
Do you know how that lie can best be shown to be the lie that it is? Well, my friends, I think it is by the example of Jesus Christ. Do you despise innocence? Do you think that it is weak and childish not to have personal experience of evil? Do you think that if you do not obtain such experience of evil you must forever be a child?

If you have any such feeling, I just bid you contemplate Jesus of Nazareth. Does He make upon you any impression of immaturity or childishness? Was He lacking in some experience that is necessary to the highest manhood?... If that is the way you think of Jesus, even unbelievers, if they are at all thoughtful, will correct you. No, Jesus makes upon all thoughtful persons the impression of complete maturity and tremendous strength. With unblinking eyes He contemplates the evil of the human heart. "He knew what was in man" (John 2:25), says the Gospel according to John. Yet He never had those experiences of sin which fools think to be necessary if innocence is to be transcended and the highest manhood to be attained. From His spotless purity and His all-conquering strength, that ancient lie that experience of evil is necessary if man is to attain the highest good recoils naked and ashamed."

- from "The Fall of Man" by J. Gresham Machen

"Dear Christian, in affliction abide in Christ.
When thou seest it coming, meet it in Christ;
when it is come feel that thou art more in Christ than in it,
for He is nearer thee than affliction ever can be;
when it is passing, still abide in Him.
And let the one thought of the Saviour, as He speaks of the pruning, and the one desire of the Father, as He does the pruning, be thine too:
"Every branch that beareth fruit, He purgeth, that it may bring forth more fruit."


So shall thy times of affliction becomes thy times of choicest blessing, - preparation for richest fruitfulness.
Led into closer fellowship with the Son of God, and deeper experience of his love and grace, -
established in the blessed confidence that He and thou entirely belong to each other, -
more completely satisfied with Him and more wholly given up to Him than ever before, -
with thine own will crucified afresh, and the heart brought into deeper harmony with God's will, - thou shalt be a vessel cleansed, meet for the Master's use, prepared for every good work."

- from Abide in Christ by Andrew Murray