This is a short and sweet story of Dwight Lyman Moody. I first heard about him through my discipler, Stephen Kim, after I became a Christian. Moody was one of his favorite Christian not in the Bible. He proceeded to tell me a story about how Moody would mark his Bible with the initials “T.P.” When asked what they were for, he explained that they stood for “Tested” and “Proven.” I was moved! I decided that I was going to live my Christian life “testing and proving” God’s promises in the Bible. Moody was born in 1837 and died in 1899, but his life and work still impacts us today. He was famous for being a lay evangelist, that is, someone who was not an ordained preacher. He started a church in Chicago, the Illinois Street Church, and was the founder of Northfield School for Girls, Mount Hermon School for Boys, and Moody Bible Institute. His ministry impacted people in United States as well as Britain.

At 17, Moody came to Boston to work at his uncle’s shoe store, and had a dream of becoming a rich person. However, his Sunday School teacher, Edward Kimball, visited him at work, and in the end received Jesus as his Savior in the back of the store. His life dramatically changed and he made his life purpose to share the gospel with the lost every day of his life. He was especially drawn to those who were unloved, outcasts, and poor of the society. Even after he lost his church and home to the Great Chicago Fire, he continued to dedicate his life to reaching the lost with the gospel. He was famous for saying, “Faith makes all things possible… Love makes all things easy.” He didn’t just say it, but lived it as best he could.

Here are some of my favorite quotes of D. L. Moody. Do you have a favorite D.L. Moody quote?

“How many souls did you lead to Christ last year?”

“When I pray, I talk to God, but when I read the Bible, God is talking to me…I believe we should know better how to pray if we knew our Bibles better.”

“All the churches in the world can’t save a soul.  It is not to have faith in this church or that church, this doctrine or that doctrine, this man or that man, but it is to have faith in the man Christ Jesus at the right hand of God.  That is the only faith that will ever save a soul.”

“We are poor ambassadors and messengers; but never mind the messenger, take hold of the message–that is what you want.”

“Yet if I had ten thousand lives, Jesus Christ should have every one of them.”

“The men who have had power with God in prayer have always begun by confessing their sins.”

“So there is a scarlet thread running through the Bible–the whole book points to Christ.”

“When we know our Bible, then it is that God can use us.”

“Many people have the Bible in their heads, or in their pockets; but we need to get it down into our hearts.”