life was about to begin

"For a long time it had seemed to me that life was about to begin - real life. But there are always some obstacles in the way, something to be gotten through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, a debt to be paid. Then life would begin. At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life."

Alfred D. Souza.

longing after God

“I want deliberately to encourage this mighty longing after God. The lack of it has brought us to our present low estate. The stiff and wooden quality about our religious lives is a result of our lack of holy desire. Complacency is a deadly foe of all spiritual growth. Acute desire must be present or there will be no manifestation of Christ to His people. He wants to be wanted. Too bad that with many of us He waits so long, so very long, in vain.”

~A.W. Tozer

Peace comes when

"Peace comes when there is no cloud between us and God. Peace is the consequence of forgiveness, God's removal of that which obscures His face and so breaks union with Him. The happy sequence culminating in fellowship with God is penitence, pardon, and peace... the first we offer, the second we accept, and the third we inherit."

~ Charles H. Brent

What do we need?

"Calamity clarifies and comfort confuses; persecution purifies and prosperity pollutes!"

~ Kevin Turner

I have no talent to...

"Too often we say, "I have no talent to teach a Sunday school class." "My home is not nice enough to have a Bible study here." "I don't cook well enough to help with Meals on Wheels." "I'm a businessman, not a carpenter. I wouldn't know the first thing about building a house for Habitat for Humanity." When we step out in faith and offer all we have, God will use it in powerful ways. How much is enough? Just what we have when God is with us!"

~ Jane Douglas White

Human Faces

How rich is anyone who can simply see human faces.

~ Corrie Ten Boom

I used to ask why...

"I used to ask why I get to live with such abundance while other people starve. And I think God told me because those who are given abundance are given it to share."

~ Lisa Samson (Justice in the Burbs: Being the Hands of Jesus Wherever You Live)

How to read...

"George Muller observed that we’re apt to read the Word and think about others’ needs rather than ponder it for ourselves. Parents read it for their children, evangelists read it for their congregations, and teachers read it for their students. “Read the Word of God always with reference to your own heart.” Muller advises."

~ Taken from How to Read the Bible So It Changes Your Life by Aletha Hinthorn

Social responsibility...

"Social responsibility becomes an aspect not of Christian mission only, but also of Christian conversion. It is impossible to be truly converted to God without being thereby converted to our neighbour."

~ John R. W. Stott

God does not judge the condition or quality of His church...

"God does not judge the condition or quality of His church by how good the meetings are on Sunday morning, but by how good the people are on Monday morning. The main calling of our life is more than just knowing the truth - — it is having that truth become our life."

~ Rick Joyner

Think what a local church would be like if...

"Think what a local church would be like if its people were radically devoted to Christ, irrevocably committed to each other, and relentlessly dedicated to reaching outside of God’s family with the gospel of Christ.

It would be a church against which the gates of Hell could not prevail. It would be an unstoppable force for good in the community, an inspiration to other churches, and a testimony to God’s unfailing grace."

~ Bill Hybels
Senior Pastor
Willow Creek Community Church

Where are your treasures?

"Tragically, many Christians store up most of their treasures on Earth. So every day that moves them closer to death moves them farther from their treasures. They end up backing into eternity, heading away from their treasures, clinging to a fallen world that hasn’t been especially kind to them."

"People who spend their lives moving away from their treasures have reason to despair. People who spend their lives moving toward their treasures have reason to rejoice. Are you moving away from your treasures or moving toward them? Are you despairing or rejoicing?"

~ Randy Alcorn (50 Days of Heaven: Reflections that Bring Eternity to Light)

Life is full of...

"Life is full of so many pursuits, many of them worthwhile. We get a job, we buy a house, we have kids. This is normal life in the West. Yet frequently the stuff of this normal life so dominates our time and attention that we fail to see issues greater than ourselves. If we are never interrupted, and if we do not intentionally strive to raise people to value the stranger and the need in the ways God does, everyday activities will crowd out God’s call on our lives."

~ Will and Lisa Samson (Justice in the Burbs: Being the Hands of Jesus Wherever You Live)

Praying God's Will

"Praying in God's will is not easy, yet it's very simple. The secret is a commitment of every single thing that comes into our lives to God and His perfect will, until we not longer want anything that is not His will.

And it's exciting to live in complete oneness with the will of God. It is never dull or static because it is not a one-time, once-for-all commitment. It is something we have to work at constantly, moment by moment. But the most exciting part is seeing God answer - when it is His will - and ours."

~ Evelyn Christenson (A Journey into Prayer)

Possessions...

We think we own our possessions, but too often they own us. Nothing makes a journey more difficult than a heavy backpack filled with nice but unnecessary things.

Pilgrims travel light.
~ Randy Alcorn

...as we mature...

"Yet as we mature, we must begin to see the Bible for what it is - the story of God's faithfulness to a flawed, rough, often cruel people."

~ Will and Lisa Samson (Justice in the Burbs: Being the Hands of Jesus Wherever You Live)

You must give up...

"You must give up your right to decide what is good and evil on your own terms. That is a hard pill to swallow; choosing to only live in me (referencing the Holy Spirit or Sarayu as mentioned in the book). To do that you must know me enough to trust me and learn to rest in my inherent goodness."

~ William Paul Young (The Shack)

Power in the Blood of Jesus

The blood of Jesus Christ has great power! There is perhaps not a phrase in the Bible that is so full of secret truth as is "The blood of Jesus." It is the secret of His incarnation, when Jesus took on flesh and blood; the secret of His obedience unto death, when He gave His life at the cross of Calvary; the secret of His love that went beyond all understanding when He bought us with His blood; the secret of the enemy and the secret of our eternal salvation.

~ Corrie Ten Boom

Justice in the Burbs

"Justice cries out from so many corners of our society. But unless events break into our lives - events like a man peddling for change on the corner or a picture on TV of a child living in poverty - and force us to ask questions, we often do not notice. Unless our lives are interrupted by an uncommon means, we tend to keep up business as usual. We need to be interrupted."

- Will Samson from Justice in the Burbs: Being the Hands of Jesus Wherever You Live

...humans are not defined by...

"Remember this, humans are not defined by their limitations, but by the intentions that I have for them; not by what they seem to be, but by everything it means to be created in My image."

~ William Paul Young (The Shack)

Adversity is not simply a tool...

"Adversity is not simply a tool. It is God's most effective tool for the advancement of our spiritual lives. The circumstances and events that we see as setbacks are oftentimes the very things that launch us into periods of intense spiritual growth. Once we begin to understand this, and accept it as a spiritual fact of life, adversity becomes easier to bear."

~ Charles Stanley

A family without commitment...

"A family without a commitment to the God of the Bible has no hope of stemming the tide of cultural onslaught. If we mix a little biblical truth, a little secular psychology, a little romance novel idology, and a little eastern mysticism, we will get a deadly mixture of lies. Unfortunately, this is what many Christian families do . . . If we are to experience multigeneraltional faithfulness we must come to a place where we throw off the shackles of our culture and live in the fullness that is found only in Christ. We must be people who live the Word in our homes."

~ Voddie T. Baucham, Jr.

Leadership

"Leadership must be demonstrated, not announced."

~ Fran Tarkenton

...too easily pleased.

"We are half-hearted creatures like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased."

~ C. S. Lewis
Into The Wardrobe

Man's reluctance to accept God's correction

"We want, in fact, not so much a father in heaven as a grandfather in heaven: a senile benevolence who, as they say, "liked to see young people enjoying themselves" and whose plan for the universe was simply that it might be truly said at the end of each day, "A good time was had by all."

(Speaking of man's reluctance to accept God's correction and discipline.)
~ C. S. Lewis
Into The Wardrobe

...great faith...

We often think of great faith as something that happens spontaneously so that we can be used for a miracle or healing. However, the greatest faith of all, and the most effective, is to live day by day trusting Him. It is trusting Him so much that we look at every problem as an opportunity to see His work in our life. It is not worrying, but rather trusting and abiding in the peace of God that will crush anything that Satan tries to do to us.

~ Rick Joyner

Snarling at other folks is not...

"Snarling at other folks is not the best way of showing the superior quality of your own character. He is blind who thinks he sees everything. The observant man recognizes many mysteries into which he can not pretend to see, and he remembers that the world is too wide for the eye of one man. But the modern sophists are sure of everything, especially if it contradicts the Bible."

~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon

I will trust Him...

"I will trust Him. Whatever, wherever I am, I can never be thrown away. If I am in sickness, my sickness may serve Him; in perplexity, my perplexity may serve Him; if I am in sorrow, my sorrow may serve Him. My sickness, or perplexity, or sorrow may be necessary causes of some great end, which is quite beyond us. He does nothing in vain."

~ John Henry Newman

Great grief prays with...

"Great grief prays with great earnestness. Prayer is not a collection of balanced phrases; it is the pouring out of the soul. What is love if it be not fiery? What are prayers if the heart be not ablaze? They are the battles of the soul. In them men wrestle with principalities and powers...The prayer that prevails is not the work of lips and fingertips. It is the cry of a broken heart and the travail of a stricken soul."

Samuel Chadwick

Revival is...

"Revival is waiting for us on the streets. It is hiding from us in nursing homes and prisons. It is calling to us from foreign fields and obscure places. Crying, yearning for even one person that will rise from the confines of normality and pursue it. One person that will approach the throne of grace with boldness and expect a miracle. That will stand on a street corner and wait for its shadow to pass by. Knowing that at any minute the wind that blows where it listeth may touch down in that very spot. Exploding, expanding everything that it touches. revival is a fire. And souls are its kindling."

Chad Taylor

My fear...

"My fear is not that our great movement, known as the Methodists, will eventually cease to exist or one day die from the earth. My fear is that our people will become content to live without the fire, the power, the excitement, the supernatural element that makes us great."

~ John Wesley

Revival...

"We don't understand revival; in fact, we don't even have the slightest concept of what true revival is. For generations we have thought of revival in terms of a banner across the road or over a church entryway. We think revival means a silver-tongued preacher, some good music, and a few folks who decide they're going to join the church. No! Real revival is when people are eating at a restaurant or walking through the mall when they suddenly begin to weep and turn to their friends and say, "I don't know what's wrong with me, but I now I've got to get right with God."

~ Tommy Tenney in The God Chasers

...lose interest...

"It is easy to lose interest when there is no commitment."

~ as seen on a church sign in Lufkin, TX

People are...

"People are unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered. Love them anyway. If you do good, people may accuse you of selfish motives. Do good anyway. If you are successful, you may win false friends and true enemies. Succeed anyway. The good you do today may be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway. Honesty and transparency make you vulnerable. Be honest and transparent anyway. What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight. Build anyway. People who really want help may attack you if you help them. Help them anyway. Give the world the best you have and you may get hurt. Give the world your best anyway."

~ Mother Teresa

...believe what we choose...

"We can believe what we choose. We are answerable for what we choose to believe."

~ John Henry Newman

Future?

Men do not decide their future. They decide their habits and their habits decide their future.

~ Unknown

New Year...

"A new year – a book of blank pages waiting to be filled. It is easy to fall prey to doubts and questions about unknown days before me. But maybe God’s will for my life is far greater than knowing what path my life will take, what career choice I will make or what job change will occur. Maybe God’s will is simply for me to service Him and love Him and share His love with others. So simple, yet so complete. There is no need for lofty resolutions, no need for fear – I will begin my days with prayer; I will listen, and God and I will walk together. he will help me through the rest, one day at a time."

~ Author Unknown

If anything matters then everything matters...

"If anything matters then everything matters. Because you are important, everything you do is important. Every time you forgive, the universe changes; every time you reach out and touch a heart or a life, the world changes; with every kindness and service, seen or unseen, my purposes are accomplished and nothing will ever be the same again."

~ William P. Young in The Shack