God's Faithfulness

Often times God demonstrates His faithfulness in adversity by providing for us what we need to survive. He does not change our painful circumstances. He sustains us through them.

~ Charles Stanley

Hopeless?

When you say that a situation or a person is hopeless, you are slamming the door in the face of God.

~ Charles L. Allen

It's not enough to discuss issues, pray about them, and merely feel inspired by them. No, to actually participate in the Beautiful Fight, we have to find ways to put them into action.

~ Gary Thomas (The Beautiful Fight)

Behave how?

We must always behave with good manners, realizing that the Lord is present.

~ Clement of Alexandria

What Can't You Stand?

Whether you're a high-powered marketplace person, a stay-at-home mom, a full-time student, or something altogether different , you (yes you) can join God in making what is wrong in this world right! And it all starts with you finding your holy discontent; it begins with you determining what it is that you just can't stand.

~ Bill Hybels (Holy Discontent)

He became what we are...

He became what we are that we might become what he is.

~ Athanasius

Maturity comes with...

Maturity doesn't come with age; it comes with acceptance of responsibility.

~ Ed Cole

Crumbs or T-Bone

Suppose someone should offer me a plateful of crumbs after I had eaten a T-bone steak. I would say, "No, thank you. I am already satisfied." Christian, that is the secret - you can be so filled with the things of Christ, so enamoured with the things of God that you do not have time for the sinful pleasures of the world.

~ Billy Graham

What is the Church?

The church is to be a community reflecting God's passion for righteousness, justice, and mercy. When we are that holy community, we make an impact on an unholy world, no matter how desperate the circumstances.

~ Charles Colson (Opening Windows p. 250)

Praise Him!

As a group we praise in church - at least we sing hymns and recite words meant to express praise. As individuals we praise in private. But in between those two experiences we are often too shy to say anything in praise of God, whether at work, in the hardware store, at the movie, or over dinner. Our praise clusters in church and in personal devotions; it does not spread throughout our lives. Thus, not surprisingly, our sense of Jesus' presence tends to be restricted to church and devotions, rather than spreading through all of our life.

~ Tim Stafford (Opening Windows pp. 244-245)

Are You God's Minister?

All of God's people are ministers; a few are Ministers with a capital M. We are either good ministers or bad ministers; but ministers we are, and as ministers we shall be judged by the Lord on the last day. On that day, it won't matter how much we knew, but what we did with what we knew. Were we loving channels through whom the divine resources could come? Did we meet the needs of others to the glory of God?

~ Warren Wiersbe (Opening Windows p. 238)

Think like a Survivor

I have some significant life wounds by this point. Don't we all? But I want to feel that I have done more than suffered with these pains. I want to know that I have turned them into learning experiences, builders of interior character. I want to experience "beauty for ashes" as I review the unfolding of my life. May my life deepen, not wither because of painful life experiences.

~ Valerie Bell (Opening Windows pp. 231-232)

What is of Supreme Worth?

In light of eternity much of what we count of supreme worth will be seen as trivia.

~ Gladys Hunt (Opening Windows p. 199)

Hunger

"I once heard someone observe that spiritual eating operates in the opposite way from physical eating. If we don't eat physically, we grow hungry . Once we consume food, the hunger subsides, and we feel satisfied. If we don't eat spiritually, we can lose our spiritual appetite. The less we eat spiritually, the less hungry we become. But the more we are nourished by the Word of God, the hungrier we become for spiritual food."

~ Cynthia Heald (Opening Windows p. 102)

How to Maintain Strength and Energy

It is necessary to eat every day to maintain strength and energy. When we don't, our bodies weaken. The same is true with our spirits. To maintain spiritual strength, we must feed our spirits every day with the Word of God, our spiritual food. I think God required the Israelites to gather manna every morning so that they would learn to come to Him daily.

~ Cynthia Heald (Opening Windows p. 102)

Prayer in Faith vs. Faith in Prayer

"There is a vast difference between prayer in faith and faith in prayer. Faith in prayer is very common. Prayer in faith is so uncommon that our Lord questions if He will find any of it on the earth when He comes back [Luke 18:8]. Prayer in faith is commanded duty; it is always reverently making known our requests unto God in full confidence that, if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us; and that according to our faith an answer to our prayers will be granted us."

~ Corrie ten Boom (Opening Windows pp. 66-67)

Bibles

Voltaire expected that within fifty years of his lifetime there would not be one Bible in the world. His house is now a distribution centre for Bibles in many languages.

~ Corrie Ten Boom

God's Answer isn't always what we want...

"Lord, your answer to physical healing (for Joni that answer was no) meant yes to a deeper healing-a better one. Your answer has bound me to other believers and taught me so much about myself. It's purged sin from my life, it's strengthened my commitment to you, forced me to depend on your grace. Your wiser, deeper answer has stretched my hope, refined my faith, and helped me to know you better. And you are good. You are so good."

~ Joni Eareckson Tada (The God I Love)

What do we aim for?

"The destined end of man is not happiness, nor health, but holiness. God's one aim is the production of saints."

~ Oswald Chambers

Let's be motivated by...

"When we are tempted, let's be motivated not only by our love for God, and our desire to see God glorified. (Lofty as those are, sometimes they seem insufficient to motivate us.) Let's also be motivated by our desire for life rather than death, and gain rather than loss. Let's be motivated by our desire to live smart rather than to live stupid. Let's realize that the passing cost of discipleship, real though it be, pales in comparison to the lasting cost of non-discipleship." Randy Alcorn

Death is like...

Your death will be like the final buzzer at a basketball game. No shots taken thereafter will count. If you've failed to use your use your money and possessions and time and talent and energies for eternity—then you've failed, period.

At your death, the autobiography you've written with the pen of faith and the ink of works will go into eternity unedited, to be seen and read as is by the angels, by the redeemed, and by God himself.

~ Randy Alcorn (In Light of Eternity)

God's Grace

Your worst days are never so bad that you are beyond the reach of God's grace. And your best days are never so good that you are beyond the need of God's grace.

~ Jerry Bridges (The Disciplines of Grace)

What does Christianity do?

"Christianity proposes not to extinguish our natural desires. It promises to bring the desires under just control and direct them to their true object."

~ William Wilberforce

Road to hell

"The safest road to hell is the gradual one—the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts."

~ C.S. Lewis, quoted in Lord Foulgrin's Letters by Randy Alcorn

Prayer Affects God

"If we believe God's word, we are bound to believe that prayer affects God, and affects Him mightily; that prayer avails, and that prayer avails mightily. There are wonders in prayer because there are wonders in God. Prayer has no talismanic influence. It is no mere fetish. It has no so-called powers of magic. It is simply making known our requests to God for things agreeable to His will in the name of Christ. It is just yielding our requests to a Father, who knows all things, who has control of all things, and who is able to do all things. Prayer is infinite ignorance trusting to the wisdom of God. Prayer is the voice of need crying out to Him who is inexhaustible in resources. Prayer is helplessness reposing with childlike confidence on the word of its Father in heaven. Prayer is but the verbal expression of the heart of perfect confidence in the infinite wisdom, the power and the riches of Almighty God, who has placed at our command in prayer everything we need."

~ E.M. Bounds

Trials and Pain

"The man of true faith may live in the absolute assurance that his steps are ordered by the Lord. For him, misfortune is outside the bounds of possibility. He cannot be torn from this earth one hour ahead of the time which God has appointed, and he cannot be detained on earth one moment after God is done with him here. He is not a waif of the wide world, a foundling of time and space, but a saint of the Lord and the darling of His particular care."

~ A.W. Tozer (Trials and Pain: Ordered by the Lord)

Hope

"Hope is the light at the end of life's tunnel. It not only makes the tunnel endurable, it fills the heart with anticipation of the world into which we will one day emerge. Not just a better world, but a new and perfect world. A world alive, fresh, beautiful, devoid of pain and suffering and war, a world without disease, without accident, without tragedy. A world without dictators and madmen. A world ruled by the only one worthy of ruling."

~ Randy Alcorn (The Gift of Hope)

Costly Grace

"Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a man must knock. Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life."

~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer (The Cost of Discipleship)

Thirst for Joy

When my thirst for joy is satisfied by Christ, sin becomes unattractive. I say no to the passing pleasures of immorality, not because I do not want pleasure, but because I want true pleasure, a greater and lasting pleasure that can be found only in Christ.

~ Randy Alcorn (The Purity Principle)

Live in Such a Way...

Live in such a way as to hear your Lord say to you one day, "Well done." Get on the right side of the universe's moral system. Honor God by living in sexual purity. If you do, you'll experience his blessing and rewards not only today, tomorrow, and ten years from now, but throughout eternity.

~ Randy Alcorn "Guidelines for Sexual Purity"

Fix Your Eyes on Jesus

May we fix our eyes on the eternal Joy purchased for us on the cross of Jesus. No matter what difficulty today or tomorrow may bring, it is overshadowed by what awaits us in the redeemed heavens and earth.

~ Randy Alcorn

See Hebrews 12:2

What are you sure of?

When I was young, I was sure of many things; now there are only two things of which I am sure: one is, that I am a miserable sinner; and the other, that Christ is an all-sufficient Saviour. He is well-taught who learns these two lessons.

~ John Newton

What Is Jesus Like?

People today should only have to look at us to see what Jesus is like. For better or worse, they'll draw conclusions about Christ from what they see in us. If we fail the grace test, we fail to be Christlike. If we fail the truth test, we fail to be Christlike. If we pass both tests, we're like Jesus. A grace-starved, truth-starved world needs Jesus, full of grace and truth. So what does this hungry world see when it looks at us?

~ Randy Alcorn (The Grace and Truth Paradox)