Faith and Obedience

“The Christian life does not just evolve. It also requires specific decisions and public commitments to deepen our faith and obedience.” ~ Mark Galli (Chaos and Grace: Discovering the Liberating Work of the Holy Spirit) 

God's Joy in the Midst of It All

"When Jesus speaks about the world, he is very realistic. He speaks about wars and revolutions, earthquakes, plagues and famines, persecution and imprisonment, betrayal, hatred and assassinations. There is no suggestion at all that these signs of the world’s darkness will ever be absent. But still, God’s joy can be ours in the midst of it all. It is the joy of belonging to the household of God whose love is stronger than death and who empowers us to be in the world while already belonging to the kingdom of joy." ~ Henri J. M. Nouwen (Return to the Prodigal Son) 

God Sees...

"The most hurtful, harmful things that were said to you did not escape the notice or the attention of God." ~ Nancy Leigh DeMoss

Doing God's Work

"It broke me up, and broke through the chrysalis that was about me, and in some way taught and impressed me that desperation, earnestness, intensity, would win, God helping, in doing God's work." ~ Phineas F. Bresee (A Prince in Israel)

A Child's Character

“A Christian understanding of the world sees a child's character not as genetically determined but as shaped to a significant degree by parental discipleship and discipline.” ~ Russel Moore (Adopted for Life: The Priority of Adoption for Christian Families and Churches)

Beautiful People

"The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen. " ~ Elizabeth Kubler-Ross

Safeguard Against False Doctrine

"What is the best safeguard against false doctrine?  The Bible regularly read, regularly prayed over, regularly studied." ~ J.C. Ryle 

Live Well

"The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well." ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Be a Living Expression of God's Kindness

"Spread love everywhere you go: first of all in your own house. Give love to your children, to your wife or husband, to a next door neighbor... Let no one ever come to you without leaving better and happier. Be the living expression of God's kindness; kindness in your face, kindness in your eyes, kindness in your smile, kindness in your warm greeting." ~ Mother Teresa

Broken Heart?

"God will mend a broken heart if you give Him all the pieces." ~ Myrtie Stanton

People Pleasing is a Waste of Time

"We must give up the vain idea of trying to please everybody. That is impossible, and the attempt is a mere waste of time. We must be content to walk in Christ's steps, and let the world say what it likes." ~ J.C. Ryle

Soft & Lazy

“As we become soft and lazy in our bodies, we tend to become soft and lazy spiritually.”  ~ Jerry Bridges

Silence Develops Us

"Life is not to be regarded as an uninterrupted flow of words which is finally silenced by death. Its rhythm develops in silence, comes to the surface in moments of necessary expression, returns to deeper silence, culminates in a final declaration, then ascends quietly into the silence of Heaven which resounds with unending praise." ~ Thomas Merton

Risk Frustration

“To hope is to risk frustration.” ~ Thomas Merton

Into His Likeness

“Holiness, as taught in the Scriptures, is not based upon knowledge on our part. Rather, it is based upon the resurrected Christ in-dwelling us and changing us into His likeness.”  ~ A.W. Tozer

Be a Team Player

"The most important measure of how good a game I played was how much better I'd made my teammates play." ~ Bill Russell

Grow In Knowledge of God's Holiness

“As we grow in the knowledge of God's holiness, even though we are growing in the practice of holiness, it seems the gap between our knowledge and our practice always gets wider. This is the Holy Spirit's way of drawing us to more and more holiness.”  ~ Jerry Bridges

Do You Know God?

“If you don’t delight in the fact that your Father is holy, holy, holy, then you are spiritually dead. You may be in a church. You may go to a Christian school. But if there is no delight in your soul for the holiness of God, you don’t know God. You don’t love God. You’re out of touch with God. You’re asleep to his character.”  ~ R.C. Sproul

True Generosity

“That's what I consider true generosity: You give your all and yet you always 

feel as if it costs you nothing.” ~ Simone de Beauvoir

Live Intenionally

“Being generous often consists of simply extending a hand. That’s hard to do if you are grasping tightly to your righteousness, your belief system, your superiority, your assumptions about others, your definition of normal.” ~ Patti Dig (Life is a Verb: 37 Days to Wake Up, Be Mindful, and Live Intentionally)

A Happy Marriage

"A happy marriage is the union of two good forgivers." 

~ Ruth Bell Graham

Your Life Depends on It

"Go after a life of love as if your life depended on it ~ because it does." ~ Eugene Peterson

Jesus' Righteousness

“My righteousness is just as good as Jesus' righteousness, because it IS Jesus' righteousness!” ~ E.W. Kenyon 

Holier and Kinder

“If we are growing holier, we are growing kinder.” ~ Andrew Bonar

Love Illuminates

"Judging others makes us blind, whereas love is illuminating.  By judging others we blind ourselves to our own evil and to the grace which other as just as entitled to as we are." ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Reach Out to God

"Prayer means that the total you is praying. Your whole being reaches out to God, and God reaches down to you." ~ E.S. Jones

Hunger & Thirst

"Christianity has nothing to say to the person who is completely happy with the way things are. Its message is for those who hunger and thirst--for those who desire life as it was meant to be." ~ John Eldredge (The Journey of Desire)

Be Very Careful

"Let us be very careful that we never exalt any minister, or sermon, or book, or friend above the Word of God." ~ J.C. Ryle

A Bold & Beautiful Testimony

"Our world does not need to hear more people talk about God or even about Jesus if those people do not have a lifestyle that reinforces every word they utter. The interesting thing is that the closer we walk in intimacy with God, the less we have to say. Our very lives become a bold and beautiful testimony to the purity, the freedom, and the beauty of the Lord Jesus." ~ Dennis F. Kinlaw

Busy, Busy, Busy

"Busy, busy, busy. What if being busy is keeping us from our most important work, which is loving God and one another?" ~ Lillian Daniel 

The Litmus Test

"The litmus test of our love for God is our love of neighbor." ~ Brennan Manning

Put It on the Altar

"We must lay before Him what is in us; not what ought to be in us." ~ C.S. Lewis (How To Pray: Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer)

We Are All Debtors

"We are all debtors. Our success is possible only by the hard work of others. Indeed, our success may rest on what others considered their failures." ~ Maurice

Power Only in Jesus

"The fear of punishment, the desire of reward, the sense of duty, are all useful arguments in their way, to persuade people to holiness. But they are ll weak and powerless, until a person loves Christ." ~ J.C. Ryle

Worthwhile Endeavor

"Most worthwhile endeavors - whether they involve housework and chores, schoolwork, serving outside the home or providing hospitality within, or training our children to be servants of the Lord-end up taking more time energy, effort, and character than we ever thought they would." ~ Sally Clarkson (The Ministry of Motherhood)

What Are You Searching For?

“Why do so many today want to wander off to South Africa or Kenya or India or Russia or Honduras or Costa Rica or Peru to help with justice issues but not spend the same effort in their own neighborhood or community or state? Why do young suburbanites, say in Chicago, want to go to Kentucky or Tennessee to help people but not want to spend that same time to go to the inner city in their own area to help with justice issues? I asked this question to a mature student in my office one day, and he thought he had a partial explanation: 'Because my generation is searching for experiences, and the more exotic and extreme the better. Going down the street to help at a food shelter is good and it is just and some of us are doing that, but it's not an experience. We want experiences.” ~ Scot McKnight

Change & Transformation

“By giving us control, our new technologies tend to enhance existing idols in our lives. Instead of becoming more like Christ through the forming and shaping influence of the church community, we form, and shape, and personalize our community to make it more like us. We take control of things that are not ours to control. Could it be that our desire for control is short-circuiting the process of change and transformation God wants us to experience through the mess of real world, flesh and blood, face-to-face relationships?” ~ Tim Challies (The Next Story: Life and Faith after the Digital Explosion)

Scars Can Be Opportunities

“Fortunately, God made all varieties of people with a wide variety of interests and abilities. He has called people of every race and color who have been hurt by life in every manner imaginable. Even the scars of past abuse and injury can be the means of bringing healing to another. What wonderful opportunities to make disciples!” ~ Charles R. Swindoll

Pray...

"I can no longer condemn or hate a brother for whom I pray, no matter how much trouble he causes me." ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer

For You...

Please click the link below for an incredible article that will encourage you in your walk of life...

"You find yourself in losing yourself. You find yourself in the midst of the mundane, in the simple service unobserved. It is in the quiet flourishing of gifts that go unheralded. Who are you? You are more than others see. You are the sum of your moments lived not for worldly accolades, but lived for the pure pleasure of God." ~ Catherine Claire Lawson