Choices

“The choice we face is not, as many imagine, between heaven and hell. Rather, the choice is between heaven and this world. Even a fool would exchange hell for heaven; but only the wise will exchange this world for heaven.” ~ Dave Hunt, An Urgent Call To A Serious Faith

Look at God

"If you look at the world, you'll be distressed. If you look within, you'll be depressed. If you look at God you'll be at rest." ~ Corrie ten Boom

God Never Hurries

"God never hurries. There are no deadlines against which He must work. Only to know this is to quiet our spirits and relax our nerves." ~ A.W. Tozer (The Pursuit of God)

So Much to Do...

"I have so much to do that I shall spend the first three hours in prayer." ~ Martin Luther

Dream and Pray

"I continue to dream and pray about a revival of holiness in our day that moves forth in mission and creates authentic community in which each person can be unleashed through the empowerment of the Spirit to fulfill God's creational intentions." ~ John Wesley (How To Pray: The Best of John Wesley on Prayer)

Greatest Love

"Only when our greatest love is God, a love that we cannot lose even in death, can we face all things with peace. Grief was not to be eliminated but seasoned and buoyed up with love and hope" ~ Timothy Keller

Awkward Prayers

"Our prayers may be awkward. Our attempts may be feeble.  But since the power of prayer is in the One who hears it and not in the one who says it, our prayers do make a difference." ~ Max Lucado

Treasure of the Gospel

"How happy we would be if we could find the treasure of which the Gospel speaks; all else would be as nothing. As it is boundless, the more you search for it the greater the riches you will find; let us search unceasingly and let us not stop until we have found it." ~ Brother Lawrence (The Practice of the Presence of God)

Wake Up

"O God, wake me up to Jesus. Give me His passion for prayer and His passion for people." ~ Selwyn Hughes

Race, Face, Place, Grace

"Be not proud of race, face, place, or grace. " ~ Samuel Rutherford

On his deathbed...

"When Christ calls me Home I shall go with the gladness of a boy bounding away from school." ~ Adoniram Judson (on his deathbed)

Humble Yourself

"When I start the day by humbling myself and admitting that I can’t do things on my own, I can count on God to carry me through the day. Has He heard your voice yet today?" ~ Nancy Leigh DeMoss

Strength of the Soul

“Holiness is the strength of the soul. It comes by faith and through obedience to God's laws and ordinances. God then purifies the heart by faith, and the heart becomes purged from that which is profane and unworthy. When holiness is achieved by conforming to God's will, one knows intuitively that which is wrong and that which is right before the Lord. Holiness speaks when there is silence, encouraging that which is good or reproving that which is wrong.” ~ James E. Faust

Drifting...

"People do not drift toward holiness. Apart from grace-driven effort, people do not gravitate toward godliness, prayer, obedience to Scripture, faith, and delight in the Lord. We drift toward compromise and call it tolerance; we drift toward disobedience and call it freedom; we drift toward superstition and call it faith." ~ D. A. Carson

God's Invention

"Forgiveness is God's invention for coming to terms with a world in which, despite their best intentions, people are unfair to each other and hurt each other deeply. He began by forgiving us. And he invites us all to forgive each other."  ~ Lewis B. Smedes (Forgive & Forget: Healing the Hurts We Don't Deserve)

Push Back the Darkness

“Everything doesn't happen for a reason, if by this we mean evil is a part of God's plan. But God does ensure that evil will not prevail and that light will always, ultimately, overcome the darkness. If we follow God's lead, our work is to push back the darkness.” ~ Hamilton

A Gradual Death

"The truth is that our journey with God isn't really about living, and He never claimed it would be. It is, and has always been, a gradual death to everything we love outside of Him." ~ Angie Smith (Chasing God)

Be a Comforter

"God does not comfort us to make us comfortable, but to make us comforters." ~ Mrs. Charles E. Cowman

3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. ~ 2 Corinthians 1:3-4 (ESV)

To Heal

"He is present to heal the broken in heart and to bind up his wounds. His touch has still its ancient power. Still does the gracious Master speak with authority, "Woman, thou art loosed from thine infirmity." And immediately she is made straight. Then why do so many spiritual cripples leave the synagogue cripples still? Because they do not give the Healer a chance." ~ John Henry Jowett

Ordinary People

“When you look at your everyday circumstances though the lens of God’s perspective, everything changes. You come to realize that God uses each circumstance, each person who crosses your path, and each encounter you have with Him as a divine appointment. Each day counts, and every action and reaction matters. God absolutely loves to take ordinary people and do extraordinary things in them, through them, and with them.” ~ Lysa TerKeurst (What Happens When Women Say Yes to God)

As We Pray

"Help us this day and every day, 

To live more nearly as we pray."

~ John Keble

Peace

“Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding.” ~ Albert Einstein

An Adventure

"The Christian life is an adventure. Jesus doesn't ask us to join a new organization; he calls us to a life of commitment." ~ Douglas Connelly

Strive for Perfection

Perfection is what you're striving for, but perfection is an impossibility. However, striving for perfection is not an impossibility. Do the best you can under the conditions that exist. That is what counts. ~ John Wooden

Cure Us

"Cure us, O thou great Physician of souls, of all our sinful distempers, Cure us of this intermitting piety, and fix it into an even and a constant holiness." ~ John Wesley

What Counts...

"What counts is not my ability, but my usability." ~ E. Stanley Jones

Cruel...Compassionate...

"Nothing can be more cruel than the leniency which abandons others to their sin. Nothing can be more compassionate than the severe reprimand which calls another Christian in one's community back from the path of sin." ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Listen

"It might be well for us Christians to listen less to the news commentators and more to the voice of the Spirit." ~ A. W. Tozer

Control Me

"Dear Father, take this day's life into Thine own keeping. Control all my thoughts and feelings. Direct all my energies. Instruct my mind. Sustain my will. Take my hands and make them skillful to serve Thee. Take my feet and make them swift to do Thy bidding. Take my eyes and keep them fixed upon Thine everlasting beauty. Take my mouth and make it eloquent in testimony to Thy love." ~ John Baillie

Lord of All

“Jesus of Nazareth always comes asking disciples to follow him--not merely "accept him," not merely "believe in him," not merely "worship him," but to follow him: one either follows Christ, or one does not. There is no compartmentalization of the faith, no realm, no sphere, no business, no politic in which the lordship of Christ will be excluded. We either make him Lord of all lords, or we deny him as Lord of any.” ~ Lee Camp (Mere Discipleship: Radical Christianity in a Rebellious World)

Christian Weapon

"Prayer is a strong wall and fortress of the church; it is a goodly Christian weapon.” ~ Martin Luther

Only Light Can Put Out Darkness,

"Through violence you may murder a murderer but you can’t murder murder. Through violence you may murder a liar but you can’t establish truth. Through violence you may murder a hater, but you can’t murder hate. Darkness cannot put out darkness. Only light can do that." ~ Martin Luther King, Jr. 

Pray, Fast, Pray Always Fast

"Listen to the Spirit…. Love…love…love, never counting the cost. Go into the marketplace and stay with me. Pray, fast. Pray always, fast. Be hidden. Be a light to your neighbor’s feet. Go without fear into the depth of man’s heart. I shall be with you. Pray always. I will be your rest." ~ Catherine Doherty

Find Him

"Lord Jesus, assuage our blindness
and activate our hearts,
so that we may find your presence
hidden in ourselves.
May we unveil the mystery of Christ-with-us
and work toward the true restoration
of the whole world in your image.
Let your light shine in our hearts
so that we may always know
the truth of your love. Amen."

~ Thomas Merton

Secret of Living

"There is a fallow time for the spirit when the soil is barren…. Face it! Then resolutely dig out dead roots, clear the ground, … work out new designs by dreaming daring dreams and great and creative planning. The time is not wasted. The time of fallowness is a time of rest and restoration, of filling up and replenishing. It is the moment when the meaning of all things can be searched out, tracked down, and made to yield the secret of living. Thank God for the fallow time!" ~ Howard Thurman

The Consequence of Joy

"Joy is not a requirement of Christian discipleship, it is a consequence. It is not what we have to acquire in order to experience life in Christ; it is what comes to us when we are walking in the way of faith and obedience." ~ Eugene Peterson 

Our Lowest Depths

"The best prayer is to rest in the goodness of God, knowing that that goodness can reach down to our lowest depths of need." ~ Julian of Norwich

Gift to the World

"Whatever you do with your life—whatever you end up achieving or not achieving—the great gift you have in you to give to the world is the gift of who you alone are; your way of seeing things, and saying things, and feeling about things, that is like nobody else’s. If so much as a single one of you were missing, there would be an empty place at the great feast of life that nobody else in all creation could fill." ~ Frederick Buechner

Obedience

“The best measure of a spiritual life is not its ecstasies but its obedience.”
~ Oswald Chambers

Cultivate Goodness

“The modern world has forgotten the necessity of encouraging men to be better. They speak of sick men or healthy men, of interesting people or uninteresting people; they never, or seldom, indicate that there is and must be an interior and spiritual improvement in man before any of the glowing coals of humanity can be reached. They have cultivated everything but the goodness of man. The result of such shallowness is everywhere apparent.” ~ Francis Beauchesne Thornton