These are quotes that I've collected since the late 80's. Sorry for the formatting issues when posted. Each quote is given a summary title, and those titles are in alphabetical order. Hope it will be a blessing to someone...
Activism
“The world needs dreamers and the world needs doers. But
above all, the world needs dreamers who do.” Unknown
Adversity
“Adversity introduces a man to himself.” Unknown
Affluence
“A society that pursues pleasure runs the risk of raising
expectations even higher, so that true contentment always lies tantalizingly
out of reach.”
“Affluence and overindulgence have made the modern industrialized West a difficult place to experience pleasure.” Paul Brand with Philip Yancey in an article on suffering
Ambition
“Ambition! We must be careful what we mean by it. If it
means the desire to get ahead of other people- which is what I think it does
mean- then it is bad. If it means simply wanting to do a thing well, then it is
good. It isn’t wrong for an actor to want to act his part as well as it can
possibly be acted, but the wish to have his name in bigger type than the other
actors is a bad one.” C.S. Lewis, God in the Dock (1944)
American Mentality
“Make all you can, can all you get, and sit on top of the
can.” Rick Warren “and let it spoil.”J
Scott Gunn
Angels
“Angels can fly because they take themselves lightly.”
Anxiety
“Anxiety is nothing… but repeatedly re-experiencing failure
in advance. What a waste.” Seth Godin
Apologetics
“The best argument for Christianity is Christians: their
joy, their certainty, their completeness. But the strongest argument against
Christianity is also Christians- when they are somber and joyless, when they
are self-righteous and smug in complacent consecration, when they are narrow
and repressive, then Christianity dies a thousand deaths.” Sheldon Vanauken, A
Severe Mercy
Application
A man pacing outside a church says, “Is the sermon done
yet?” Answer- “It has been preached, but it hasn’t been done yet.”
Aspirations
“When I was a young man I believed I could reach the moon,
but when I became a man I wouldn’t want to even if I could.”
Attitude
“Our attitudes determine our altitudes.” Rev. Jim Hord
“If your house is on fire, warm yourself by it.” Spanish
proverb
“Two men looked out from prison bars; one saw mud, the other stars.”
“Some people are more talented than others. Some are more
educationally privileged than others. But we all have the capacity to be great.
Greatness comes with recognizing that your potential is limited only by how you
choose, how you use your freedom, how resolute you are- in short, by your
attitude. And we are all free to choose our attitude.” Peter Koestenbaum,
interviewed by Polly Labarre in Fast Company
Avoidance
"The tendency to avoid pain and suffering is the
primary basis of all human mental illness." -Dr. Scott Peck
Balance
"Imagine life is a game in which you are juggling five
balls. The balls are called work, family, health, friends, and integrity. And
you’re keeping all of them in the air. But one day, you finally come to
understand that work is a rubber ball. If you drop it, it will bounce back. The
other four balls — family, health, ...friends, integrity — are made of glass.
If you drop one of these, it will be irrevocably scuffed, nicked, perhaps even
shattered. And once you truly understand the lesson of the five balls, you will
have beginnings of balance in your life."
— James Patterson, Suzanne’s Diary for Nicholas
— James Patterson, Suzanne’s Diary for Nicholas
“A balanced person is a healthy person and a healthy person
is a growing person.”
Beauty
“Beauty is as beauty does.” Old saying
Being
“What you do emerges from who you are. Being precedes
doing.” Chuck Colson
Beliefs
"Believe His promises, obey His commands, do whatever
He says. (You only really believe that which motivates to action. Until it
changes our behavior we're just trafficking the truth.)" Dan Page
“The great Christian revolutions come not by discovery of
something that was not known before. They happen when somebody takes radically
something that was always there.” H. Richard Niebuhr
“Seek not to understand to believe but believe to
understand.” St. Augustine
“Belief is something you will argue about. Conviction is
something you will die for.”
Benediction
“And the God of grace, who called you to His eternal glory
in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will Himself restore you and
make you strong, firm, and steadfast. To Him be the power for ever and ever,
Amen.” 1 Peter 5: 10-11
“May the Lord disturb you and trouble you, May the Lord set
an impossible task before you, And have you meet it. May the Lord give you
strength to last, And then- but only then- may the Lord grant you peace.”
(heard in India) presented by David Seamands at the 1992 Minister’s Conference at
Asbury Theological Seminary
Ephesians 3: 14-21- a prayer for the Ephesians emphasizing
God’s power and love of Christ
“The Lord bless you and keep you;
The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to
you;
The Lord turn His face toward you and give you peace.”
Number 6: 24-26
Blessing
“Do you find that your life, full of God’s blessing, keeps
you from being full of God?” Ron Gifford when pastoring First Alliance Church,
Lexington, KY
Brokenness
"Man is born broken. He lives by mending. The grace of
God is the glue." Eugene O'Neill
Budget
“A budget is a theological document. It indicates who or
what we worship.”
Busyness
“The Desert Fathers (a protest against worldliness in the
early church) spoke of busyness as “moral laziness.” Busyness can also be an
addictive drug, which is why its victims are increasingly referred to as
“workaholics.” Busyness can also be an addictive drug, which is why its victims
are increasingly referred to as “workaholics.” Busyness acts to repress our
inner fears and personal anxieties, as we scramble to achieve an enviable image
to display to others. We become “outward” people, obsessed with how we appear,
rather than “inward” people, reflecting on the meaning of our lives. James
Houston in the Transforming Power of Prayer
Calling
"The place God calls you to, is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet." Frederick Buechner
Calling
"The place God calls you to, is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet." Frederick Buechner
Capital Punishment
“We may kill if necessary, but we must not hate and enjoy
hating. We may punish if necessary, but we must not enjoy it… Even while we
kill and punish we must try to feel about the enemy as we feel about ourselves-
to wish that he were not bad, to hope that he may, in this world or another, be
cured: in fact, to wish his good. That is what is meant in the Bible by loving
him; wishing his good, not feeling fond of him nor saying he is nice when he is
not.” C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
Carnal
In speaking of spiritual maturity… “A baby is a digestive
apparatus with a loud noise on one end and no responsibility on the other.” C.
Moses
Cause
“I would rather lose in a cause that will some day win, than
win in a cause that will some day lose!” Woodrow Wilson
Change
“The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy
present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the
occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew.” Abraham
Lincoln
"I find it fascinating that most people plan their vacations with better care than they plan their lives. Perhaps that is because escape is easier than change." -- Jim Rohn
"I find it fascinating that most people plan their vacations with better care than they plan their lives. Perhaps that is because escape is easier than change." -- Jim Rohn
Challenge
"The purpose of
Goliath was to draw out in public what God gave David in private." Rusty Bissell
Character
"Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls;
the most massive characters are seared with scars." - Kahlil Gibran
"Be more concerned with your character than your
reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation
is merely what others think you are." -John Wooden
“The test of a man’s religious life and character is not
what he does in the exceptional times of life, but what he does in the ordinary
times, when there is nothing tremendous or exciting on. The worth of a man is
revealed in his attitude when he is not before the footlights.” Oswald Chambers
My Utmost for His Highest , Oct. 12th
“If you tell me how you get your feelings of importance,
I’ll tell you what you are. That
determines your character. That is the most significant thing about you.” Dale
Carnegie
“The man is more than the message. The message is credible
because the man is.” Dr. Ed Cole
“What you believe is the basis for conduct, character, and
destiny.” Dr. Ed Cole
“It may be tough to live morally and tougher to stand up to
immorality, but toughest of all is to live with the consequences of
immorality.” Dr. Ed Cole
“Character is defined by a man’s sense of direction, the
quality of a man’s choices, how a man handles his failures, how he responds to
adversity and disappointment, responds to his enemies and critics, relates to
the weak and the helpless, performs when on one is looking. “Bottom line: you
know the depth of your character when you’re alone and your mother isn’t
around.” “Character is defined by what a man dies for and how he does his
dying.” When Men Think Private Thoughts by Gordon MacDonald
“Character is like a tree and reputation is like a shadow.
The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing.” Abraham Lincoln
“Do not let your peace depend on the hearts of men; whatever they say about you, good or bad, you are not because of it another man, for as you are, you are.” Thomas Kempis The Imitation of Christ
“Character is much easier kept than recovered.” Thomas Paine
Choice
“Every time you make a choice you are turning the central
part of you into something a little different than it was before.” C. S. Lewis
Christian
“A mature Christian need not act from a sense of duty but a
sense of desire, for the very action that pleases God pleases self as well.”
Phillip Yancey
“A Christian is one who lives beyond his abilities and
understanding.” Friend Raising by Betty Barnett
Christianity
Someone has said, “Christianity was a relationship for the
early church fathers, then the movement reached Greece and became a philosophy,
then to Rome where it became a religion, the on to Europe where it became a
culture, then on to the U.S., where it became an enterprise.”
Christianity and Social Good
“[One looking at Christian activities would find that they
had,] as a mere matter of historical fact, been the agent which preserved such
secular civilization as survived the fall of the Roman Empire… he would find
that this same religion has always been healing the sick and caring for the
poor; that it has, more than any other, blessed marriage; and that arts and
philosophy tend to flourish in its neighborhood.” C.S. Lewis, God in the Dock,
“Some Thoughts”, p. 91
Church
“Beware when you take on the Church of God. Others have tried
and have bitten the dust.” Desmond Tutu in a speech (April 1987)
“The church is the only cooperative society that exists for
the benefits of non-members.” William Temple
“[Our call] is this: that in spite of all worldly opposition, God’s holy ordinances shall be established again in the home, in the school and in the state for the good of the people; to carve as it were into the conscience of the nation the ordinances of the Lord, to which the Bible and creation bear witness, until the nation pays homage again to God.” Abraham Keyper
“The task of the people of God is, as far as possible in a
sinful society, to reclaim the cosmos for God’s created purpose.” Carl F. Henry
“A great Commitment to the great Commandment and the Great
Commission will grow a Great Church.” Rick Warren, The Purpose-Driven Church
“I am my own church.” – respondent to Gallup poll on the
church
“He cannot have God for his father who does not have the
church for his mother.” Augustine
“The church is like Noah’s ark: The stench inside would be unbearable if it weren’t for the storm outside.” Chuck Colson, The Body, p. 73
“The church is against the world for the world.” Harford
Declaration, 1975
“The holiest moment of the church service is the moment when
God’s people- strengthened by preaching and the sacrament- go out of the church
door into the world to be the Church. We don’t go to church; we are the
church.” Ernest Southcott
Church Growth
“There is no single key to church health and church growth,
there are many keys. The church is not called to do one thing; it is called to
do many things. That’s why balance is important. I tell my staff that the ninth
Beatitude is, “Blessed are the balanced; for they shall outlast everyone else.”
Rick Warren, The Purpose Driven Life
Commissioned
“Invested with power, and the right to act.” Dr. David
Stevens
Commitment
“You no more need a holiday from spiritual concentration
than your heart needs a holiday from a beating.” Oswald Chambers, My Utmost For
His Highest, April 15th
"The irony of commitment is that it's deeply liberating - in work, in play, in love. The act frees you from the tyranny of your internal critic, from the fear that likes to dress itself up and parade around as rational hesitation. To commit is to remove your head as the barrier to your life." - Anne Morriss (on a Starbucks cup)
Committee
“A committee is a cul-de-sac down which ideas are lured and
then quietly strangled.” Sir Barnett Scott
Community
"You can't have community without trust, and you can't
have trust without truth... But when truth is whatever each individual wants it
to be, there's no common ground on which trust can be established. So trust
disappears. And where trust disappears, genuine, healthy community will
disappear." Tullian Tchividjian
“True community is the place where the person you least want
to be with always lives.” Henri Nouwen
“Comparison leads to competition. Competition kills
community.” Jim Dethmer
Complacency
“If I’ve got one fear, it’s not of falling into Hell, but
falling into nothing.” John Wesley to his brother, Charles
Connecting
“There is power within the life of every Christian waiting
to be released- a power that can lead to further and deeper change, a power
that can help someone else join more intimately to the heart of Christ, the
power to heal soul wounds. That power is released by connecting with the hearts
and souls of other people and allowing God’s grace to flow freely through us to
them.” Larry Crabb
Constructive Criticism
“I thank you for the criticism of my life. It set me to
self-examination and heart-searching and prayer, which always leads me into a
deeper sense of my utter dependence upon Jesus for holiness of heart and
righteousness in conduct, and into sweeter fellowship with Him through faith in
His name.” S. L. Brengle
“Now I am impressed by the fact that virtually all I have learned
has come from the mouths of my critics: both those who care for me and those
who feel animosity toward me. When we look for the kernel of truth , we find
growth, effectiveness, and room for spiritual passion.” Restoring Your
Spiritual Passion, Gordon MacDonald
Contentment
“Being happy with [God] now means: Loving as he loves,
Helping as he helps, Giving as he gives, Serving as he serves, Rescuing as he
rescues, Being with him twenty-four hours, Touching him in his distressing
disguise.” Mother Teresa in Teachings of the Christian Mystics
Courage
“God grant me the courage to change the things I can change;
the serenity to accept those I cannot change; the wisdom to know the
difference- but God grant me the courage not to give up what I think is right
even though I think it hopeless.” Adm. Chester W. Nimitz
"One of the lessons of 9/11 is that evil is real and so
is courage." George W. Bush
Coveting
The essence of covetousness
“It is the attitude that says I need something I do not have
in order to be happy.” Have no idea who said it.
Cross
“A cross is not pleasant. They nailed you up alive, and took
you down dead.” Rev. Max Morgan
“Love and holiness met at the cross in harmony. There was no
tension between the two.” Ron Gifford
“The only man-made thin in heaven are the scars of Jesus.”
James Hord
“He knows not his own strength that hath not met adversity.
Heaven prepares good men with crosses.” Ben Johnson
“I am not afraid of my cross. I would not choose a polished,
small one. How I carry my cross will depend upon the quality of my relationship
with Christ. An extraordinary one is my desire. Why compromise for mediocrity
when all of heaven and earth were brought together to make God personal to us?
I cannot achieve this is a day or ten years. Or a lifetime. But it is a pursuit
that must be continually active. No matter how many times I fail in my
humanity.” Ann Kiemel , I Love the Word Impossible
Credibility
Credibility is a funny thing... you can't spend it anywhere
other than where you earned it.
Criticism
"To avoid criticism say nothing, do nothing, and be
nothing." Aristotle
"Criticism, like rain, should be gentle enough to nourish a man's growth without destroying his roots." Frank Howard Clark
Cynicism
“A cynic is someone who knows the price of everything and
the value of nothing.” Oscar Wilde
Dating
“Dating is a basketball game with no rules; everyone gets
hurt.” Don Olson
Death
“I still live.” Irish tombstone epitaph
“God never lets us get so comfortable here that we forget
where our home is.” C.S. Lewis
“[Some say] that death ought not to be final, that there
ought to be a second chance. I believe that if a million chances were likely to
do good, they would be given. But a master often knows, when boys and parents
do not, that it is really useless to send a boy in for a certain examination
again. Finality must come sometime, and it does not require a very robust faith
to believe that omniscience knows when.” C. S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain
"Let us endeavor so to live that when we come to die even the undertaker
will be sorry.”
— Mark Twain
will be sorry.”
— Mark Twain
Defeat
“I am grateful for defeat. It is life. Life is where people
live.” Ann Kiemel Anderson
Democracy
“The real reason for democracy is… Mankind is so fallen that
no man can be trusted with unchecked power over his fellows. Aristotle said
that some people were only fit to be slaves. I do not contradict him. But I
reject slavery because I see no men fit to be masters.” C. S. Lewis, Present
Concerns: Essays by C. S. Lewis, “Equality”
Desire
“We are disgusted by the things that we desire, and we
desire what disgusts us.” New York Gov. Mario Cuomo in a speech (Newseek, Oct.
24, 1994)
“The place for which He designs them (human beings) in His
scheme of things is the place they are made for. When they reach it their
nature is fulfilled and their happiness attained: a broken bone in the universe
has been set, the anguish is over. When we want to be something other than the
thing God wants us to be, we must be want what, in fact, will not make us
happy.” C. S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain
Destiny
“Watch your thoughts they become words. Watch your words they
become actions. Watch your actions they become habits. Watch your habits they
become character. Watch your character it becomes your destiny.” -Patrick
Overton
Development
“Development is something we do WITH the champion, not TO
the champion.” Eric Foley
"You might properly say in your own case, 'To beg I am
ashamed;' but never be ashamed to beg for the poor; yea, in this case, be an
importunate beggar; do not easily take a denial." John Wesley
Direction
Direction
“Your Direction, not Your Intention, Determines Your
Destination. There is often a tension between where we want to end up in life
and the path we choose to get there. We fail to see that having good intentions
is never good enough.” How to Get From Where You are to Where You Want to Be
Andy Stanley
“When one door closes another door opens; but we so often
look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door, we do not see the ones
which open for us.” Alexander Graham Bell
Discipline
"In life you will either have the pain of discipline, or the pain of regret." Kevin Myers
Discipline
"In life you will either have the pain of discipline, or the pain of regret." Kevin Myers
"Self-discipline is the ability to make yourself do something you don’t
necessarily want to do, to get a result you would really like to have.”- Andy Andrews
Doing
“Start by doing what is necessary. Do then what is possible.
And suddenly you are doing the impossible.” - Francis of Assisi
“What you do emerges from who you are. Being precedes
doing.” Chuck Colson
Doubt
“The worst danger we
face is the danger of being paralyzed by doubts and fears. This danger is
brought on by those who abandon faith and sneer at hope. It is brought on by
those who spread cynicism and distrust and try to blind us to our great chance
to do good for all mankind.” Harry S. Truman
Dreams
"A good life isn't something you wait for, or chase
after, try to possess; it's something you must create, moment by moment, on the
foundation of your dreams. But first, you need to understand your dreams and
embrace them." Bill Strickland
"A dream is about building something- relationships,
identity, quality of experience. Because dreams rise out of genuine human
needs, they feed the spirit in a profoundly satisfying way. A genuine dream
brings direction, conviction, substance, and satisfaction to your life the
moment you commit yourself to it." Bill Strickland
“A dream grasped too tightly may become an idol.” Not sure
who said thisL
“It is never too late to be what you might have been.”
George Eliot
“I never knew how much it can hurt to see BIG dreams happen.
When one scrapes the entrancing veneer front of dreams, the reality of odds and
guts and demands and costs becomes awesome. Only a strong Christ in me can give
me what it takes to become and do all He had in mind for me to swing with poise
and steadiness with the pendulum of life.” Ann Kiemel Anderson
Easter
“Lord, I believe, but help thou my unbelief, because I still
do not want to die. I believe Jesus has power to raise the dead, only I do not
want him practicing on me. I want a God who will cut my losses and cushion my
failures, a God who will grant me a life free from pain. I want a God who will
rescue me from death, who will delete it from the human experience and find
another way to operate.
What I, what all of us, have instead is a God who resurrects
us from the dead, putting an end to it by working through it instead of around
it- creating life in the midst of grief, creating love in the midst of loss,
creating faith in the midst of despair- resurrecting us from our big and little
deaths, showing us by his own example that the only road to Easter morning runs
smack through Good Friday.” Barbara Brown Taylor in Christian Century (Mar 13,
1996)
Effectiveness
“There are only a few things worth doing in the first place!
The secret of effectiveness is to know what really counts, then do what really
counts, and not worry about all the rest.” Rick Warren The Purpose Driven
Church
“Efficiency is doing things right. Effectiveness is doing the right things.” Not sure who said this
Emmanuel
“Emmanuel. God with us. He who resided in Heaven, co-equal
and co-eternal with the Father and the Spirit, willingly descended into our
world. He breathed our air, felt our pain, knew our sorrows, and died for our
sins. He didn’t come to frighten us, but to show us the way to warmth and
safety.” Charles Swindoll The Finishing Touch
Entertainment
“People who want to be amused have lost the art of living.”
Holbrook Jackson in Platitudes in the Making
Eternal vs. Temporary
“If we work upon marble it will perish, If we work upon
brass time will efface it, If we rear temples they will crumble into dust, But
if we work upon mortal souls, If we imbue them with principles, With the just
fear of God and the love of fellow man, We engrave on those tablets something
which will brighten all eternity.” Daniel Webster
“A man has made at least a start on discovering the meaning of life when he plants shade trees under which he knows full well he will never sit.” D. Elton Trueblood
Ethics
“Ours is an age where ethics has become obsolete. It is
superceded by science, deleted by philosophy and dismissed as emotive by
psychology. It is drowned in compassion, evaporates into aesthetics and
retreats before relativism. The usual moral distinctions between good and bad
are simply drowned in a maudlin emotion in which we feel more sympathy for the
murderer than for the murdered, and for the adulterer than for the betrayed,
and in which we have actually begun to believe that the real guilty party, the
one who somehow caused it all, is the victim, and not the perpetrator of the
crime.” Robert Fitch, In Ravi Zach’s book, A Shattered Visage
Evangelism
“A person’s coming to Christ is like a chain with many
links. There is the first link, middle link, and a last link. There are many
influences and conversations that precede a person’s decision to convert to Christ.
I know the joy of being the first link at times, a middle link usually, and
occasionally the last link. God has not called me to only be the last link. He
has called me to be faithful and to love all people.” Cliff Knechtle, Give Me
an Answer
“You can’t talk to men about God, until you talk to God about men.”
Example
“The best way to show a stick is crooked is not to argue
about it or spend time denouncing it, but to lay a straight stick alongside
it.” Ugandan Archbishop Janini Luwum when challenged about his “friendship”
with tyrant Idi Amin; shortly afterward he was abducted and executed
“We are challenged on every hand to work untiringly to achieve excellence in our lifework. Not all men are called to specialized or professional jobs; even fewer rise to the heights of genius in the arts and sciences; many are called to be laborers in factories, fields, and streets. But no work is insignificant. All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence. If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, “Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.” Martin Luther King
Excellence
"No, those who turn good into great are motivated by a
deep creative urge and inner compulsion for sheer unadulterated excellence for
its own sake. Those who build and perpetuate mediocrity, in contrast, are
motivated more by fear of being left behind." Jim Collins
Excess
“All excess is rooted in emptiness.” Beth Moore
Expectation
“Look at a man the way that he is, he only becomes worse.
But look at him as if he were what he could be, and then he becomes what he
should be.” Goethe
Experience
"The great illusion of leadership is to think that man
can be led out of the desert by someone who has never been there." (87,
quoting Henri Nouwen, The Wounded Healer)
“What I like about experience is that it is such an honest
thing. You may take any number of wrong turnings; but keep your eyes open and
you will not be allowed to go very far before the warning signs appear. You may
have deceived yourself, but experience is not trying to deceive you. The
universe rings true wherever you fairly test it.” C.S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy
Failure
“Those who fail to plan, plan to fail.”
“There is no failure except in no longer trying.” Elbert Hubbard
Faith
“The longer I live, the more I’m convinced that we are
fashioned for faith, not fear and worry. To live in fear is to live against the
reality of our creation.” Pete Wilson
"Faith does not grow in the house of certainty."
~Wm. Paul Young
“Faith can move any mountain, no doubt, but don’t be
surprised if God hands you a shovel.”
“Sometimes faith seems like a denial of reality, but that’s
because we’re holding on to a reality that is more real than the reality we can
perceive with our five senses.” Mark Batterson, p. 36, The Circle Maker
“Faith is confidence in the integrity of the one who said
jump.”
“She hath done what she couldn’t.” a laymen quoted this
inscription on a tombstone
“When we are completely surrendered to God we can do what we
can’t- we find ourselves miracles to ourselves.” E. Stanley Jones Abundant
Living, p. 107
“Faith must be tested, because it can be turned into a
personal possession only through conflict.” Oswald Chambers, Aug. 29
“Christ doesn’t expect us to produce more than we can, but
He does expect us to produce all that we can by His power within us. That is a
lot more than most of us think is possible. We expect too little from God, and
we attempt too little for Him. If you are not taking any risks in your
ministry, then it is not requiring that you have faith. And if your ministry
doesn’t require any faith, then you are being unfaithful.” Rick Warren, The
Purpose Driven Church
“Remember it is the very time for faith to work when sight ceases. The greater the difficulties, the easier for faith; as long as there remain certain natural prospects, faith does not get on even as easily as where natural prospects fail.” George Mueller, quoted in Streams in the Desert
“Faith in God will not get for you everything you may want,
but it will get for you what God wants you to have. The unbeliever does not
need what he wants: the Christian should only want what he needs. Vance Havner
in By the Still Waters
“God’s people have found that the most precious fruit often
grows in the midst of overwhelming difficultie. Faith grows best on cloudy
days.” Jim Cymbala, Fresh Faith
“Faith is not the way around pain, it is the way through
pain. Faith doesn’t get rid of the opposition, it invites it over for dinner.
Faith doesn’t get rid of the opposition, it invites it over for dinner. Faith
doesn’t give you the winning point at the last second, it ties the game and
sends you into overtime. Faith doesn’t give you the solution, it forces you to
find it. Faith doesn’t teach you at the moment, it teaches in retrospect. Faith
doesn’t provide a net to fall into when your fingers are about to give way as
you hang suspended over the cliff, faith gives your fingers the strength to
hang on just a little longer. In other words, faith doesn’t do anything when
it’s doing something.” Mike Yaconelli in “The Door”
"God has put enough into this world to make faith in Him a most reasonable thing. He has left enough out to make it impossible to live by sheer reason alone...a combination of faith and reason are the components to every act of commitment we ultimately make in life." - Ravi Zacharias
Family
Family
"Reprioritizing your world around your family is not
just a good idea. It is a God idea." Gary Thomas
"Nowhere in Scripture are you commanded to lay down
your life for your stock options. Or to love your career like Christ loved
the church. We are instructed to do our jobs and love our families (see
Colossians 3:23). When you love your job and do your family, you've not
only stepped outside the bounds of family life, you have stepped outside the
will of God." (86) Gary Thomas
"On the marketplace side of the equation, you are
expendable. Even if you own your own company, you are expendable.
You know that. At home, you play a unique role." (67) Andy Stanley
Choosing to Cheat
Fear
"It is never safe to look into the future with eyes of
fear." E.H. Harriman
“The worst sorrows in life are not in its losses and
misfortunes, but its fears.” Arthur Christopher Benson
“Half of our fears are baseless; the other half
discreditable.” Christian Bovee
“If man harbors any sort of fear, it percolates through all
his thinking, damages his personality, makes him a landlord to a ghost.” Lloyd
C. Douglas
“He who is afraid of a thing gives it power over him.”
Moorish Proverb
“Fear fades when facts are faced.” Frank Tyger
“There are four impelling motives that move men to action:
Fear, Hope, Faith, and Love- these four, but the greatest of these is fear.
Fear is first in order, first in force, first in fruit. Indeed, ‘fear is the
beginning of wisdom.’ Scripture summarizes the chief cause of sin and crime:
‘There is no fear of God before their eyes.’” Quote from Prairie Overcomer
“The act of cowardice is all that matters; the emotion of
fear is, in itself, no sin.” C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters
“He who loves God with all his heart dreads neither death,
torment, judgment, nor hell, for perfect love opens a sure passage to God.”
Thomas ‘a Kempis The Imitation of Christ
“Our fears establish the limits of our life.” Erwin McManus
“The longer I live, the more I’m convinced that we are fashioned for faith, not fear and worry. To live in fear is to live against the reality of our creation.” Pete Wilson
“The worst danger we
face is the danger of being paralyzed by doubts and fears. This danger is
brought on by those who abandon faith and sneer at hope. It is brought on by
those who spread cynicism and distrust and try to blind us to our great chance
to do good for all mankind.” Harry S. Truman
Feelings
“Feelings make excellent servants, but terrible masters.”
Dallas Willard
Fear of God
“He who admits no fear of God is really a post-Christian
man, for at the heart of Judaism and Christianity lies a holy dread.” Russell
Kirk
“The fear of the Lord leads to life, and he who has it will abide in satisfaction; he will not be visited with evil.” Proverbs 19: 23
“The remarkable thing about fearing God is that when you
fear God you fear nothing else, whereas if you do not fear God you fear
everything else.” Oswald Chambers in The Highest Good
Fellowship
“Fellowship is more than unconditional love that wraps its
arms around someone who is hurting. It is also tough love that holds one fast
to the truth and the pursuit of righteousness.” Chuck Colson, The Body
“True Fellowship out of love for one another demands
accountability.” Chuck Colson, The Body
Finances
“If your income is less than your outgo, your upkeep will be
your downfall.” – Unknown
“One day living beyond your means means two days living
beneath your means in order to get out of debt.”- Unknown
“He who gathers money little by little makes it grow.”
Proverbs 13:11
Fire of God
“Destitute of the fire of God, nothing else counts,
possessing the fire, nothing else matters.” Samuel Chadwick
Flexiblilty
Blessed are the flexible, for they shall not get bent out of
shape.
Forgiveness
“God has promised us forgiveness, but He has not promised us
a tomorrow to forgive us.” David Seamonds (pretty sure this was shared in one
of his sermons)
Freedom/Determism
“What we do determines God’s foreknowledge, not vice versa.”
Jerry Walls (Causal Connection)
“Most, I fancy, have discovered that to be born is to be exposed to delights and miseries greater than imagination could have anticipated; that the choice of ways at any cross-road may be more important than we think; and that short cuts may lead to very nasty places.” C. S. Lewis, Essay- “The Vision of John Bunyan”
“God has made it a rule for Himself that He won’t alter people’s character by force. He can and will alter them- but only if the people will let Him…. He would rather have a world of free beings, with all its risks, than a world of people who did right like machines because they couldn’t do anything else. The more we succeed in imagining what a world of perfect automatic beings would be like, the more, I think, we shall see His wisdom.” C.S. Lewis, God in the Dock
Friendship
Be courteous to all, but intimate with few, and let those
few be well tried before you give them your confidence.
George Washington
George Washington
“A man never gets so rich he can afford to lose a friend.” –
Unkown
“It is not distance that separates us, it is silence.”-
Unknown
“The simplicity of friendship is this: that I know you are
there that somewhere on this crowded planet you and I stand together, if only
in a moment of thought. And for those moments and what they bring to me, the
world is less empty.” From Betty Barnett, Friendraising
“Friendship is a place where we go to grow- where it is safe
to sprout wings, and shed old skins, and try our voices in new, uncertain
notes.” Betty Barnett
“You can always tell a real friend: when you’ve made a fool
of yourself, he doesn’t feel you’ve done a permanent job.” Laurence J. Potter
“A valuable friend is one who’ll tell you what you should be told, even if it offends you.” Frank A. Clark
“Friendship is a place to hide in-not to escape the world,
but to face it well.” Betty Barnett, Friendraising
Fundraising
“Blessed are the money raisers, for in heaven they shall
stand at the right hand of the martyrs.” J. R. Mott
“Our task is to challenge people with the opportunity to
have significance in their lives by giving their resources to God.” Russ Reid
“God is at work in the hearts of givers, convincing them
that they should invest in the most important cause in all the world. You will
never make enemies or alienate anyone by asking them to give.” Steve Rentz
“Since fund-raising (development) for the Christian
organization is the program through which people are challenged and helped to
become good stewards and through which funds are raised for the support of the
Lord’s work, it is biblical and spiritual ministry.” Bob Fraley
“Fundraising is not simply asking for money; rather, fund raising is matching together ministries and people with similar goals and interests.” Dr. Roger Parrot
Future
“The future is never where the world thinks it is. After the
resurrection, Jesus didn’t make any house visits to Herod, Caiaphas, or Pilot.”
Dr. Dennis Kinlaw
“You’ve got a future, but the future isn’t in you, it is in Him.” Dr. Dennis Kinlaw
“You must learn, you must let God teach you, that the only
way to get rid of your past is to make a future out of it. God will waste
nothing.” Phillips Brooks, quoted in Heirlooms
Futility
“A cheerful old bear at the zoo, He never lacked nothing to
do. When it bored him, you know, to walk to and fro, He reversed it and walked
fro and to.”
Giving
"The miracle is this: the more we share, the more we
have." -- Leonard Nimoy
"Nothing you have not given away will ever really be
yours." C.S.Lewis
“Giving is not God’s way of raising money; it is God’s way of raising people into the likeness of His Son.” Author unknown
“Delinquency in the stewardship of giving has become the overlooked or neglected delinquency- the sin we are afraid to mention.” Bob Fraley (See 2 Cor. 8:7)
“Not equal giving, but equal sacrifice.” – from a church’s building program
“The proper aim of giving to to put the recipient in a state where he no longer needs our gift.” C. S. Lewis, The Four Loves
“We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.” Winston Churchill
“What is you give is yours. What you do not give is lost forever.” T-shirt
God
“By nature God is a self-revealer; he must make himself known. Yet God is a self-concealer as well.
‘The secret things belong to the Lord our God,’ Moses told the Israelites. We live dangling between the secret things, withheld perhaps for our own protection, and the revealed things. The God who satisfies our thirst is also the great Unknown, the one no one can look upon and live. Perhaps it takes God’s absence and presence both for us to remain ourselves, or even to survive.”
God-Image
"What comes into our mind when we think about God is
the most important thing about us." AW Tozer
God is Good
"God never undoes anything but evil, never does good to
undo it again." - C.S. Lewis
God is your source. Everything else is just a resource.
Never treat the resource like the source. Tony Evans
God’s Grace
“God’s hardness is softer than the kindness of man, and His
compulsion is our liberation.” C. S. Lewis
God’s Love
“God loves us; not because we are loveable but because He is
love, not because he needs to receive but because He delights to give.” C. S.
Lewis
God’s Omnipresence
“We may ignore, but we can nowhere evade, the presence of
God. The world is crowded with Him. He walks everywhere incognito. And the
incognito is not always hard to penetrate. The real labour is to remember, to
attend. In fact, to come awake. Still more, to remain awake.” C. S. Lewis
God’s Will
“My history is written thru the choices I make.” Charlie
Peacock
“You must violently resist the tides of the world. Violently
give up all that holds you back from God. Violently turn your will over to God
to do His will alone.” Francois Fenelon in The Seeking Heart
Good/Evil
“The world turns and changes, But one thing does not change.
In all of my years, one thing does not, However you disguise it, this thing
does not change: The perpetual struggle of good and evil.” T. S. Eliot
Gossip
“One who gossips with you will gossip of you” –unknown
Grace
“Many years ago I was driven to the conclusion that the two
major causes of most emotional problems among evangelical Christians are these:
the failure to understand, receive, and live out God’s unconditional grace and
forgiveness; and the failure to give out the unconditional love, forgiveness,
and grace to other people…. We read, we hear, we believe a good theology of
grace. But that’s not the way we live. The good news of the Gospel of grace has
not penetrated the level of our emotions.” David Seamands
“The slendor of a soul in grace is so seductive that it
surpasses the beauty of all created things.” Thomas Acquinas
“I rejected the church for a time because I found so little
grace there. I returned because I found grace nowhere else.” P. Yancey, What’s
So Amazing About Grace
“I would far rather convey grace than explain it.” P. Yancey
“A gift that costs everything for the giver and nothing for
the recipient.” P. Yancey
“Grace is unfair which is one of the hardest things about
it. It is unreasonable to expect a woman to forgive the terrible things her
father did to her just because he apologizes many years later, and totally
unfair to ask that a mother overlook the many offenses her teenage son
committed. Grace, however, is not about fairness.” P. Yancey
“God gives His gifts where He finds the vessel empty enough
to receive them.” C. S. Lewis
“The moment of grace comes to us in the dynamics of any
situation we walk into. It is an opportunity that God sews into the fabric of a
routine situation. It is a chance to do something creative, something helpful,
something healing, something that makes one unmarked spot in the world better
off for our having been there. We catch it if we are people of discernment.”
Lewis Smedes, A Pretty Good Person
Gratitude
“The river of gratitude often runs more deeply in less than
ideal situations.” John Lee
"Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow." M. Beattie
Greatness
"The greatness of a person is not found in how they
handle their responsibilities, but in how they handle their privileges." -
Crawford Loritts
"Greatness is not a function of circumstance.
Greatness, it turns out, is largely a matter of conscious choice." Jim
Collins
"Good is the enemy of great." Jim Collins
Guidance
"God guides us, despite our uncertainties and our
vagueness, even through our failings and mistakes...He leads us step by step,
from event to event. Only afterwards...do we experience the feeling of having
been led without knowing it, the feeling that God has mysteriously guided
us." ~ Paul Tournier
Happiness
"Happiness is a lousy goal and a wonderful fruit."
Dr. John Townsend
"Some pursue happiness, others create it." –
Unknown
“Those who seek happiness too intensely will have little of it.” Calvin Miller The Taste of Joy
Hurt
“Hurt nourished becomes bitterness; bitterness nourished becomes
hatred; hatred nourished is the most debilitating aspect of a man’s ministry.”
Sam Kamaleson, Minister’s Conference (2-4-92)
Healing
“The soul is healed by being with children.” Fyodor
Dostoyevski
Heart
“We know the widest thing in the universe is not space; it
is the potential capacity of the human heart. Being made in the image of God,
it is capable of almost unlimited extension in all directions. And one of the
world’s greatest tragedies is that we allow our hearts to shrink until there is
room in them for little beside ourselves.” A. W. Tozer
“The only devils in the world are those running around in
our own hearts, and that is where all our battles ought to be fought.” Ghandi
(from the movie)
Heaven
"The things of earth must be known to be loved, but the
things of Heaven must be loved to be known."
“We are afraid that heaven is a bribe, and that if we make
it our goal we shall no longer be disinterested. It is not so. Heaven offers
nothing that a mercenary soul can desire. It is safe to tell the pure in heart
that they shall see God, for only the pure in heart want to.” C. S. Lewis,
Problem of Pain
Hell
“It’s not a question of God ‘sending’ us to Hell. In each of
us there is something growing up which will of itself be Hell unless it is nipped
in the bud. The matter is serious: let us put ourselves in His hands at once-
this very day, this hour.” C. S. Lewis, God in the Dock
Holiness
It is time for Christians to face up to our responsibility
for holiness. Too often we say we are
“defeated” by this or that sin. No, we
are not defeated; we are simply disobedient.
It might be well if we stopped using the terms “victory” and “defeat” to
describe our progress in holiness.
Rather we should use the terms “obedience” and “disobedience.” Jerry
Bridges
Holy Spirit
“If you hate dead end streets, you ought to love the Holy
Spirit. Because He saves from dead end streets and meaninglessness.” Dr. Dennis
Kinlaw
“Every time a Christian receives the Holy Spirit, God has
another channel through which He can convert the world of sin.” Miss D. Willia
Caffray
“If a person is filled with the Holy Spirit, his witness
will not be optional or mandatory- it will be inevitable. Richard Halverson in
Pentecostal Evangel
Humility
“Humility is not thinking less of yourself, but not thinking
of yourself at all.” Unknown
“May the mind of Christ my Saviour, Live in me from day to
day, By His love and power controlling All I do and say.
May His beauty rest upon me as I seek the lost to win, And may I forget the channel seeing only Him.” Katie Barclay Wilkinson, (1869-1928)
“Humility is facing the truth. It is useful to remind myself that the word itself comes from humus, earth, and in the end simply means that I allow myself to be earthed in the truth that lets God be God, and myself his creature. If I hold on to this it helps prevent me from putting myself at the centre, and instead allows me to put God and other people at the centre.” Esther de Waal in Living with Contradiction: Reflections on the Rule of St. Benedict
“The recognition of one’s own insignificance apart from the
presence of Christ.” J. B. Philips
“Although truth is not always humility is always truth: the blunt acknowledgment that I owe my life, being, and salvation to Another. This fundamental act lies at the core of our response to grace.” B. Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel
Honors
It is better to deserve honors and not have them than
to have them and not deserve them.
Mark Twain
Human Need
"If human beings need something vital bad enough, they
may even destroy themselves trying to get it." (Dallas Willard)
Humanity
“To be a person is to have a story to tell.” Isak Dinesen
Humility
A Christmas candle is a lovely thing; It makes no noise at
all, But softly gives itself away; While quite unselfish, it grows small.
Idealism
“The trouble with our ideals is that if we live up to all of
them, we become impossible to live with.” Brennan Manning
Identity
“Do not let your peace depend on the hearts of men; whatever
they say about you, good or bad, you are not because of it another man, for as
you are, you are.” Thomas a’ Kempis, The Imitation of Christ
“I become my own only when I gave myself to Another.” C. S.
Lewis
“If you compare yourself with others, you may be bitter or vain, for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.” Max Ehrman
“If you try to find intimacy with another person before
achieving a sense of identity on your own, all your relationships become an
attempt to complete yourself.” Dr. Les Parrott
Idolatry
“Sin is not just bad things, but good things we make
ultimate over God.” Timothy Keller
Imagination
“All mortals tend to turn into the thing they are pretending
to be.” C. S. Lewis, Screwtape Letters
Impact
“You can gauge the size of a ship that has passed out of
sight by the huge wake it leaves behind.” Unknown
“It’s what we do for Christ in the here and now that will
make a difference in the then and there.” Max Lucado
Incarnation
We shouldn’t say, “Look what this world is coming to, but
rather, “look Who has come to the world.” Unknown
“We are an expansion of the incarnation of God.” E. S. Jones
Information
“Information is not knowledge.” Albert Einstein
“A wealth of information creates a poverty of attention.” Herbert Simon
Initiative
“You’ll never see the other side of the ocean unless you
lose sight of the seashore.” Unknown
Instinct
"When God wants to make sure we don't miss the point,
He plants it in our instincts." (heard at the memorial service for David
L. Mays, in a presentation by Rev. Eric Simpson)
Integrity
“Integrity is like the weather: everybody talks about it but
nobody knows what to do about it.” Stephen L. Carter, Integrity
Interpretation
“Interpretation is equally as important as inspiration.”
Rev. Max Morgan
Intention
“Your Direction, not Your Intention, Determines Your
Destination. There is often a tension between where we want to end up in life
and the path we choose to get there. We fail to see that having good intentions
is never good enough.” How to Get From Where You are to Where You Want to Be
Andy Stanley
Jesus
“As a baby, He rested in a different kind of cradle… as the
Lord, He had a different way of ruling… as a King, He wore a different kind of
crown.” On a Christmas card from Dave Nelson
Joy
Joy
"Happiness is untested delight. Joy is delight tested." Jack Hyles
"If you have no joy, there is a leak in your Christianity." Billy Sunday
"Joy, not grit, is the hallmark of holy obedience. We need to be lighthearted in what we do to avoid taking ourselves too seriously. It is cheerful revolt against self and pride." Richard Foster
"The very nature of joy makes nonsense of our common distinction between having and wanting." C.S. Lewis
"If you have no joy, there is a leak in your Christianity." Billy Sunday
"Joy, not grit, is the hallmark of holy obedience. We need to be lighthearted in what we do to avoid taking ourselves too seriously. It is cheerful revolt against self and pride." Richard Foster
"The very nature of joy makes nonsense of our common distinction between having and wanting." C.S. Lewis
Judging
“When we put ourselves in the other person’s place, we’re
less likely to want to put him in his place.” Farmer’s Digest
Kindness/Gentleness
“Seek out the gentleness within you that encourages people
to feel comfortable around you.”
Knowledge
“There are those who seek knowledge for the sake of
knowledge- that is curiosity. These are those who seek knowledge to be known by
others- that is vanity. There are those who seek knowledge in order to serve-
that is love.” Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153)
Leadership
"The great illusion of leadership is to think that man
can be led out of the desert by someone who has never been there." (87,
quoting Henri Nouwen, The Wounded Healer)
“Truly great men leave you with a feeling you matter.” Dr.
Merne Harris
“The three distinguishing characteristics of popular leaders
who command a following are: uninhibited in life-style, fervent in spirit, and
zealous of good works.” Ed Cole, On Becoming a Real Man
“Boys build castles, but by the time they are men they are
building woodsheds.” David Thoreau
“Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition
from mediocre minds.” Albert Einstein
Learning
"When a man is pushed, tormented, defeated, he has a
chance to learn something." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Never let lack of knowledge keep you from an endeavor… if
so… then you will never learn. – Chris Bush
Legacy
"If your vision is for a year, plant wheat. If your
vision is for ten years, plant trees. If your vision is for a lifetime, plant
people." - Chinese proverb
Life
“1. Reflect More 2. Risk More 3. Invest more in things that
will live on” (Top responses offered by people over 90 years of age who were
asked, “If you could do it all over again, would you do anything differently?)
Love
"When we ask SELF questions: Am I appreciated, getting
all I deserve, content, fulfilled, understood, cared for, known? We are in no
position to hear the God answers. And when we are in that territory long
enough, it wars against our relationships, marriages, family, church, etc...it
wars against love.
"For God so loved....He GAVE." Living your life asking the SELF questions...in essence makes your life unstable....
"For God so loved....He GAVE." Living your life asking the SELF questions...in essence makes your life unstable....
"Love always gives; self always takes." Tracy Fortenbery
"When I have
learnt to love God better than my earthly dearest, I shall love my earthly
dearest better than I do now." C.S. Lewis
Life
"Every short cut to security from life and
responsibility will let you down, will leave you frustrated and unhappy. Life
must be faced and conquered, not escaped." E. Stanley Jones
"Life isn't fair. And in the thick, swarming midst of life's unfairness, our options often narrow down to something so simple it seems cliche': Do the right thing. Have the right attitude." Mark Buchanan
"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about
things that matter." -Martin Luther King
"The virtue lies in the struggle not the prize."
Lord Houghton
“Earth is crammed with heaven, and every common bush afire
with God; but only we who sees takes off his shoes; the rest sit round it and
pluck blackberries.” Elizabeth Barrett Browning
“Life is about ‘defining moments’.” Louie Giglio
“Actually it seems to be that one can hardly say anything
either bad enough or good enough about life.” C. S. Lewis
“Life is what happens to you when you’re making plans to do
something else.”
“It’s a shallow life that doesn’t give a person a few scars.”
Garrison Keilor
“What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny little
matters compared to what lies within us.” Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Life is 10% how you make it, 90% how you take it.” Erving
Berlin
“Life is 100% how you give it and 1000% of how God gives it back.” Howard P. Gifford
“Nothing ever becomes real till it is experienced…. Even a proverb is no proverb to you till your life has illustrated it.” John Keats (English Poet)
Limitations
“Handicaps can only disable us if we let them. This is true
not only of physical challenges, but of emotional and intellectual ones as
well. . . . I believe that real and lasting limitations are created in our
minds, not our bodies.” Roger Crawford
Listening
“Listen to me for a day- an hour!- a moment. Lest I expire
in my terrible wilderness, my lonely silence! O God is there no one to listen?
– Seneca (4 B.C.)
“We need to pay less attention to what people are trying to
tell us, and more to what they tell us without trying.” Miguel de Unamuno
Living
“I was regretting the past and fearing the future. Suddenly my Lord was speaking.
“My name is I am.” He paused. I waited. He continued, “When you live in the
past with its mistakes and regrets, it is hard. I am not there. My name is not
I was. When you live in the future, with all its problems and fears, it is
hard. I am not there. My name is not I will be. When you live in the moment, it
is not hard. I am here. My name is I am.” Helen Mallicot’
"One of the most tragic things I know about human
nature is that all of us tend to put off living. We are dreaming of some
magical rose garden over the horizon instead of enjoying the roses that are
blooming outside our windows today." Anonymous
Love
"One's loves are always deeper than his reason; and
reason is always in the employment of some love." P. Ramsey
“You can give without loving, but you cannot love without
giving.” Amy Carmichael
“By loving the unloveable, you made me loveable.” St.
Augustine
“We can do no great things, only small things with great
love.” Mother Teresa
"Most men pray for
power, the strength to do things. Few people pray for love, the quality to be
someone." Robert Foster
“Love Himself dreamed you up.” Taylor Leonhardt
Materialism
“It’s not so much what you have that makes you
materialistic, but how important it is to you.” Ron Gifford
“Material affluence in no respect lessens my need to rely on
God. Actually, it increases it. I am in greater spiritual danger when I have
plenty than when I have nothing. Hence the almost greater need of the wealthy
to cry to God for mercy that they may not fail to trust him.” C. Stacey Woods
in Some Ways of God
Mediocrity
"We're hoping to succeed; we're okay with failure. We
just don't want to land in between."--David Chang
Ministry
“The Christian ministry is the worst of all trades, but the
best of all professions.” John Newton
“Our office… subjects us to great burdens and labors, dangers and temptations, with little reward or gratitude from the world. But Christ himself will be our reward if we labor faithfully.” Martin Luther
“Every honest minister preaches from a reservoir of guilt
and grace.” Gary Gulbranson
“Handling people need not be so difficult – all you need is
inexhaustible patience, unfailing insight, unshakeable will, decisive judgment,
infrangible physique, irrepressible spirits, plus unfeigned affection for all
people- and an awful lot of experience.” Eric Webster
“The minister’s shortcomings simply cannot be concealed.
Even the most trivial soon get known… However trifling their offenses, these
little things seem so great to others, since everyone measures sin, not by the
size of the offense, but by the standing of the sinner.” John Chrysostom
“Prayer, meditation, and temptation make the minister.”
Martin Luther
Miracles
“Do not pray for easy lives, pray to be stronger people. Do
not pray for tasks equal to your powers; pray for powers equal to your tasks.
Then the doing of your work shall be no miracle, but you shall be a miracle.”
Phillips Brooks in Quotes and Idea Starters
“The miracles in fact are a retelling in small letters of
the very same story which is written across the whole world in letters too
large for some of us to see.” C. S. Lewis, God in the Dock
Mission
"To find your mission in life is to discover the
intersection between your hearts deep gladness and the world's deep
hunger." Friedrick Buechner
“Our mission is to share Christ and build believers.
Believers display four marks:
Worship – they worship God both corporately and privately.
Word – they live by God’s Word, understanding that it is the
authority for all of life.
Work – they contribute to God’s work by using their gifts to
serve the body, to give financially, and to relate experientially.
World – they impact the world by reaching out to their
unchurched, lost friends, and becoming personally involved in world
missions.” (82-3) Aubrey Malphurs Strategic Disciple Making
Missions
“Jesus never said, ‘go for me,’ He says, ‘Follow me’.” Dr. Dennis Kinlaw
“The basis of missionary appeals is the authority of Jesus Christ, not the needs of the heathen.” Oswald Chambers
“Certain it is that the reason there is so much shallow living, much talk, but little obedience, is that so few are prepared to be, like the pine on the hilltop, alone in the wind for God.” Amy Carmichael, God’s Missionary
“Someone has so fittingly characterized a missionary volunteers as: A Mind- through which Christ thinks. A Heart- through which Christ loves. A Voice- through which Christ speaks. A Hand- through which Christ helps.” George W. Peters, A Biblical Theology of Missions
“Our call is this: that in spite of all worldly opposition,
God’s holy ordinances shall be established again in the home, in the school,
and in the state for the good of the people; to carve as it were into the
conscience of the nation the ordinances of the Lord, to which Bible and
creation bear witness, until the nation pays homage again to God.” Abraham
Kuyper (scholarly Dutch pastor)
Missions Conference
"A mission's conference is a church in a Business
Meeting deciding the fate of the heathen."
- Anonymous
- Anonymous
Modeling
"If you are going to build me up you better be on
higher ground" – Emerson
Modern Man
“Modern man has both feet firmly planted in mid-air.”
Francis Schaffer
Money
“A man’s treatment of money- how he makes it and how he
spends it – is the most decisive test of character.” Unknown
“One of the dangers of having a lot of money is that you may
be quite satisfied with the kinds of happiness money can give and so fail to
realize your need for God. If everything seems to come simply by signing
checks, you may forget that you are at every moment totally dependent on God.”
C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
“If a person get his attitude about money straight, it will
help straighten out almost every other area in his life.” Billy Graham
“One of the dangers of having a lot of money is that you may be satisfied with the kinds of happiness money can give and so fail to realize your need for God. If everything seems to come simply by signing checks, you may forget that you are at every moment totally dependent on God.” C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
Motivation
"When I rediscovered my why, I found my way."
Michael Hyatt
Naturalism
“A man said to the Universe, ‘Sir, I exist!’ ‘Nevertheless’,
replied the Universe, ‘that fact has not created in me the slightest feeling of
obligation.’” Stephen Crane (a self-caused universe does not communicate
morality, a silence underscored by Stephen Crane)
Obedience
"Obedience is the opener of eyes. We don't see in order
to obey; we obey in order to see.". George MacDonald
What you decide to do will define who you are. -Chris Powell
“Everybody’s salvation begins in somebody else’s obedience.” Dr. Dennis Kinlaw, Avon Park Camp Meeting 1989
Occupation
“We are challenged on every hand to work untiringly to
achieve excellence in our lifework. Not all men are called to specialized or
professional jobs; even fewer rise to the heights of genius in the arts and
sciences; many are called to be laborers in factories, fields, and streets. But
no work is insignificant. All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and
importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence. If a man is
called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep even as Michelangelo painted, or
Beethoven composed music or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so
well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, “Here lived a
great street sweeper who did his job well.” Martin Luther King Jr.
Oneliners
Saul: “Come on out, David, and see if you can fight like a
man.” David: “Wait until I get a little boulder.”
Upset boy to scolding mother: “Why don’t you ever talk about
the dirt I track out?”
“Nobody ought to have any trouble meeting expenses- they are
all around us.”
Opportunity
"We are all faced with a series of great
opportunities, brilliantly disguised as unsolvable problems." -Charles
Swindoll
Originality
“Originality is simply a pair of fresh eyes.” T. H.
Higginson
Pace
“Though I’m always in haste, I am never in a hurry because I
never undertake more work than I can go through with calmness of spirit.”
Gordon MacDonald, Restoring Your Spiritual Passion
“It is refreshing and salutary, to study the poise and
quietness of Christ. His task and responsibility might well have driven a man
out of his mind. But He was never in a hurry, never impressed by members, never
a slave of the clock. He was acting, He said, as He observed God to act- never
in a hurry.” Phillips, Your God is Too Small
Paradox
“The deeper our faith, the more doubt we must endure; the
deeper our hope, the more prone we are to despair; the deeper our love, the
more pain its loss will bring: these are a few of the paradoxes we must hold as
human beings. If we refuse to hold them in the hopes of living without doubt,
despair, and pain, we also find ourselves living without faith, hope, and
love.”― Parker J. Palmer (consider other paradoxes- compassion/indignation,)
Parenting
"None of us can become such good parents that God feels
obligated to save our children's souls. On the more encouraging end, non of us
can mess up so badly that our children somehow extend beyond the reach of God's
mercy." Gary Thomas in the book, Sacred Parenting
Passion
"Look for the things that inspire you, trouble you,
make you feel most alive, and trust those things to shape your future. They
will give you all your heart could ever wish for." Bill Strickland
“When I run I feel his pleasure.” Eric Liddell’s famous line
from “Chariots of Fire”
“Don’t ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what
makes you come alive, and go do that, because what the world needs is people
who have come alive.” Gil Bailie
“We are called to an everlasting preoccupation with God.” A.
W. Tozer
“There are many things in life that will catch your eye, but
only a few will catch your heart… pursue those.” Unknown
Patience
“- giving the opportunity for God to work according to His
timetable.” Unknown
Perspective
“To every disadvantage there is a corresponding advantage.”
W. Clement Stone
“Every age has its own outlook. It is specially good at
seeing certain truths and specially liable to make certain mistakes. We all,
therefore, need the books that will correct the characteristic mistakes of our
own period. And that means the old books.” C. S. Lewis, God in the Dock
“Suffering for good is better than suffering for evil.” Ron
Gifford
People
"Some people are like Slinkies...Not really good for
anything, But they still bring a smile to your face.........When you push them
down a flight of stairs....."
Persevering
Big shots are only little shots who keep shooting.
-- Christopher Morley
-- Christopher Morley
I am not concerned that you have fallen; I am concerned that you arise. -Abraham Lincoln
"If you're going through hell, keep going."
Winston Churchill
Perspective
It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see.
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
"It's not the severity of an event that alters who you are, I think it is how you interpret it, that changes who you are." Tony Dematato, a probationary fireman on 9/11 at the scene
Persuasion
“1. Trust yourself 2. Trust your message 3. Trust your
audience” Aristotle
Pilgrimage
It's a good thing we don't know where we are going on the way to where we are going --
Alyse Ogle
It's a good thing we don't know where we are going on the way to where we are going --
Alyse Ogle
“The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not to win
but to take part: just as the most important thing in life is not the triumph
but the struggle. The essential thing is… to have fought well.” (the words were
spelled out in lights at the 18th Olympics at Tokyo in 1964)
“It isn’t the mountains ahead that wear you out—it’s the grain of sand in your shoe.” Unknown
Planning
“If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail.” Unknown
“If you aim at nothing, you will usually hit it.”
Poems
A FATHER'S GIFT You get it from your Father, It is all he
had to give. So it's yours to use and cherish as long as you shall live. If you
lose the watch he gave you, It can always be replaced. But a black mark on your
Name, Son, Can never be erased. It was clean the day you took it, A worthy Name
to bear. When he got it from his Father, There was no dishonor there. So make
sure you guard it wisely and When all is said and done. You'll be glad your
Name is spotless when You give it to your Son.
It Couldn’t Be Done
“There are thousands to tell you it cannot be done. There
are thousands to prophesy failure; there are thousands to point out to you one
by one, the dangers that wait to assail you. But just buckle in with a bit of a
grin, just take off your coat and go to it, just start to sing as you tack the
thing that ‘cannot be done’ and you’ll do it.” Edgar A. Guest
My life is but a weaving between my Lord and me
I cannot see the colors He worketh steadily.
Oft times He weaveth sorrow and I in foolish pride
Not till the looms are silent and the shuttles cease to fly
Shall God unroll the canvas and explain the reason why.
The dark threads are as needful in the Weaver's skillful hands
As the threads of gold and silver in the pattern He has planned.
Oft times He weaveth sorrow and I in foolish pride
Not till the looms are silent and the shuttles cease to fly
Shall God unroll the canvas and explain the reason why.
The dark threads are as needful in the Weaver's skillful hands
As the threads of gold and silver in the pattern He has planned.
Power
"God doesn’t give us the power to anything or
everything we want. Power comes from doing the thing HE wants." - Rick
Warren
“So I say to you, seek God and discover Him and make Him a
power in your life. Without Him all of our efforts turn to ashes and our
sunrises into darkest nights. Without Him life is a meaningless drama with the
decisive scenes missing. But with Him we are able to rise from the fatigue of
despair to the buoyancy of hope. With Him we are able to rise from the midnight
of desperation to the daybreak of joy. St. Augustine was right- we were made
for God and we will be restless until we find rest in Him.” Martin Luther King,
The Words of Martin Luther King
“What makes the temptation of power so seemingly
irresistible? Maybe it is that power offers an easy substitute for the hard
task of love. It seems easier to be God than to love God, easier to control
people that to love people, easier to own life than to love life. Jesus asks,
“Do you love me?” We ask,
“Can we sit at your right hand and your left hand in your Kingdom?” (Matthew 20:21) … We have been tempted to replace love with power.” Henri Nouwen, Mornings with Henri J. M. Nouwen
“Can we sit at your right hand and your left hand in your Kingdom?” (Matthew 20:21) … We have been tempted to replace love with power.” Henri Nouwen, Mornings with Henri J. M. Nouwen
“One moment of God’s action is worth an eternity of yours
and mine.” Dr. Dennis Kinlaw
"Most men pray for
power, the strength to do things. Few people pray for love, the quality to be
someone." Robert Foster
Praise
“Praise is all right, as long as you don’t inhale.” Dr.
Donald English- after he was introduced by David McKenna
Prayer
“A creeping death sweeps over the mission of many churches
in our time because, quite simply, prayer meetings have ceased. And beneath the
death of prayer, at a deeper level, lies the death of real belief…” Dale Bruner
"Prayer is the real work of the ministry. Service is
just gathering in the results of prayer." (17, quoting S.D. Gordon)
“Bold prayers honor God, and God honors bold prayers.” Mark
Batterson, p. 13, The Circle Maker
“Prayers are prophecies. They are the best predictors of your spiritual future. Who you become is determined by how you pray. Ultimately, the transcript of your prayers becomes the script of your life.” Mark Batterson, p. 14 TCM
"... And until His sovereign will becomes your
sanctified wish, your prayer life will be unplugged from its power
supply." Mark Batterson , p. 14, The Circle Maker
“…raw dependence is the raw material out of which God
performs His greatest miracles.” Mark Batterson, p. 15, TCM
“God does not answer vague prayers.” Korean pastor
“In the grand scheme of God’s story, there is a footnote
behind every headline. The footnote is prayer. And if you focus on the
footnotes, God will write the headlines. It’s your prayers that change the
eternal plotline.” Mark Batterson, p. 32,33, TCM
“The hardest thing about praying hard is enduring unanswered
prayers. If you don’t guard your heart, unresolved anger toward God can
undermine faith. Sometimes your only option is to trust because it is the last
card in your hand, but it’s the wild card. If you can trust God when the answer
is no, you’re likely to give Him praise when the answer is yes.”
"You can't pray for open doors if your aren't willing
to accept closed doors, because one leads to the other." Mark Batterson,
p. 130, TCM
“Prayer is the inheritance we receive and the legacy we
leave.” Mark Batterson, p. 134, TCM
“Prayer doesn’t just change circumstances; more important, it changes us. It doesn’t just alter external realities; it alters internal realities so that we see with spiritual eyes. It gives us peripheral vision. It corrects our nearsightedness. It enables us to see beyond our circumstances, beyond ourselves, beyond time.” Mark Batterson, p. 135, TCM
“Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that He will
send forth labourers into His harvest.” Matthew 9: 38
“The key to the missionary problem is in the hand of God,
and that key is prayer not work, that is not work as the word is popularly
understood today because that may mean the evasion of concentration on God. The
key to the missionary problem is not the key of common sense, nor the medical
key, nor the key of civilization or education or even evangelization. The key
is prayer.” Oswald Chamber, My Utmost For His Highest Oct. 16th
“No man can do a great and enduring work for God who is not
a man of prayer and no man can be a man of prayer who does not give much time
to praying.” E. M. Bounds
“Satan dreads nothing but prayers. The one concern of the devil is to keep the saints from praying. He fears nothing from prayerless studies, prayerless work, prayerless religion. He laughs at our toil, mocks our wisdom, but trembles when we pray.” Samuel Chadwick
“Whenever the insistence is on the point that God answers
prayer, we are off the track. The meaning of prayer is that we get hold of God,
not of the answer.” Oswald Chambers
“We are not told that Jesus ever taught His disciples how to
preach, but He taught them how to pray. He wanted them to have power with God;
then He knew they would have power with man.” Dwight L. Moody, D. L. Moody’s
Little Instruction Book
“On one occasion, when the field officer, harried by a
multitude of duties, that left him but little time for sermon-making, asked
Brengle this question, ‘If you had but ten minutes to prepare for a meeting,
how would you spend it?’ he received a reply in two words: “In prayer!” – book
about Samuel Logan Brengle
“Prayer… really is a silent surrender of everything to God because it is not quite clear to me how I should pray.” Soren Kierkegaard
“We look upon prayer as a means of getting things for
ourselves; the Bible’s idea of prayer is that we may get to know God Himself.”
Oswald Chambers, My Utmost For His Highest
“When a man is at his wits’ end it is not a cowardly thing
to pray, it is the only way he can get into touch with Reality.” Oswald
Chambers, My Utmost For His Highest
“It is not so true that “prayer changes things” as that
prayer changes me and I change things. “ Oswald Chamber, My Utmost For His
Highest
“Your prayers move God to change the world. You may not
understand the mystery of prayer. You don’t need to. But this much is clear:
Actions begin when someone prays on earth. What an amazing thought.” Max Lucado
“We must be concerned with the person and character of God,
not the promises. Through promises we learn what God has willed to us, we learn
what we may claim as our heritage, we learn how we should pray. But faith
itself must rest on the character of God.” A. W. Tozer
“This is the best I can do with unanswered prayer. The possible answers seem to be ‘yes,’ ‘no,’ or ‘you have no idea what’s going on behind the curtain of your sensate reality, so you best make up your mind once and for all- I do love you. Will you trust me?” Andree Seu’s column in World Magazine
“The absence of prayer is testimony to your ability; the
presence of prayer is testimony to God’s ability.” Dr. Ed Cole
“Some of God’s greatest gifts are unanswered prayers.” Garth Brooks
“Trouble will drive you to prayer but prayer will drive away
trouble.” Unknown
“God does nothing but in answer to prayer.” John Wesley
“The Cross stands for one thing only for us- a complete and
entire and absolute identification with the Lord Jesus Christ, and there is
nothing in which this identification is realized more than in prayer.” Oswald
Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest
Prayers
“ A Prayer
for Joy”
Help me, O
God,
To listen to
what it is that makes my heart glad
And to follow where it leads.
May joy, not guilt,
Your voice, not the voices of others,
Your will, not my willfulness,
Be the guides that lead me to my vocation.
Help me to unearth the passions of my heart
That lay buried in my youth.
And help me to go over that ground again and again
Until I can hold in my hands,
Hold and treasure, Your calling on my life.
-Ken Gire, Windows of the Soul
Preaching
“Preach the gospel all the time; if necessary use words.”
“Preaching must be the present voice of God to a particular
people.” A. W. Tozer
“Every preacher who trims himself to suit everybody will
soon whittle himself away.” J. Harold Smith
“Preaching is not the art of making a sermon and delivering
it. Preaching is the art of making a preacher and delivering him.” Bishop
Quayle
“If preaching should aim to magnify God, and if God is
magnified when His people prefer Him over all the riches and pleasures of life
(Luke 8: 14), then preaching must aim to expose the suicidal pleasures of sin
and waken fullness of joy in God.” John Piper, God’s Passion For His Glory
Presence of God
"Is it possible for a leader to have encountered God so
richly that no matter what we are working toward here on this earth, we know we
already have what we most deeply want--the presence of God, that which can
never be taken from us?" (215) Ruth Haley Barton, Strengthening the Soul
of Your Leadership
Pride
“There is perhaps no one of natural passions so hard to
subdue as pride. Disguise it. Struggle with it. Stifle it. Mortify it as much
as one pleases. It is still alive, and will every now and then peep out and
show itself… Even if I could conceive that I had completely overcome it, I
should probably be proud of my humility.” Unknown
“Superman don’t need no seatbelt.” Muhammed Ali “Superman
don’t need no airplane either.” Stewardess
“O God of earth and altar, Bow down and hear our cry, Our
earthly rulers falter, Our people drift and die, The walls of gold entomb us,
The swords of scorn divide, Take not thy thunder from us, But take away our
pride. G. K. Chesterton, from the poem “A Hymn,” in Prophet of Orthodoxy
Problems
The problem is not the people in your life. The problem is
your response to the people in your life. Scott Luck
Productivity/Results
“The world really doesn’t want to hear about the labor
pains, it just wants to see the baby.” From a letter by Bob Hudson
Profound
"Beware of posing as a profound person - God became a
baby." Oswald Chambers
Progress
“If you always do what you always did, then you’ll always
get what you always got.” Grandpa Killian
Promise
“to provide a basis of expectation.” Unknown
Prosperity
“Prosperity knits a man to the World. He feels that he is
‘finding his place in it,’ while really it is finding its place in him. His
increasing reputation, his widening circle of acquaintances, his sense of
importance, the growing pressure of absorbing and agreeable work, build up in
him a sense of being really at home on Earth, which is just what we want. You
will notice that the young are generally less unwilling to die than the
middle-aged and the old.” C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters
Provision
“God’s work, done in God’s way, will never lack God’s
supplies.” Hudson Taylor- early missionary to China
Purity
“When a man is getting better he understands more and more
clearly the evil that is still left in him. When a man is getting worse, he
understands his own badness less and less.” C. S. Lewis
“God, I ask you to cleanse and purify our hearts and lives.
Melt the dross; remove the impurities- all of it, whether in deed, word, or
thought. Save us from ourselves, and establish us in righteousness by your
strong hand. We ask humbly, depending on you, in Jesus’ name. Amen.” Jim
Cymbala, prayer from Fresh Faith
Purpose
"A man who won't die for something, is not fit to
live." Martin Luther King Jr.
Reality
“Besides being complicated, reality, in my experience, is
usually odd. It is not neat, not obvious, not what you expect… Reality, in
fact, is usually something you could not have guessed. That is one of the
reasons I believe Christianity.” C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
Reflection
“Reflection turns experience into insight.” AnonymousForget
He sees the upper and I the underside.
Relationships
"If you are with another person, remind yourself that
this is a moment that you'll never see again." Bill Strickland
“Relationships are like a book -- only a few seconds of
carelessness to burn, but years to write.” - Author Unknown
Religion
“I didn’t got to religion to make me happy. I always knew a
bottle of Port would do that. If you want a religion to make you feel really
comfortable, I certainly don’t recommend Christianity.” C. S. Lewis
“If people are looking at religion as a product, then the
church reckons it has to furnish a competitive product.” Chuck Colson, The Body
Reputation
"Be more concerned with your character than your
reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your
reputation is merely what others think you are." -John Wooden
Resistance/ Routine
An easy, routine way of life which many associate with
stability and security only gives man stagnation. Entrenched routine only
spoils man and makes him simple and weak. On the other hand progressive
strength, and to make man progressively wiser… Resistance makes a man think new
thoughts he never thought before. It makes a man ask questions he never asked
before. It makes a man seek answers he never sought before. It makes a man beg
God for help that he never before realized he needed. These quests, quests of
the heart and soul, eventually make a man deeper, wider, taller.” Unknown
Responsibility
“Trust in God; keep your powder dry.” Oliver Cromwell,
during the Civil War
Rest
“Thou O God, hast made us for Thyself, and we are restless
till we rest in Thee!” St. Augustine
Righteousness
“My great concern is not whether God is on our side; my
great concern is to be on God’s side, for God is always right.” Abraham Lincoln
in reply to a deputation of Southerners
Risk
“It is only by risking our persons from one hour to the next
that we live at all.” William James
Sacrifice
“We won’t ask them to do in symbol, what We can’t in
reality.” Dr. Dennis Kinlaw on the Godhead talking about Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac
“We have plenty of people who have plenty of medals and no
scars.” Warren Wiersbe
“We have proved beyond any doubt that He means what He says-
His grace is sufficient, nothing can separate us from the love of Christ. We
pray that if any, anywhere, are fearing that the cost of discipleship is too
great, that they may be given to glimpse that treasure in heaven promised to
all who forsake.” Elizabeth Elliott, on behalf of the five widows of slain
missionaries to Ecuador one year after their deaths
“Self-preservation is the first law of nature;
self-sacrifice the highest rule of grace.” Anonymous
“Very few people in our world are offering anything worth
dying for. Most of the messages we receive are about how to make life easier.
The call of Jesus goes the other direction
It’s about making our lives more difficult. It is going out of our way
to be more generous and disciplined and loving and free. It is refusing to
escape and become numb to and check out of this broken, fractured world. “ We
want our friends to know up front that the costs are high.” Rob Bell, Velvet
Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith
Sanctification
"Even sanctified people sin...but the difference is
that in the life of a sanctified person sin becomes your permanent enemy and no
longer your secret lover." Dr. Timothy Tennent
Secrecy
"Secrecy is one of the most profound theological
statements we can make. It is acting on the belief that the reward of God
matters more than the reward of man. It is trusting in the trustworthiness of
God. If I don't believe that God sees the good I do when no one else notices-or
if I resent that when others do notice it, God, not me, gets the glory-then
I'll forever be fishing for compliments, finding subtle and not-so-subtle ways
of getting applause, flaunting my so called wisdom, boasting about my
self-styled heroism." Mark Buchanan
“The main audience, those who had most at stake in the
outcome of Job’s life, were not Job’s friends, not Job’s family, not even Job.
It was God and the devil. In the end, it matters not at all what others think
about you and say about you. Your life is cosmic drama. The practice of secrecy
is simply taking that seriously.” Mark Buchanan
Seeking
“There is no pursuit that is satisfying, except a pursuit of
God.” Tom Kinnan
Self Actualization
“Thousands of geniuses live and die undiscovered- either by
themselves or by others.” Mark Twain
Self-awareness
“It is equally dangerous to man to know God without knowing
His own wretchedness, and to know his own wretchedness without knowing God.”
Blaise Pascal in Pense’es
Self-control
“A man cannot govern a nation if he cannot govern a city; he
cannot govern a city if he cannot govern a family; he cannot govern a family if
he cannot govern himself; and he firmly cannot govern himself unless his
passions are subject to reason.” Hugo Grotius, 17th century philosopher
Self-realization
“Whoever can weep over himself for one hour is greater than
the one who is able to teach the whole world; whoever recognizes the depth of
his own frailty is greater than the one who sees visions of angels of angels.”
Isaac Ninevah
“Now with God’s help, I shall become myself.” Soren
Kierkegaard
Service
“If you don’t like your lot in life, build a service station
on it.” Unknown
“The measure of a man is not how many servants he has, but
how many men he serves.” D. L. Moody
“Ministry and service is what He does Himself through you.”
Stephen Manley
“Servant- is one who does anything they can do to make
someone a success in God’s eyes.” Unknown
“Christian service isn’t measured by results we see from it
or even by the example we communicate by it, but by what we become through it.”
James Montgomery Boice
Sin
“No sin is small. No grain of sand is small in the mechanism
of a watch.” Jeremy Taylor
“All sinful behavior is a wrong attempt at meeting basic
needs. The essence of sin is man living independent of God who has said that He
will meet all our needs as we live out life ‘in Christ’.” Neil T. Anderson
“The real issue here is are you going to get your needs met
by the world the flesh and the devil, or are you going to allow God to meet all
your needs ‘according His riches in Christ Jesus.” Neil T. Anderson, Victory
Over Darkness
“You can’t love Christ and fail to grieve over sin.” Tom
Kinnan
“Stalactites and stalagmites are formed by drops of water
over a long period of time. The accumulation of them is what makes the
structure. Sin can pile up in the same way.” Unknown
"Sin,
whatever weakens your reasoning, impairs the tenderness of your conscience,
obscures your sense of God, or takes away your relish for spiritual things; in
short, if anything increases the authority and power of the flesh over the
Spirit, then that to you becomes sin, however good it is in itself." Susanna Wesley gave birth to nineteen
children, including John and Charles Wesley. One day John asked her to define
sin. The following is her definition of sin.
Single
“Unless and until we can live with ourselves, we cannot live
with other people. But equally, unless and until we have learnt to live fully
and creatively with others we cannot hope to live with ourselves.” Esther de
Waal, Living with Contradiction: Reflections on the Rule of St. Benedict
Socialism
"Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy; it's inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery." Winston Churchill
Socialism
"Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy; it's inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery." Winston Churchill
Sovereignty
"God guides us, despite our uncertainties and our
vagueness, even through our failings and mistakes...He leads us step by step,
from event to event. Only afterwards...do we experience the feeling of having
been led without knowing it, the feeling that God has mysteriously guided
us." ~ Paul Tournier
Spirit
..."Authority exercised with humility, and obedience
accepted with delight are the very lines along which our spirits live." -
C.S. Lewis
Spiritual Discipline
"A spiritual discipline is any real-life activity that
leaves me more sensitive and receptive to the presence & power of God thru
Christ." John Ortberg
Spiritual Gifts
“Spiritual gifts are not enjoyable toys for tots, but tools for the nature.” Fred Layman
“Just as important as knowing what gift God has given you is knowing which gifts He hasn’t given you. Many Christians try for years to function with gifts they never had in the first place, and this trying to hear something with your knee or throw a ball with your nose. Knees and noses are better off doing other things.” –C. Peter Wagner in Stop the World, I Want to Get On
Stability
“After a great storm you can see more clearly where there is
solid ground.” Chinese Proverb
Strength
“The strength of a man is in his moral fiber. Strength is
always proved by resistance.” Ed Cole, Strong Men in Tough Times
“God, who foresaw your tribulation, has specially armed you
to go through it, not without pain but without stain.” C. S. Lewis
“If you’re in a struggle, struggles are proof that you’re
not defeated yet.” Dr. Tom Hermiz
Success
“The successful warrior is the average man, with laser-like
focus.” - Bruce Lee
“Our greatest fear should not be of failure, but of succeeding at things in life that don’t really matter.” Francis Chan
“Finding the will of God early in life, and living in it all
of your life.” Dr. Jerry Fallwell
“You can always tell if you are on the road to success, it’s
uphill all the way.” Paul Harvey
“The will to win is important, but the will to prepare is
vital.” Joe Paterno
“The toughest thing about being a success is that you’ve got
to keep on being a success.”
“One important ingredient of success is a good, wide-awake,
persistent, tireless enemy.” Frank B. Shutts
“When those who know you , love and respect you the most.”
Unknown
“Success is the ability to go from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm.” Winston Churchill
Suffering
"Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls;
the most massive characters are seared with scars." - Kahlil Gibran
“One sees great
things from the valley; only small things from the peak. G. K. Chesterton in
The Hammer of God
“We cannot be established except by suffering. It is of no
use our hoping that we shall be well-rooted if no March winds have passed over
us. The young oak cannot be expected to strike its roots so deep as the old
one. Those old gnarlings on the roots, and those strange twistings of the
branches, all tell of may storms that have swept over the aged tree. But they
are also indicators of the depths into which the roots have dived.” Charles
Haddon Spurgeon, “A New Benediction”
“Suffering is meant to add the grace notes to life.” Ron
Gifford
“May you have strength to suffer and willingness to serve.”
– written by David Livingstone to his son-in-law, John Moffat
“’Strength to suffer-‘
Is that not the thing the distressed world is waiting for us Christians
to demonstrate? But isn’t that the thing our smug complacency refuses to face?
Willis R. Hotchkiss, pioneer missionary to Kenya in 1895
“No matter the degree of our faith in God, or the extent of
His love for us. We are still vulnerable to the hurts, pains, and suffering and
disease that are part of the realities of life.” Dr. David Seamonds
There is no strictly philosophical answer in scripture to the mystery of unjust suffering. We live in an evil, fallen, broken, unjust world. The fact that God loves us and we love Him does not give us immunity from tragedies, sickness, hurts or pains. Dr. David Seamonds
God whispers to us in our pleasures… but shouts to us in our
pains. C. S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain
Christians are much like tea bags- they are no good until
they go through hot water and have been squeezed.”
“Many men owe the grandeur of their lives to their
tremendous difficulties.” C. H. Spurgeon, quoted in Streams in the Desert
“I’m celebrating- it’s 20 years today since I was in prison
for proclaiming the Gospel.” A Chinese man who counted it a privilege to suffer
Surrender
“I am no longer my own, but Thine. Put me to what thou wilt,
rank me with whom thou wilt; put me to doing, put me to suffering; let me be
employed for Thee, exalted for Thee or brought low for Thee; let me be full,
let me be empty; let me have all things,
let me have nothing; I freely and heartily yield all things to thy pleasure and
disposal.” John Wesley
“Christ says, ‘Give me All. I don’t want so much of your
time and so much of your money and so much of your work: I want You. I have not
come to torment your natural self, but to kill it… I will give you a new self
instead. In fact, I will give you Myself: my own will shall become yours.” C.
S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
“There are two kinds of people those who say to God, ‘Thy
will be done,’ andthose to whom God says,’All right, then, have it your way.”
C. S. Lewis, The Great Divorce
Talent
The woods would be very silent if no birds sang there except
those who sang the best --
John James Audobon
John James Audobon
The critical reality is that we are not hostage to some
naturally granted level of talent. We can make ourselves what we will.
Strangely, that idea is not popular. People hate abandoning the notion that
they would coast to fame and riches if they found their talent. But that view
is tragically constraining, because when they hit life's inevitable bumps in
the road, they conclude that they just aren't gifted and give up.
Teach
“I touch the future. I teach.” Christa McAuliffe
“They may forget what you said, but they will never forget
how you made them feel.”
“Acquire new knowledge whilst thinking over the old, and you may become a teach of others.” Confucius
“A teacher is one who makes himself progressively
unnecessary.” Thomas Carruthers
“Bitterly disappointed teachers can be either very effective
or very dangerous.” “Finding Forrester”
Team
I can do what you can't do, & you can do what I can't
do; together we can do great things. -Mother Teresa
Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving Thoughts
Count your blessings instead of your crosses;
Count your gains instead of your losses,
Count your joys instead of your woes;
Count your friends instead of your foes.
Count your smiles instead of your tears;
Count your courage instead of your fears.
Count your full years instead of your lean;
Count your kind deeds instead of your mean.
Count your health instead of your wealth;
Count on God instead of yourself.”
Theism
“The greatest question of our time is not communism versus
individualism; not Europe versus America, not even the East versus West. It is
whether men can live without God.” Will Durant
Transformation
“The Lord works from the inside out. The world works from
the outside in. The would take people out of the slums. Christ takes the slums
out of people, and then they take themselves out of the slums. The world would
mold men by changing their environment. Christ changes men, who then change
their environment. The world would shape human behavior, but Christ can change
human nature.” Ezra Taft Benson
Time
“Guard well your spare moments. They are like uncut
diamonds. Discard them and their value will never be known. Improve them and
they will become the brightest gems in a useful life.” Ralph Waldo Emerson
Trust
"You can't have community without trust, and you can't
have trust without truth... But when truth is whatever each individual wants it
to be, there's no common ground on which trust can be established. So trust
disappears. And where trust disappears, genuine, healthy community will
disappear." Tullian Tchividjian
“God can achieve His purpose either through the absence of human power and resources or the abandonment of reliance on them. All through history God has chosen and used nobodies, because their unusual dependence on him made possible the unique display of His power and grace. He chose and used the somebodies only when they renounced dependence on their natural abilities and resources.” Oswald Chambers
“’Having to depend solely on God’ is what we all dread most.
And of course that just shows how very much, how almost exclusively, we have
been depending on things. But trouble goes so far back in our lives and is now
so deeply ingrained, we will not turn to him as long as He leaves us anything
else to turn to…. Perhaps when those moments come, they will feel happiest who
have been forced (however unwittingly) to begin practicing it here on earth.”
C. S. Lewis
Truth
“No truth can be fully known without being fully lived.” Dr.
Mathias Zahniser
Truth allows us to cooperate with reality…” J. P. Moreland
“If anyone proved to me that Christ was outside truth… then
I would prefer to remain with Christ than with the truth.” Dostoevsky
“Here’s the great evangelical disaster- the failure of the
evangelical world to stand for truth as truth. There is only one word for this-
namely accommodation.” Francis Schaeffer
“If truth-telling springs from love, it will not only pain
those who hear it, it will pain those who speak it. If telling the truth is
fun, it probably doesn’t come from love. Jeremiah told the truth and was called
the ‘weeping prophet’. Philip Gulley on the Fruit of the Spirit
Tradition
“Tradition can be dangerous. It can not only modify the
truth, it can replace it altogether.” Richard C. Halverson, The Living Body
Treasure
“He is better than any of His gifts, so keep Him as the
treasure of your heart.” Dr. Dennis Kinlaw
“The man who has God for his treasure has all things in One.
Many ordinary treasures may be denied him, or it he is allowed to have them,
the enjoyment of them will be so tempered that they will never be necessary to
his happiness. Or it she must see them go, one after one, he will scarcely feel
a sense of loss, for having the Source of all thing he has in One all
satisfaction, all pleasure, all delight. Whatever he may lose he has actually
lost nothing, for he now has it all in One, and he has it purely, legitimately
and forever.” A. W. Tozer
“Any treasure worth having, you’ve got to dig for.” John Maxwell
Trials
“Do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger men. Do not
pray for tasks equal to your powers. Pray for powers equal to your tasks.”
Phillips Brooks
"Smooth seas do not make skillful sailors."
African proverb
Truth
George Orwell: "In a time of universal deceit, telling
the truth is a revolutionary act."
"Men occasionally stumble upon the truth, but they
usually walk away as though nothing happened." Winston Churchill
Uniqueness
“You were born an original. Don’t die as a copy.”
United States of America
United States of America
"HOLD ON, my friends, to the Constitution and to the Republic for which it stands. Miracles do not cluster and what has happened once in 6,000 years, may not happen again. Hold on to the Constitution, for if the American Constitution should fail, there will be anarchy throughout the world." Daniel Webster
“The world isn’t looking at our tracts and rallies and
telecasts and study manuals. It looks at us and how we believe. When it fails
to see the unity of Jesus’ followers’- the church- it fails to see the
validation that Christ is indeed the Son of the living God.” Chuck Colson, The
Body
Waiting
"Waiting on God is a problem only if you're in a
relationship with God for utilitarian purposes - to get the prize from the
vending machine. But if you're in the relationship for God Himself, waiting
means you still have what you want - God - even while you wait." J.
Johnson
Warrior
Warrior
The successful warrior is the average man, with laser-like
focus. - Bruce Lee
Weakness
“The very things that make us feel inadequate, the very
things that plunder hope, these are what God uses to accomplish His work. For
proof, look at the cross.” P. Yancey, The Jesus I Never Knew
“God weeps with us so that we may someday laugh with him.”
Jurgen Moltmann
Willingness
“It’s dangerous to smile at Jesus, there is something of
consent in a smile.” Mother Teresa
Winner
A winner is someone who recognizes his God-given talents,
works his tail off to develop them into skills, and uses these skills to
accomplish his goals. - Larry Bird
Wisdom
“We give credit to human wisdom when we should give credit
to the Divine guidance of God through childlike people who were foolish enough
to trust God’s wisdom and the supernatural equipment of God.” Oswald Chambers,
My Utmost for His Highest
"The sign of a good society is the level and number of
things acknowledged to be beyond market values - and thus appreciated for their
own sake and not for extrinsic, especially financial, rewards." Os
Guinness
Work
Work
"Your goal should be to plan your work around your
life, rather than planning your life around your work." Dan Miller
Worry
"Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow; it
empties today of its strength."
— Corrie ten Boom
— Corrie ten Boom
"Worry causes me to forget about God's presence in my
yesterday and therefore, I assume He will be absent in my tomorrow."
Pastor of a friend
Worship
"When we are normal we talk, when we are dying we
whisper, but when there's more in us than we contain, we sing." Eugene
Peterson
“I believe that if we are to be and to do for others what
God means us to be and to do, we must not let Adoration and Worship slip into
second place. ‘For it is the central service asked by God of human souls; and
its neglect is responsible for much lack of spiritual depth and power.’ Perhaps
we may find here the reason why we so often run dry. We do not give time enough
to what makes for depth, and so we are shallow; a wind, quite a little wind,
can ruffle our surface; a little hot sun, and all the moisture in us
evaporates. It should not be so.” Amy Carmichael, Edges of His Ways
“The reform that the church needs most is for each worshiper
to approach the service (of whatever style) with the proper mindset: worship.
No one should enter with the attitude, ‘Amuse me, since if you’re not up to
snuff, I’m not coming back.” … When we design a service to worship the Lord,
the most important, and the most difficult, thing to accomplish is to be sure
that we are, in fact, worshipping the Creator and not ourselves.” Jean Harmon,
quoted in Context (Feb. 1, 1999)
“Missions is not the ultimate goal of the church. Worship
is. Missions exists because worship does not.” John Piper, Let the Nations Be
Glad
Writing
“Amateurs write when they are inspired. Professionals are inspired when they write. This is a subtle but important distinction.” Michael Hyatt
Valuing
There are two types of people - those who come into a room
and say, Well, here I am! and those who come in and say, Ah, there you are. -
Frederick L. Collins
“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people
will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
Maya Angelou
"The greatest good you can do for another is not to
share your riches but to reveal to him his own" Benjamin Disraeli
“People are unreasonable, illogical and self-centered. Love
them anyway. If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish ulterior
motives. Be kind anyway. If you are successful, you will win some false friends
and true enemies. Succeed anyway. The good you do today will be forgotten
tomorrow. Be good anyway. What you spend years building may be destroyed
overnight. Build anyway. People need help but may attack you if you try to help
them. Help them anyway. If the final analysis, it is between you and God. It
was never between you and them anyway.” Mother Teresa (From a sign on the wall
of Shisho Bhaven, a children's home in Calcutta.)
I went out to find a friend but could not find one there.
I went out to be a
friend, and friends were everywhere!
~Author Unknown
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