“Hereby perceive we the love of God, because He laid down His life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.” How often I think of that ‘ought.’ No sugary sentiment there. Just the stern, glorious trumpet call, OUGHT. But can words tell the joy buried deep within? Mine cannot. It laughs at words.”— Amy Carmichael
“Many of us who have found ourselves to be useful in Christian service have found ourselves unable, if we’re honest, to connect with God in any other way, We do for him, instead of being with him. We become soldiers, instead of brothers and sisters and daughters and sons. This is dangerous, damaging territory, and I’ve spent to much time there.”— Shauna Niequist
“Family is the one human institution we have no choice over. We get in simply by being born, and as a result we are involuntarily thrown together with a menagerie of strange and unlike people. Church calls for another step: to voluntarily choose to band together with a strange menagerie because of a common bond in Jesus Christ. I have found that such a community more resembles a family than any other human institution. Henri Nouwen once defined a community as “a place where the person you least want to live with always lives.” His definition applies equally to the group that gathers each Thanksgiving and the group that congregates each Sunday morning. (p. 64-65, Church: Why Bother?)”— Philip Yancey
“Hence the vocation of the Church of Christ in the world, in political conflict and social strife, is inherently eschatological. The Church is the embassy of the eschaton in the world. The church is the image of what the world is in its essential being. The Church is the trustee of the society which the world, not subjected to the power of death, is to be on that last day when the world is fulfilled in all things in God.”— William Stringfellow
“We shall face many troubles. But the Lord shall deliver us from each one of them.”— Lailah Gifty Akita
“Since it is likely that, being men, they would sin every day, St. Paul consoles his hearers by saying ‘renew yourselves’ from day to day. This is what we do with houses: we keep constantly repairing them as they wear old. You should do the same thing to yourself. Have you sinned today? Have you made your soul old? Do not despair, do not despond, but renew your soul by repentance, and tears, and Confession, and by doing good things. And never cease doing this.”— John Chrysostom
“How can God allow such abominations to flourish unchecked in this world?The answer came in a question, Ruby.God, in reply, asked, “How can you?”— Lisa Wingate
“Because of our selfishness and inclination toward personal comfort and convenience, we’d rather not have to deal with constant change and uncertainty. We have difficulty reconciling the goodness of God with the mystery of his ways.”— Chris Hodges
“There can be no substitute for a personal study of the Word of God! Daily devotionals, Bible commentaries, and recorded messages by anointed preachers and teachers are wonderful and useful. However, they cannot take the place of the Word of God. They must not replace a time of personal study of the Word. Every Christian individual must study and meditate upon the Word for him or herself. Nobody can do that for anyone else.”— Pedro Okoro
“By the anointing of the Holy Spirit, anybody who is afflicted by any phobia can be set free.”— Pedro Okoro
“Adversity or time of trouble is an opportunity to either fall or stand, fail or pass, faint or be strong. The choice is yours.”— Ikechukwu Joseph
“We are not called to embody Jesus ourselves; He has already been incarnated and is still even now! No, we are not called to be Jesus; we are called to fall at His feet and worship Him. We are called to affirm that “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” [John 1:14] And it is through this worship, through recognizing His rightful place, that we are finally humbled.When we are consumed with God’s glory, we forget to worry about our own. When our eyes are fixed on Him as the source of all goodness and truth and beauty, we accept that we are not. When we are enamored by His worth and majesty, we can stop being so enamored with ourselves. And fascinatingly, when we seek God’s glory, we’ll be able to appreciate it in the people around us. Instead of seeing them as threats to our own glory, we will see them as beautiful reflections of His.”— Hannah Anderson
“There is, however, one way of speaking that I’ve tried to avoid. Rather than refer to someone as “a homosexual,” I’ve taken care always to make “gay” or “homosexual” the adjective, and never the noun, in a longer phrase, such as “gay Christian” or “homosexual person.” In this way, I hope to send a subtle linguistic signal that being gay isn’t the most important thing about my or any other gay person’s identity. I am a Christian before I am anything else. My homosexuality is a part of my makeup, a facet of my personality. One day, I believe, whether in this life or in the resurrection, it will fade away. But my identity as a Christian – someone incorporated into Christ’s body by his Spirit – will remain.”— Wesley Hill
“The key is to understand that our children don’t belong to us—they belong to God. Our goal as parents must not be limited by our own vision. I am a finite, sinful, selfish man. Why would I want to plan out my children’s future when I can entrust them to the infinite, omnipotent, immutable, sovereign Lord of the universe? I don’t want to tell God what to do with my children—I want Him to tell me!”— Voddie T. Baucham Jr.
“It seems to me that if God felt it best to delay marriage into the latter part of your twenties, He would also see fit to delay the hormonal urge to want to have sex. Or perhaps it was never His intent to delay marriage in an effort to “become more independent,” “enjoy singlehood,” and “build our careers.”— Vicki Courtney
“By spending years and years living entirely for yourself, thinking only about yourself, and having responsibility to no one but yourself, you end up inadvertently extending the introverted existence of a teenager deep into middle age.”— Danielle Crittenden
“If we, as mothers, are not careful we can begin to find our identity in our children and their behavior”— Sue Detweiler
“Our children need to see that faith matters, that it’s relevant to our daily situations, that it’s real.”— Michelle Anthony
“Our goal as parents should be to endeavor to pass down our faith to the next generation in such a way that they will be able to pass down their faith to the following generation in our absence.”— Michelle Anthony
“Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking.”— Michelle Anthony