Nobody can fight properly and boldly for the faith if he cling to a fear of being stripped of earthly possessions. (Peter Damian)

If we wait upon God, there is no danger. If we rush on, He must let us see the consequences of it. (John Darby)

Some Christians haven't even attempted to think about whether or not they would die for Jesus because they haven't really been living for Him. (DC Talk Band)

Only those whose souls have struck the deepest notes of penitence can reach the highest notes of praise. (Richard DeHaan)

Cure yourself of the condition of bothering about how you look to other people. Be concerned only . . . with the idea God has of you. (Miguel de Unamuno)

God does not lead His children around hardship, but leads them straight through hardship. But He leads! And amidst the hardship, He is nearer to them than ever before. (Otto Dibelius)

The 7 modern sins: politics without principles, pleasures without conscience, wealth without work, knowledge without character, industry without morality, science without humanity, worship without sacrifice. (Canon Frederic Donaldson)

Men perish with whispering sins--nay, with silent sins, sins that never tell the conscience that they are sins, as often with crying sins; and in hell there shall meet as many men that never thought what was sin, as that spent all their thoughts in the compassing of sin.

O God, never suffer us to think that we can stand by ourselves, and not need Thee.

A man who prays without ceasing, if he achieves something, knows why he achieved it, and can take no pride in it... for he cannot attribute it to his own powers, but attributes all his achievements to God, always renders thanks to him and constantly calls upon him, trembling lest he be deprived of help. (Dorotheus of Gaza)

We cannot live with bitterness because it will first manifest itself in our spirit, then in our emotions, and finally in our bodies. (Tom Drout)

Look around the habitable world; how few know their own good, or knowing it, pursue. (John Dryden)

Outward as well as inward morality helps to form the idea of a true Christian freedom. We are right to lay stress on inwardness, but in this world there is no inwardness without an outward expression.

What our Lord did was done with the intent, and this alone, that he might be with us and we with him.

If we seek God for our own good and profit, we are not seeking God. (Johannes Eckhart)

The real problem is in the hearts and minds of men. It is not a problem of physics but of ethics. It is easier to denature plutonium than to denature the evil from the spirit of man. ( Albert Einstein)

Have you thought about His (God) handling of the gospel? God needs to get a message out the human race, without which they will perish...forever. What's the plan? First, He starts with the most unlikely group ever: a couple of prostitutes, a few fishermen with no better than a second-grade education, a tax collector. Then, he passes the ball to us. Unbelievable. (John Eldredge, Wild at Heart)

The truth is, living in agreement with God will bring His conviction when we are disobedient. Conviction may feel like a negative thing, but it's just as much a part of God as His smile. He is committed to making our lives work in Him, and He will use the strength and power of His conviction to let us know when we are outside His will. It may feel bad, but conviction is God at work in us. ( in "The God of Yes")

Because the indwelling Christ resides in us, God is literally establishing His rule in the world through us. As we say yes to God and live our lives in agreement with Him, He lives, rules, and reigns through us everywhere we go and in everything we do.

The ministry of the Spirit of God strengthens us, too, for the task that He knows lies ahead of us. We cannot survive or complete this task using our own abilities. Like Peter and the apostles, we need God's empowerment. We may not know what lies ahead, but we do know that God is preparing us for the future He has prepared for us. (in "The God of Yes")

The real danger of legalism is that it produces a sense of attainment that short-circuits our call to live the life of Yes thorugh Christ. Self-achievement brings a false sense of assurance that somehow we can live a pure life in our own ability. This attitude ultimately leads us to cut ourselves off from the heart of God and, in turn, to deny our true identity in Christ. (in "The God of Yes")

A true love of God must being with a delight in his holiness, and not with a delight in any other attribute; for no other attribute is truly lovely without this.

All earthly delights are but "streams." But God is the ocean.

For peace of mind, resign as general manager of the universe. (Larry Eisenberg)

Only a life lived for others is worth living. (Albert Einstein)

The very best and highest attainment in this life is to remain still and let God act and speak in you. (Meister Eckhart)

It is a vain thought to flee from the work that God appoints us, for the sake of finding a greater blessing, instead of seeking it where alone it is to be found - in loving obedience. (George Eliot)

I may no longer depend on pleasant impulses to bring me before the Lord. I must rather respond to principles I know to be right, whether I feel them to be enjoyable or not.

He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep, to gain what he cannot lose.

God always gives His best to those who leave the choice with Him.

God is God. Because He is God, He is worthy of my trust and obedience. I will find rest nowhere but in His holy will, a will that is unspeakably beyond my largest notions of what He is up to.

Here lies the tremendous mystery - that God should be all-powerful, yet refuse to coerce. He summons us to cooperation. We are honored in being given the opportunity to participate in his good deeds. Remember how He asked for help in performing his miracles: Fill the waterpots, stretch out your hand, distribute the loaves

It is God to whom and with whom we travel, and while He is the End of our journey, He is also at every stopping place.

Live as though Christ died yesterday, rose from the grave today, and is coming back tomorrow.

It is a shame for a person to have been a Christian for years but not to have advanced beyond the knowledge of his salvation.

I am always content with what happens; for I know that what God chooses is better than what I choose. (Epictetus)

When a person's faith seems to collapse without warning, one can be sure it has been the result of inner conflicts--the termites of disobedience. (Quinton J. Everest)

God has a history of using the insignificant to accomplish the impossible. (Richard Exley)

Death is not a period but a comma in the story of life. (Amos J. Farver)

Blessed is any weight, however overwhelming, which God has been so good as to fasten with His own hand upon our shoulders. ( F. W.Faber)

There is never any peace for those who resist God.

Accustom yourself gradually to carry Prayer into all your daily occupation -- speak, act, work in peace, as if you were in prayer, as indeed you ought to be.

Never let us be discouraged with ourselves; it is not when we are conscious of our faults that we are the most wicked: on the contrary, we are less so. We see by a brighter light. And let us remember, for our consolation, that we never perceive our sins till He begin to cure them.

Who but the same God Who stands in the darker, fouler rooms of our hearts and says, 'Yes, let the God of Heaven and Earth be born here -- in THIS place.' (Leslie Leyland Fields)

We don't seem to want to worship a God who's too big, too authoritative. We seem more comfortable with a deity who's more manageable. (Mark Finley)

Repentance is a change of willing, of feeling and of living, in respect to God. (Charles Finney)

Man's extremity is God's opportunity.

They that know God will be humbled; they that know themselves cannot be proud.

It is possible to be so active in the service of Christ as to forget to love him. (P.T. Forsyth)

Christians are supposed to not merely endure change, not even to profit by it, but to cause it.

The steady discipline of intimate friendship with Jesus results in men becoming like Him.

Our Adversary majors in three things: noise, hurry and crowds. If he can keep us engaged in "muchness" and "manyness," he will rest satisfied. (Richard J. Foster)

I tell you, if you are serious about wanting to be like Christ, He is going to put you in circumstances where your only true choice is to become like Him. (Francis Frangipane)

Christians have to look more redeemed, if the world is to believe in our Redeemer. (Gary French)

Not he who has much is rich, but he who gives much. (Erich Fromm)

He that returns good for evil obtains the victory.

Measure not men by Sundays, without regarding what they do all the week after.

He does not believe, that does not live according to his belief.

Gratitude is the least of the virtues, but ingratitude is the worst of vices.

Zeal without knowledge is fire without light.

It is easier to ridicule than commend.

No-fault divorce does not expand everyone's personal choice. It empowers the spouse who wishes to leave, and leaves the spouse who is being left helpless, overwhelmed, and weak. The spouse who chooses divorce has a liberating sense of mastery, which psychologists have identified as one of the key components of personal happiness. He or she is breaking free, embracing change, which, with its psychic echoes of the exhilarating original adolescent break from the family, can dramatically boost self-esteem. ... The spouse who leaves learns that love dies. The spouse who is left learns that love betrays and that the courts and society side with the betrayers. In court, your marriage commitment means nothing. The only rule is: Whoever wants out, wins. By gutting the marital contract, no-fault divorce has transformed what it means to get married. The state will no longer enforce permanent legal commitments to a spouse. Formally, at least, no-fault divorce thus demotes marriage from a binding relation into something best described as cohabitation with insurance benefits. (Maggie Gallagher)

Make the most of the present moment. No occasion is unworthy of our best efforts. God often uses the humble occasions and little things to shape the course of a man's life. (President James Garfield)

I clearly recognize that all good is in God alone, and that in me, without Divine Grace, there is nothing but deficiency... The one sole thing in myself in which I glory, is that I see in myself nothing in which I can glory. (Catherine of Genoa)

When God is about to do something great, he starts with a difficulty. When he is about to do something truly magnificent, he starts with an impossibility. (Armin Gesswein)

One does not discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore. (Andre Gide)

The union of a sect within itself is a pitiful charity; it's no concord of Christians, but a conspiracy against Christ; and they that love one another for their opinionative concurrence, love for their own sakes, not their Lord's. (Joseph Glanvill)

"You can preach a better sermon with your life than with your lips." (Oliver Goldsmith)

"This human-induced global-warming thing... is grossly exaggerated... I'm not disputing there has been global warming. There was a lot of global warming in the 1930s and '40s, and then there was global cooling in the middle '40s to the early '70s. Nearly all of my colleagues who have been around 40 or 50 years are skeptical... about this global-warming thing. But no one asks us." (Renowned meteorologist Dr. William Gray)

Jesus was God spelling himself out in language humanity could understand.

Prayer wonderfully clears the vision; steadies the nerves; defines duty; stiffens the purpose; sweetens and strengthens the spirit.

God, as we know Him, is a gift to us from Christ.

We can do nothing, we say sometimes, we can only pray. That, we feel, is a terribly precarious second-best. So long as we can fuss and work and rush about, so long as we can lend a hand, we have some hope; but if we have to fall back upon God -- ah, then things must be critical indeed!

Just as at sea those who are carried away from the direction of the harbor bring themselves back on course by a clear sign, so Scripture may guide those adrift on the sea of life back into the harbor of the divine will.

He who gives you the day will also give you the things necessary for the day.

Concepts create idols, only wonder grasp anything.

Christ alone can bring lasting peace - peace with God - peace among men and nations - and peace within our hearts.

God has given us two hands -- one to recieve with and the other to give with. We are not cisterns made for hoarding; we are channels made for giving.

We are the sermons the world is heeding.

God does not discipline us to subdue us, but to condition us for a life of usefulness and blessedness.

The word of God hidden in the heart is a stubborn voice to suppress.

Our valleys may be filled with foes and tears; but we can lift our eyes to the hills to see God and the angels, heaven's spectators, who support us according to God's infinite wisdom as they prepare our welcome home.

"Some have objected that speaking in tongues must always consist of speech in known human languages, since that is what happened at Pentecost. But the fact that speaking in tongues occurred in known human languages once in Scripture does not require that it always happen with known languages, especially when another description of speaking in tongues (1Cor 14) indicates exactly the opposite. Paul does not say that foreign visitors to Corinth will understand the speaker, but he says that when someone speaks in tongues "no one" will understand and the outsider will not know what the person is saying (1Cor 14:2,16). In fact, Paul explicitly says that quite the opposite of the phenomenon at Pentecost will happen in the ordinary conduct of church life: if "all speak in tongues" and "outsiders or unbelievers enter," far from understanding the message, they will say "that you are mad" (1Cor 14:23). Moreover, we must realize that 1 Cor 14 is Paul's general instruction based on a wide experience of tongues-speaking in many different churches, whereas Acts 2 simply describes one unique event at a significant turning point in the history of redemption (Acts 2 is historical narrative while 1 Cor 14 is doctrinal instruction). Therefore it would seem appropriate to take 1 Cor 14 as the passage that most closely describes the ordinary experience of New Testament churches, and to take Paul's instructions there as the standard by which God intends churches to regulate the use of this gift.

Are tongues known human languages then? Sometimes this gift may result in speaking in a human language that the speaker has not learned, but ordinarily it seems that it will involve speech in a language that no one understands, whether that be a human language or not." (Systematic Theology, page 1072)

{The endorsments of the book on its flyleaf includes this glowing declaration, "Systematic Theology by Wayne Grudem is a fair-minded, thorough text in systematic theology---the best I have seen in recent years in terms of convenient organization, clarity, and a willingness to tackle the most salient issues of the day. This is an admirable blending of the scholarly and devotional elements seldom achieved in academic books." Paige Patterson.}

Not only does sin hinder prayer; prayer hinders sin. The two are always opposed. The more careless we are about sin, the less we will pray. The more we pray, the less careless we will be about sin. Both sin and prayer are powerful forces. Which one is moving you? (Dr. Alvin Vander Griend)

The chief pang of most trials is not so much the actual suffering itself as our own spirit of resistance to it. (Jean Nicolas Grou)

Everyone may be entitled to his own opinion but everyone is not entitled to his own truth. Truth is but one. (Doug Groothius)

If ours is an examined faith, we should be unafraid to doubt....There is no believing without some doubting, and believing is all the stronger for understanding and resolving doubt. (Os Guinness)

God's wounds cure, sin's kisses kill. (William Gurnall)

All the graces of a Christian spring from the death of self. (Madame Guyon)