“The burdens of this day aren’t bigger than the shoulders of our God.”
“Bad discipleship: Giving God a place in our story. Gospel discipleship: Taking our place in God’s story.” (Scotty Smith)
“Almost everything will work again if you unplug it, including you.” (Anne Lamott) #Sabbath
“Nazi death camp survivor Viktor E. Frankl (1905-1997) wrote, ‘Happiness [is] the unintended side-effect of one’s personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one’s surrender to a person other than oneself.’ This explains why so many of us aren’t happy – we’re our own biggest cause, the most important people in our lives. And we’re way too small and powerless to create or sustain our own happiness.” (Randy Alcorn, from his latest book Happiness – page 172).
“Forgiveness is an act of the will, and the will can function regardless of the temperature of the heart.” (Corrie Ten Boom)
“You get to decide whether you’re going to spend your one life trying to make an impression and look good —or make a difference and do good.” (Ann Voskamp)
“Life’s ultimate statistic is the same for all people: One out of one dies.” (George Bernard Shaw) #perspective
“The faint, far-off results of those energies which God’s creative rapture implanted in matter when He made the worlds are what we now call physical pleasures…What would it be to taste at the fountainhead that stream of which even these lower reaches prove so intoxicating? Yet that, I believe, is what lies before us. The whole man is to drink joy from the fountain of joy.” (C.S. Lewis)
“Worry is our way of inviting our fears to disciple us. A day of worry is more exhausting than a week of work.” (Scott Sauls)
“Mercy is the theme of God’s story. Mercy is the thread that runs through all of Scripture. Mercy is the reason for Jesus’s coming. Mercy is what your desperate heart needs. Mercy is the healer your relationships need. Mercy is what gives you comfort in weakness and hope in times of trial. Mercy can do what the law is powerless to do. Mercy not only meets you in your struggle, but guarantees that someday your struggle will end. Mercy is what this sin-broken world groans for. Mercy triumphs where justice can’t. If God offered us only justice, no one would run to him. It is the knowledge of his mercy that makes us honestly face ourselves and gladly run to him. And it is mercy that we will sing about and celebrate a million years into eternity.
I love the words of Lamentations 3:22-23: ‘The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.’ Let these amazing words sink it. If you are God’s child, they describe your identity and your hope. They give you reason to get up in the morning and to continue. They enable you to face and admit how messed up you really are. They allow you to extend mercy to the failing people around you. And they allow you to be comforted by God’s presence rather than be terrified at the thought that he is near.” (Paul David Tripp, from his new devotional, New Morning Mercies – August 14)
“Everything is necessary that God sends. Nothing can be necessary that God withholds.” (John Newton)
“Whom have I in heaven but You?
And besides You, I desire nothing on earth.
My flesh and my heart may fail,
But God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.”
(Psalm 73:25-26 – NASB)
“Moral stupidity comes in two forms: relativism & legalism. Relativism sees no principles, only people. Legalism sees no people, only principles.” (Peter Kreeft)
“Truth aims at love.
Love aims at truth.
Love shapes how to speak truth.
Truth shapes how to love.”
(John Piper)