“Lord, give me character that is greater than my gifts and humility that is greater than my influence.”
“The Holy Spirit is a Person whose work it is to get hold of us… not a vague power we get to hold and use… if we think of the Spirit as power, our thought will be, ‘How can I get more of the Spirit?’ But if we think of him as a person, our thought will be, ‘How can the Holy Spirit have more of me?’ The first thought is pagan. The second is New Testament Faith.”
– James Boice
“Habits are the compound interest of self-improvement. The same way that money multiplies through compound interest, the effects of your habits multiply as you repeat them. They seem to make little difference on any given day and yet the impact they deliver over the months and years can be enormous. It is only when looking back two, five, or perhaps ten years later that the value of good habits and the cost of bad ones becomes strikingly apparent.”
– James Clear
“After ten thousand sins he loves you as infinitely as ever.”
– Charles Spurgeon
“Although my memory’s fading, I remember two things very clearly: I am a great sinner and Christ is a great Savior.”
– John Newton
“One of the Hebrew words for trust also means ‘careless.’ In other words, when you trust someone, you are careless, or carefree with them. You are not anxious and fearful, editing what you say or how you feel. You are free to be yourself with the other person because you can trust that they will not do wrong by you.”
– Henry Cloud
“Christians only live by being constantly forgiven.”
– J. I. Packer
“The energy for truly ‘Christian’ change is the positive energy of God’s grace. Can we be scolded and shamed into changing? Sure. But it isn’t Christian. And who even gave us the right to browbeat others in the first place? The only power in all the universe for authentic Christianity is the ‘grace’ of God forgiving us, lifting us up, and helping us get traction for a better future. The implications are significant.”
– Ray Ortlund
When disagreeing with fellow Christians, Tim Keller’s advice was…
“If we were able to say: ‘I disagree with you, but I agree with you on what is truly important: you are my brother and sister, and we will serve and worship together,’ then we would model a much-needed picture of unity and of Christ-like love.”
– John 17:20-21
“An eclipse is a cosmic reminder that the universe is not a random collection of matter and events that happened by chance. The cosmos is so finely tuned that we can know precisely where every heavenly body will be 200 years from now, down to the minute. These events remind us that the universe is not an accident, nor are we. God made both, and He is in control.” (Genesis 1:1)
“But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.”
– from Middlemarch by George Eliot
“I’ve been shaped by Eugene Peterson’s A Long Obedience in the Same Direction. I love what he says about obeying God, even in the absence of feelings. ‘Feelings are great liars. If Christians worshipped only when they felt like it, there would be precious little worship.’ That principle extends to all areas of the Christian life, whether it’s worshiping God or serving others. As Peterson writes, ‘We can act ourselves into a new way of feeling much quicker than we can feel ourselves into a new way of acting.’”
– Drew Dyck