Quotes

Source CC 2.0 via Google Images "Cathedral Grove" by Sang Trinh

"The spiritual giants of old were those who at some point became acutely conscious of the presence of God. They maintained that consciousness for the rest of their lives. How otherwise can the saints and prophets be explained? How otherwise can we account for the amazing power for good they have exercised over countless generations? Is it not that indeed they had become friends of God? Is it not that they walked in conscious communion with the real Presence and addressed their prayers to God with the artless conviction that they were truly addressing Someone actually there?" -A.W. Tozer, Mornings with Tozer

"To sum up then, in order to enter into this blessed interior life of rest and triumph, you have two steps to take, first, entire abandonment; and second, absolute faith... these two steps, definitely taken and unwaveringly persevered in, will certainly bring you out sooner or later into the green pastures and still waters of this life hid with Christ in God." -Hannah Whitall Smith, The Christian's Secret to a Happy Life, p. 54

“One of these days some simple soul will pick up the book of God, read it, and believe it. Then the rest of us will be embarrassed.”
― Leonard Ravenhill

“I continue to dream and pray about a revival of holiness in our day that moves forth in mission and creates authentic community in which each person can be unleashed through the empowerment of the Spirit to fulfill God's creational intentions.”
― John Wesley, How To Pray: The Best of John Wesley on Prayer

“Let every man abide in the calling wherein he is called and his work will be as sacred as the work of the ministry. It is not what a man does that determines whether his work is sacred or secular, it is why he does it.”
― A.W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God: The Human Thirst for the Divine

“No man is greater than his prayer life. The pastor who is not praying is playing; the people who are not praying are straying. We have many organizers, but few agonizers; many players and payers, few pray-ers; many singers, few clingers; lots of pastors, few wrestlers; many fears, few tears; much fashion, little passion; many interferers, few intercessors; many writers, but few fighters. Failing here, we fail everywhere.” ― Leonard Ravenhill

"We must realize that the Reformation world view leads in the direction of government freedom. But the humanist world view with inevitable certainty leads in the direction of statism. This is so because humanists, having no god, must put something at the center, and it is inevitably society, government, or the state."
Francis A. Schaeffer

“Entertainment is the devil's substitute for joy. ”
― Leonard Ravenhill

I now make it my earnest prayer, that God would have you, and the State over which you preside, in his holy protection, that he would incline the hearts of the Citizens to cultivate a spirit of subordination and obedience to Government, to entertain a brotherly affection and love for one another, for their fellow Citizens of the United States at large, and particularly for their brethren who have served in the Field, and finally, that he would most graciously be pleased to dispose us all, to do Justice, to love mercy, and to demean ourselves with that Charity, humility and pacific temper of mind, which were the Characteristics of the Divine Author of our blessed Religion, and without an humble imitation of whose example in these things, we can never hope to be a happy Nation." -George Washington, Circular to the States, Sunday June 8th, 1783

"The loneliness of the Christian results from his walk with God in an ungodly world, a walk that must often take him away from the fellowship of good Christians as well as from that of the unregenerate world. His God-given instincts cry out for companionship with others of his kind, others who can understand his longings, his aspirations, his absorption in the love of Christ; and because within his circle of friends there are so few who share his inner experiences he is forced to walk alone."
-A.W. Tozer

"Truth carries with it confrontation. Truth demands confrontation; loving confrontation, but confrontation nevertheless."
Francis A. Schaeffer (The Great Evangelical Disaster)

“Calvinists, who deny that salvation can ever be lost, reason on the subject in a marvelous way. They tell us, that no virgin’s lamp can go out; no promising harvest be choked with thorns; no branch in Christ can ever be cut off from unfruitfulness; no pardon can ever be forfeited, and no name blotted out of God’s book! They insist that no salt can ever lose its savor; nobody can ever “receive the grace of God in vain”; “bury his talents”; “neglect such great salvation”; trifle away “a day of grace”; “look back” after putting his hand to the gospel plow. Nobody can “grieve the Spirit” till He is “quenched,” and strives no more, nor “deny the Lord that bought them”; nor “bring upon themselves swift destruction.” Nobody, or body of believers, can ever get so lukewarm that Jesus will spew them out of His mouth.
They use reams of paper to argue that if one ever got lost he was never found. John 17:12; that if one falls, he never stood. Rom. 11:16-22 and Heb. 6:4-6; if one was ever “cast forth,” he was never in, and “if one ever withered,” he was never green. John 15:1-6; and that “if any man draws back,” it proves that he never had anything to draw back from. Heb. 10:38,39; that if one ever “falls away into spiritual darkness,” he was never enlightened. Heb 6:4-6; that if you “again get entangled in the pollutions of the world,” it shows that you never escaped. 2 Pet 2:20; that if you “put salvation away” you never had it to put away, and if you make shipwreck of faith, there was no ship of faith there!! In short they say: If you get it, you can’t lose it; and if you lose it you never had it. May God save us from accepting a doctrine, that must be defended by such fallacious reasoning!” -John Wesley

"The heart of a true pastor is a precious thing. Prone to pain. For he carries a burden for every single person who has ever walked into the church. Even if they came only once or twice. For those who leave, he wonders about them, prays for them, longs for their return. He truly and deeply loves the Christians under his spiritual care. He loves them enough to correct them. For those who lead and teach, he admires them, and when he is criticized or betrayed, he bleeds for them. His or her love for Christ, ought to be paramount. And he ought to give so much of his or her heart, that he wonders if he acquires much more pain, if he will be able to go on much further. That is the burden of a true minister." -Justin Steckbauer

"Some Christians are like:
1. Wheelbarrows–must be pushed
2. Canoes–need paddling
3. Kites–must be kept on a string
4. Footballs–can’t tell where they will bounce next
5. Balloons–full of wind/ ready to blow up
6. Trailers–must be pulled
7. Lights–go on and off
8. Kittens–content when petted
But some are like the North Star—faithful, true, & consistent."
-Source- unknown

"There are several billion people rushing headlong into hell. Many have died between the day this was written and the day it was published. Many of them are living in your backyard. Don't you want to make a bigger difference? We're not saying that the bigger difference must be through officership. And we're not saying that full surrender leading to being filled by the Holy Spirit leads to officership. But what we're saying is not "business as usual." This is not last generation's officership that we're pitching to you here. There is no better means for someone to make a bigger impact in the world than officership as vocational extremism. Pray it out. If God is not calling you to be investing your hours and years and skills and gifts and abilities and passions in your current employment, train up and offer yourself for officership- as vocational extremism. Is God tapping you on the shoulder?" -James Knaggs & Stephen Court, Leading the War: Salvation Army Officership as Vocational Extremism, p.14

“All the light was green light that came through the leaves: but there must have been a very strong sun overhead, for this green daylight was bright and warm. It was the quietest wood you could possible imagine. There were no birds, no insects, no animals, and no wind. You could almost feel the trees growing. The pool he had just got out of was not the only pool. There were dozens of others - a pool every few yards as far as his eyes could reach. You could almost feel the trees drinking the water up with their roots. This wood was very much alive. when he tried to describe it afterwards Digory always said, "It was a rich place: as rich as plum cake."
-C.S. Lewis, The Magician’s Nephew

"Relying on God has to start all over everyday, as if nothing has yet been done." –C. S. Lewis, famed English author

"Refuse to be average. Let your heart soar as high as it will." – A.W. Tozer

“Unless God has raised you up for this very thing, you will be worn out by the opposition of men and devils. But if God be for you, who can be against you? Are all of them together stronger than God? O be not weary of well doing!”
― John Wesley

“Radical obedience to Christ is not easy... It's not comfort, not health, not wealth, and not prosperity in this world. Radical obedience to Christ risks losing all these things. But in the end, such risk finds its reward in Christ. And he is more than enough for us.” -David Platt, Christian author and Pastor

"I used to think I wanted to meet my princess and rescue her from the ivory tower, but today I want a woman who will fight back to back with me at the gates of hell for the salvation of the world. Sometimes God doesn't give us what we want, instead He changes what we want to align with His will." -Justin Steckbauer

“Let God’s promises shine on your problems.” –Corrie ten Boom

“Are you letting culture, not scripture, determine your sexuality, how you date, how you present yourself, how you engage in certain relationships with members of the opposite sex? We need to be very clear that the way we do life is different than the rest of the world.”
― Mark Driscoll


“Our greatest fear should not be of failure but of succeeding at things in life that don’t really matter.” –Francis Chan, American pastor


"At the end of life we will not be judged by how many diplomas we have received, how much money we have made, how many great things we have done." –Mother Teresa

"By the all-powerful dispensations of Providence, I have been protected beyond all human probability and expectation; for I had four bullets through my coat, and two horses shot under me, yet escaped unhurt, altho' death was levelling my companions on every side." -George Washington, Letter to John A. Washington, July 18, 1755

“What one generation tolerates, the next generation will embrace.”
― John Wesley

“We gain strength, and courage, and confidence by each experience in which we really stop to look fear in the face...we must do that which we think we cannot." –Eleanor Roosevelt, first lady

“God does not give us everything we want, but He does fulfill His promises, leading us along the best and straightest paths to Himself.” –Dietrich Bonhoeffer, martyr executed under Hitler's Nazi Germany

“Faith must have adequate evidence, else it is mere superstition.”  -A. A. Hodge, Leader in the American Presbyterian Church
“The only way to learn strong faith is to endure great trials.” -George Muller, English Evangelist

“God loves with a great love the man whose heart is bursting with a passion for the impossible.” -William Booth, founder of The Salvation Army

"We should never desert a great principle in theology any more than in science, because of apparent difficulties which we are not able at present to remove." -J.C. Ryle


"Order your soul; reduce your wants; live in charity; associate in Christian community; obey the laws; trust in Providence." 
-Augustine, ancient theologian

“Do you not know that God entrusted you with that money (all above what buys necessities for your families) to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to help the stranger, the widow, the fatherless; and, indeed, as far as it will go, to relieve the wants of all mankind? How can you, how dare you, defraud the Lord, by applying it to any other purpose?”
― John Wesley

“I've noticed that everyone who is for abortion has already been born.” –Ronald Reagan, 40th President of the USA

"The vast majority of those who are famous are not significant and the vast majority of those who are significant are not famous."
Dennis Prager


"People can become addicted to fame, money, and attention as deeply as they become addicted to drugs."
Dennis Prager (Think a Second Time)


“Never in our country’s history has a generation been so empowered, so wealthy, so privileged—and yet so empty.”
Ben Shapiro, Porn Generation: How Social Liberalism Is Corrupting Our Future


“Science itself is steadily nailing the lid on atheism's coffin.” –Lee Strobel

“And the leftist bullies use that nonconstitutional phrase as a baton with which to club their opponents into submission. Jefferson’s “wall of separation between Church & State,” a phrase from his 1802 letter to the Danbury Baptists, was meant not to prevent people from expressing religion in the public square but to prevent government from infringing on religious freedom.”
Ben Shapiro, Bullies


“The excessive skepticism of many liberal theologians stems not from a careful evaluation of the available data, but from an enormous predisposition against the supernatural.” –Millar Burrows, former Yale University Professor

“Give me one hundred preachers who fear nothing but sin, and desire nothing but God, and I care not a straw whether they be clergymen or laymen; such alone will shake the gates of hell and set up the kingdom of heaven on Earth.”
― John Wesley

“Without a clear moral vision, we devolve into moral relativism, and from there, into oblivion.”
Ben Shapiro, Porn Generation: How Social Liberalism Is Corrupting Our Future


“Archaeological work has unquestionably strengthened confidence in the reliability of the Scriptural record. More than one archaeologist has found his respect for the Bible increased by the experience of excavation in Palestine.” –Millar Burrows, former Yale University professor

“Its not right that children be dunked headfirst into the vat of garbage we call popular culture.”
Ben Shapiro, Porn Generation: How Social Liberalism Is Corrupting Our Future

 
“When someone calls you a racist, sexist, bigot, homophobe because you happen to disagree with them about tax policy or same-sex marriage or abortion, that’s bullying. When someone slanders you because you happen to disagree with them about global warming or the government shutdown, that’s bullying. When someone labels you a bad human being because they disagree with you, they are bullying you. They are attacking your character without justification. That’s nasty. In fact, it makes them nasty.”
Ben Shapiro, How to Debate Leftists and Destroy Them: 11 Rules for Winning the Argument

 
"Freedom comes from moral self-control. There is no other way to achieve it."
Dennis Prager (The Ten Commandments: Still the Best Moral Code)

“I can see how it might be possible for a man to look down upon earth and be an atheist, but I cannot conceive how he could look up into the heavens and say that there is no God.”
–Abraham Lincoln

 
“Nihilism, narcissism, and hedonism are natural results of the chaotic existential subjectivism popularized by the Left. If the hallmark of the baby boomers was rebellion, the hallmark of my generation is jadedness. Nothing really matters—we’re cosmically alone.”
Ben Shapiro, Porn Generation: How Social Liberalism Is Corrupting Our Future

 
“If religious books are not widely circulated among the masses in this country, I do not know what is going to become of us as a nation. If truth be not diffused, error will be; If God and His Word are not known and received, the devil and his works will gain the ascendancy, If the evangelical volume does not reach every hamlet, the pages of a corrupt and licentious literature will; If the power of the Gospel is not felt throughout the length and breadth of the land, anarchy and misrule, degradation and misery, corruption and darkness will reign without mitigation or end.” – 1823; Every Christian a Publisher, Ernest Reisinger, Free Grace Broadcaster, Issue 51, Winter, 1995, p. 17

“If thou wouldst rule well, thou must rule for God, and to do that, thou must be ruled by him… Those who will not be governed by God will be ruled by tyrants.” – William Penn, Founder of Pennsylvania, 1668 (Penn was imprisoned for writing this tract.)

“I met those of our society who had votes in the ensuing election, and advised them
1. To vote, without fee or reward, for the person they judged most worthy
2. To speak no evil of the person they voted against, and
3. To take care their spirits were not sharpened against those that voted on the other side.”
― John Wesley, The Journal of John Wesley 
October 6, 1774

He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem. Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted.
-Isaiah 53:3-4 NIV

"It’s scientifically inaccurate to say a human fetus isn’t a person simply because he’s at an earlier stage of development than an infant. A toddler isn’t less human because he’s not yet an adolescent. Likewise, an unborn child isn’t less human than a 6-month-old." –Randy Alcorn

“I myself find it hard to accept the notion of self-creation from nothing, even given unrestricted chance.” –J. L. Mackie

"The people have no other remedy in this, as in all other cases where they have no judge on earth, but to appeal to heaven: for the rulers, in such attempts, exercising a power the people never put into their hands, (who can never be supposed to consent that any body should rule over them for their harm) do that which they have not a right to do. And where the body of the people, or any single man, is deprived of their right, or is under the exercise of a power without right, and have no appeal on earth, then they have a liberty to appeal to heaven, whenever they judge the cause of sufficient moment. And therefore, though the people cannot be judge, so as to have, by the constitution of that society, any superior power, to determine and give effective sentence in the case; yet they have, by a law antecedent and paramount to all positive laws of men, reserved that ultimate determination to themselves which belongs to all mankind, where there lies no appeal on earth, viz. to judge, whether they have just cause to make their appeal to heaven. And this judgment they cannot part with, it being out of a man's power so to submit himself to another, as to give him a liberty to destroy him; God and nature never allowing a man so to abandon himself, as to neglect his own preservation: and since he cannot take away his own life, neither can he give another power to take it." -John Locke

“By salvation I mean not barely according to the vulgar notion deliverance from hell or going to heaven but a present deliverance from sin a restoration of the soul to its primitive health its original purity a recovery of the divine nature the renewal of our souls after the image of God in righteousness and true holiness in justice mercy and truth.”
― John Wesley

"With every post I make, my hope is that someone will reshare the text or photo to help change culture, and transform this world in the power of the Christian faith." -Justin S. Steckbauer

"America is in moral decline as domestic adversaries dismantle our nation's twin pillars of "religion and morality." Christians must unite and fight back or we will certainly lose our religious liberties and basic freedoms! The American Revolution was born from the spiritual foundation of the Great Awakening. Pastors and patriots rose up to fight side by side. We need that resolve again."
-Mathew Staver, Founder & Chairman Liberty Counsel


"Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful."
Colossians 3:15 NIV

"We became so involved and fascinated by the intricacies of television that we found it a little more convenient to stay at home than to come to church. It was an unconscious thing. We didn’t mean to do it. We didn’t just go up and say, now God, you’re gone. We had gone a whole day’s journey, and then we came to see that we had unconsciously ushered God out of the universe. A whole day’s journey-didn’t mean to do it. We just became so involved in things that we forgot about God." -Martin Luther King Jr, 28 Feb 1954, Rediscovering Lost Values

"Some things in this universe are absolute. The God of the universe has made it so. And so long as we adopt this relative attitude toward right and wrong, we’re revolting against the very laws of God himself." -Martin Luther King Jr. 28 Feb 1954, Rediscovering Lost Values

"...if we are to go forward today, we’ve got to go back and rediscover some mighty precious values that we’ve left behind. That’s the only way that we would be able to make of our world a better world, and to make of this world what God wants it to be and the real purpose and meaning of it. The only way we can do it is to go back, and rediscover some mighty precious values that we’ve left behind." -Martin Luther King Jr, 28 Feb 1954, Rediscovering Lost Values

"That’s what we need in the world today-people who will stand for right and goodness. It’s not enough to know the intricacies of zoology and biology. But we must know the intricacies of law. It is not enough to know that two and two makes four. But we’ve got to know somehow that it’s right to be honest and just with our brothers. It’s not enough to know all about our philosophical and mathematical disciplines. But we’ve got to know the simple disciplines, of being honest and loving and just with all humanity. If we don’t learn it, we will destroy ourselves, by the misuse of our own powers." -Martin Luther King Jr, 28 Feb 1954, Rediscovering Lost Values

"What if I told you Calvary was a garbage dump? It's true. That's what they did with the Son of God. They crucified him alongside two criminals in the midst of a garbage dump. That's the treatment we can expect from the world. Wild stuff, eh? I'm pretty tired of a church so eager to please the world. If the world likes us, then we might need to ask ourselves if we're really standing for the full gospel. If we leave things out of the gospel, and ignore key issues, we're abdicating our duty. Let's share the message as it is written, not as we would have it be." -Justin Steckbauer 

"If we are to go forward, we must go back and rediscover these
precious values-that all reality hinges on moral foundations and that all reality has spiritual control." -Martin Luther King Jr,
28 Feb 1954, Rediscovering Lost Values

“Has anyone provided proof of God’s inexistence? Not even close. Has quantum cosmology explained the emergence of the universe or why it is here? Not even close. Have our sciences explained why our universe seems to be fine-tuned to allow for the existence of life? Not even close. Are physicists and biologists willing to believe in anything so long as it is not religious thought? Close enough. Has rationalism and moral thought provided us with an understanding of what is good, what is right, and what is moral? Not close enough. Has secularism in the terrible 20th century been a force for good? Not even close, to being close. Is there a narrow and oppressive orthodoxy in the sciences? Close enough. Does anything in the sciences or their philosophy justify the claim that religious belief is irrational? Not even in the ball park. Is scientific atheism a frivolous exercise in intellectual contempt? Dead on.”
― David Berlinski, The Devil's Delusion: Atheism and Its Scientific Pretensions

 
"There is only one business in America that is protected by the Constitution.  That is the press.  And there was a reason for that.  It is because the press was suppose to be an ally of the people.  And they were suppose to expose to and inform the people in a non-partisan way.  When they become partisan, which they are, they distort the system as it was suppose to work.  And they allow the side they pick to get away with all kinds of things.  But I think there's still hope for the press.  I think it is possible that some of them will recognize that it's almost a sacred obligation that they have to the people: To be honest." -Ben Carson, October 9th 2015, to the National Press Club Luncheon

"Just because a culture of disregard for eternity exists around us, doesn't mean it's a reality my friend. We're so led astray by all this jargon and simplicity when eternity is at our very fingertips. Imagine how so many will be so very surprised on that day when they wake up in the blissful presence of God, only to be turned away, because they refused his visages so many times during their short layover on Earth." - Justin Steckbauer, to his best friend.

"And all the time—such is the tragi-comedy of our situation—we continue to clamour for those very qualities we are rendering impossible. You can hardly open a periodical without coming across the statement that what our civilization needs is more ‘drive’, or dynamism, or self-sacrifice, or ‘creativity’. In a sort of ghastly simplicity we remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful." -C.S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man

"Relativism poses as freedom but it is just another form of tyranny: You must believe that all religions are equal because we say they are. You must agree with us that everything is relative, or we will punish you." –Jeffrey Burton Russell, Exposing Myths About Christianity, p. 144 

“Christians who understand biblical truth and have the courage to live it out can indeed redeem a culture, or even create one. This is the challenge facing all of us in the new millennium.”
Charles W. Colson, How Now Shall We Live?

"The world of temptation is around you, to trip you up. It'll assault your imagination in every possible way until half of your life you will be spending in a rescue operation trying to salvage what it is you've lost. And so I say to you: Draw the lines in the right places soon and don't cross them. As tough as it is, pleasure always comes at a cost." -Ravi Zacharias, "Unlimited? The Challenge of Human Freedom", Georgia Tech, June 2015

"With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan--to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations." -Abraham Lincoln, Second Inaugural Address, March 4 1865, Washington D.C.

"If all the world were Christian it might not matter if all the world were uneducated. But a cultural life will exist outside the Church whether it exists inside or not. To be ignorant and simple now-not to be able to meet the enemies on their own ground-would be to throw down our weapons, and betray our uneducated brethren who have no defense but us against intellectual attacks of the heathen.  Good philosophy must exist, if for no other reason, because bad philosophy needs to be answered. The cool intellect must work not only against cool intellect on the other side, but against muddy heathen mysticisms which deny intellect altogether. Most of all, perhaps, we need intimate knowledge of the past. The learned life is then, for some, a duty." -C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory and other Addresses

"It changed my life – or he changed my life. I was a teenager when I became a Christian at age 16. For me, this was absolutely revolutionary. It lifted me from a sense of meaninglessness and purposelessness to being passionate about living for Christ and making my life count for him and for his Kingdom. That has never left me, but has inspired my life. I do think we want to give our kids a vision of a high calling lived for Christ that is the greatest calling that you can have and so much more than this milquetoast moralistic therapeutic deism." -William Lane Craig, Mutant Christianity

"When a true genius appears, you can know him by this sign: that all the dunces are in a confederacy against him."
-Jonathan Swift

“When we place our dependence in God, we are unencumbered, and we have no worry. In fact, we may even be reckless, insofar as our part in the production is concerned. This confidence, this sureness of action, is both contagious and an aid to the perfect action. The rest is in the hands of God – and this is the same God, gentlemen, who has won all His battles up to now.” -Vince Lombardi, Green Bay Packers Coach  

“Success demands singleness of purpose.” -Vince Lombardi, Green Bay Packers Coach


“A general dissolution of principles and manners will more surely overthrow the liberties of America than the whole force of the common enemy. While the people are virtuous they cannot be subdued; but when once they lose their virtue they will be ready to surrender their liberties to the first external or internal invader.”
– Samuel Adams, in a letter from Samuel Adams to fellow patriot James Warren on February 12, 1779


"I am sure there never was a people, who had more reason to acknowledge a divine interposition in their affairs, than those of the United States; and I should be pained to believe, that they have forgotten that agency, which was so often manifested during our revolution, or that they failed to consider the omnipotence of that God, who is alone able to protect them."
-George Washington, Letter to John Armstrong, 11 March 1782, in Ford's Writings of George Washington (1891), vol. XII, p. 111.

"Its a familiar story. The hero hits rock bottom, picks himself up, and fights his way to the top." -Mike Holmgren, Green Bay Packers Coach on Brett Favre's 1996 championship season.

“There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance—that principle is contempt prior to investigation.” -Herbert Spencer

"There is a savior for forgiveness.  There is a way out of the wilderness.  This is a journey that can be made, pain after pain, event after event, joy and sorrow, peace and unsettled, despair and ecstasy, knowledge after knowledge, humbled into pieces, reception of Christ Jesus, and reconnection born after, ever burdened by sin after sin, carrying the incredible weight of distance from his presence, but promised something we cannot see, taste, or touch, yet believing and hoping, against all odds, and on the way changing the world, sharing that fountain with others, day after endless day, eyes to the horizon, head in the clouds, feet on the ground, stunning and shaken, screaming in sadness, victorious shout, endless eternity awaiting those who can just hold out to the end.  Great happiness to those who finish this journey.  That's what it means to me.. being a Christian."  -Justin Steckbauer

“Faithfulness and truth are the most sacred excellences and endowments of the human mind.” -Vince Lombardi, Green Bay Packers Coach

"Sex between husband and wife is a bonding experience physically, mentally, and spiritually. Often young people will tell me they feel drained and empty inside. Perhaps that is because they've sexually bonded with so many strangers that they've left pieces of themselves behind everywhere they've went." -Justin Steckbauer

“One response was given by the innkeeper when Mary and Joseph wanted to find a room where the Child could be born. The innkeeper was not hostile; he was not opposed to them, but his inn was crowded; his hands were full; his mind was preoccupied. This is the answer that millions are giving today. Like a Bethlehem innkeeper, they cannot find room for Christ. All the accommodations in their hearts are already taken up by other crowding interests. Their response is not atheism. It is not defiance. It is preoccupation and the feeling of being able to get on reasonably well without Christianity.” –Billy Graham

"Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness."
- Martin Luther King Jr.


“If you want to change the world, pick up your pen and write.” -Martin Luther 

“Winning is a habit. Watch your thoughts, they become your beliefs. Watch your beliefs, they become your words. Watch your words, they become your actions. Watch your actions, they become your habits. Watch your habits, they become your character.” -Vince Lombardi, Green Bay Packers Coach

"If a transtemporal, transfinite good is our real destiny, then any other good on which our desire fixes must be in some degree fallacious, must bear at best only a symbolical relation to what will truly satisfy." -C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory, pg. 3

"Click the share button, and in so doing change the world." -Anonymous

"One of the necessary draw backs of real honesty is that people may lose faith in you. But the gains are so much more important: authenticity, identification, and the winning of souls.
"But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me." (2 Cor 12:9)  -Anonymous

"We must never be blindsided by the futile philosophy that we are just the hapless victims of our inheritance, our life experience, and our surroundings-that these are the sole forces that make our decisions for us ... We have to believe that we can really choose." -Bill Wilson

“It is not what we do that matters, but what a sovereign God chooses to do through us. God doesn't want our success; He wants us. He doesn't demand our achievements; He demands our obedience. The Kingdom of God is a kingdom of paradox, where through the ugly defeat of a cross, a holy God is utterly glorified. Victory comes through defeat; healing through brokenness; finding self through losing self.”
― Charles W. Colson


"I think the most powerful revelation of my generation will be that of bankruptcy in the wake of the endless pursuit of pleasure and entertainment. Following that.., God." -Anonymous

"There is a moral and spiritual war for the souls of Americans. And this war must be waged by preaching the Gospel, prayer, and obedience to God's Word."
- David Jeremiah

"The church's singular failure in recent decades has been the failure to see Christianity as a life system, or worldview, that governs every area of existence." -Charles W. Colson

"I am trying to rip open the inconsolable secret in each one of you—the secret which hurts so much that you take your revenge on it by calling it names like Nostalgia and Romanticism and Adolescence; the secret also which pierces with such sweetness that when, in very intimate conversation, the mention of it becomes imminent, we grow awkward and affect to laugh at ourselves; the secret we cannot hide and cannot tell, though we desire to do both. We cannot tell it because it is a desire for something that has never actually appeared in our experience. We cannot hide it because our experience is constantly suggesting it, and we betray ourselves like lovers at the mention of a name. Our commonest expedient is to call it beauty and behave as if that had settled the matter." -C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory, pg. 3

"The spiritual life is not a theory.  We have to live it." -Bill Wilson  

"The first duty of love is to listen." -Paul Tillich

“I hope for the day when everyone can speak of God without embarrassment." -Paul Tillich

"A man can no more take in a supply of grace for the future than he can eat enough today to last him for the next 6 months, nor can he inhale sufficient air into his lungs with one breath to sustain life for a week to come. We are permitted to draw upon God's store of grace from day to day as we need it."
- Dwight L. Moody


"Before the coming of faith I had lived as an alien in a cosmos that too often seemed both hostile and cruel."    
-Bill Wilson, "This Matter of Fear", Best of Bill, Jan 1962
      
"Many people—particularly the young—have been persuaded that such a search is futile. They have been told from their preschool days on that one person’s opinion is as good as another’s, that each person can pick his or her own truth from a multicultural smorgasbord. If one choice proves unsavory, pick another, and so on, until, in a consumerist fashion, we pick the truth we like best. I think the despair of Generations X, Y, and now E comes from this fundamental notion that there’s no such thing as reality or the capital-T truth. Almost every new movie I see these days features a bright, good-looking, talented young man who is so downright sad, he can barely lift his head. I want to scream, “What’s wrong with this guy?” Then I feel a profound compassion because his generation has been forbidden the one thing that makes life such a breathtaking challenge: truth.”
Charles W. Colson, The Good Life 


"For so long as we speak and try to perfect the language of love -- for just so long may we count upon making whatever rendezvous with destiny that God would have us." -Bill Wilson

"How often we look upon God as our last and feeblest resource! We go to him because we have nowhere else to go. And then we learn that the storms of life have driven us, not upon the rocks, but into the desired haven." -George Macdonald

“The lure of power can separate the most resolute of Christians from the true nature of Christian leadership, which is service to others. It’s difficult to stand on a pedestal and wash the feet of those below.”
Charles W. Colson, God and Government 


“In a pluralistic society it is not only wrong but unwise for Christians to shake their Bibles and arrogantly assert that “God says . . .” That is the quickest way for Christians, a distinct minority in civil affairs, to lose their case altogether.”
Charles W. Colson, God and Government  
 


"All Christians are under obligation to seek to make the will of Christ supreme in our own lives and in human society. Means and methods used for the improvement of society and the establishment of righteousness among men can be truly and permanently helpful only when they are rooted in the regeneration of the individual by the saving grace of God in Jesus Christ. In the spirit of Christ, Christians should oppose racism, every form of greed, selfishness, and vice, and all forms of sexual immorality, including adultery, homosexuality, and pornography. We should work to provide for the orphaned, the needy, the abused, the aged, the helpless, and the sick. We should speak on behalf of the unborn and contend for the sanctity of all human life from conception to natural death. Every Christian should seek to bring industry, government, and society as a whole under the sway of the principles of righteousness, truth, and brotherly love. In order to promote these ends Christians should be ready to work with all men of good will in any good cause, always being careful to act in the spirit of love without compromising their loyalty to Christ and His truth." -Baptist Faith and Message (2000) Chapter 15 The Christian and the Social Order

"The church, it appears, is a protective cocoon; while the congregation holds Easter egg hunts, Sunday school classes, and worship services, the world at large is potentially drawn in by the loving relationships that can be experienced. If you come to the church, you can experience this for yourself. Second, Wagner’s presentation, while admittedly the description of the experiences of a particular congregation, seems to ignore the reality that suburban America is not the experience even of many Americans. Difficult inner-city situations, poor small towns, and widely varied ethnic communities are a part of the landscape congregations now contend with. It is difficult to imagine how comfortable a congregation nurtured on the notion of a safe haven that Wagner describes would respond to calls to take substantial personal risks by ministering to the poor, the broken, and the dirty—beyond the doors of that congregation. But is this not a critical dimension of the second great commandment?" - Ted Rivera, The Half Gospel

"Practicing psychiatry without faith in God is like meeting a hungry man and giving him a toothpick." -Author Unknown

"Men do not differ much about what things they will call evils; they differ enormously about what evils they will call excusable." -G.K. Chesterton

"I was at this time of living, like so many Atheists or Anti-theists, in a whirl of contradictions. I maintained that God did not exist. I was also very angry with God for not existing. I was equally angry with Him for creating a world." -C.S. Lewis 

"Jesus doesn't explain why there is suffering, illness, and death in the world. He brings healing and hope. He doesn't allow the problem of evil to be the subject of a seminar. He allows evil to do its worst to him. He exhausts it, drains its power, and emerges with new life." -N. T. Wright, from Simply Good News 

“The Christian in the one whose imagination should fly beyond the stars.”
Francis A. Schaeffer, Art & the Bible 


"If any of you are around when I have to meet my day, I don’t want a long funeral. And if you get somebody to deliver the eulogy, tell them not to talk too long. Every now and then I wonder what I want them to say. Tell them not to mention that I have a Nobel Peace Prize, that isn’t important. Tell them not to mention that I have three or four hundred other awards, that’s not important. Tell them not to mention where I went to school. I’d like somebody to mention that day, that Martin Luther King, Jr., tried to give his life serving others. I’d like for somebody to say that day, that Martin Luther King, Jr., tried to love somebody." -Martin Luther King Jr.

“The Bible- banned, burned, beloved. More widely read, more frequently attacked than any other book in history. Generations of intellectuals have attempted to discredit it; dictators of every age have outlawed it and executed those who read it. Yet soldiers carry it into battle believing it is more powerful than their weapons. Fragments of it smuggled into solitary prison cells have transformed ruthless killers into gentle saints. Pieced together scraps of Scripture have converted whole whole villages of pagan Indians.”
Charles W. Colson



"It’s the combination of improbability with an independently given pattern that discredits chance."
William Lane Craig (God?: A Debate between a Christian and an Atheist)  


"Whereas easy appeals to mystery prematurely shut off reflection about God, rigorous and earnest effort to understand him is richly rewarded with deeper appreciation of who he is, more confidence in his reality and care, and a more intelligent and profound worship of his person."
William Lane Craig


“The unexamined life is not worth living by insisting that the unexamined faith is not worth believing.”
Norman L. Geisler 


"Until we as Christians retake the public schools and universities, we will be fighting a losing battle. Why? Children are the future of the church, and with all the indoctrination into naturalism we don't stand a chance of converting them post-humorously" -Justin Steckbauer

"As pastors and other church leaders graduate with their impressive degrees, they therefore take with them theological notions that are often disconnected from the suffering of the least among us. They have been schooled about justification, sanctification, adoption, and a thousand other doctrines, and are up to date on multi-campus approaches and methods for evangelism that meet the trends of this technological society. But how the preaching of the gospel and how a life in Jesus Christ is connected to the poor, the blind, the lame, and the hurting? This is too often unexamined. And so our churches can become insular, self-serving, stilted and prideful. There is too often greater concern for the kind of coffee served in the sanctuary before service than there is for the people who grow the coffee. Love for our fellow-man must be featured above the din of our self-absorption." 
- Ted Rivera, The Half Gospel (2013)

“We are not necessarily doubting that God will do the best for us; we are wondering how painful the best will turn out to be.”
C.S. Lewis


“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.”
C.S. Lewis,
The Four Loves      

 "It would be difficult for anyone looking around the world today to resist the conclusion that something has gone very badly indeed with what we continue to call “Western Civilization.”  This awareness tends to be distorted and muffled – if not obliterated – by the media, which manage to induce us to take for granted the continuingly explosive situations that confront us on every hand, and to see as an enlargement of our freedom and an enhancement of the quality of our living the steady and ominous erosion of the moral standards on which our traditional way of life has been based." -Malcom Muggeridge, The True Crisis of our Time

“To look into the sad eyes of a hungry child or see the wasted life of a drug addict is to see only the evidence of Satan's hold on this world. All bad things, whether in Asia or America, are his handiwork.”
― K.P. Yohannan, Revolution in World Missions


"A Christian is not simply a person who is forgiven and goes to heaven. A Christian, in terms of his or her deepest identity, is a saint, a spiritually born child of God, a divine masterpiece, a child of light, a citizen of heaven."
- Neil T. Anderson
 


"In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus presents the so-called Golden Rule: "So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets" (Matt 7:12). While we have been considering the first and second great commandments, there is a sense in which this text seemingly subsumes both. One’s actions toward other human beings—a loving disposition of concern—is a summary of “the Law and the Prophets.” Faith, it appears, is less about intellectual propositions disconnected from the messy realities of this hurting world: we must do to and for others what we would want them to
do for us. Surely, this must be featured prominently in every branch of theology, don’t you think?" 

-Ted Rivera, The Half Gospel (2013)

"I think it’s about time Christians woke up and understood that even though there are Christian missionaries in the public school system (and they need our prayers), by and large these schools are actually churches of atheism. Millions of students are being taught that all life and the universe arose by natural processes—by naturalism. But we need to call naturalism what it is—atheism. Regardless of where parents send their children to be educated (and that is their decision before the Lord), it does need to be understood that as these young people are sent to the public schools for around seven hours a day, they are largely being indoctrinated in an anti-God religion. If one is not for Christ, then one is against Christ—there is no neutral position. If the education system is not for Christ, it is against Christ. If the textbooks are not for Christ, they are against Christ! If the teachers aren’t for Christ, they are against Christ!" -Ken Ham

"So the final conclusion would surely be that whereas other civilizations have been brought down by attacks of barbarians from without, ours had the unique distinction of training its own destroyers at its own educational institutions, and then providing them with facilities for propagating their destructive ideology far and wide, all at the public expense. Thus did Western Man decide to abolish himself, creating his own boredom out of his own affluence, his own vulnerability out of his own strength, his own impotence out of his own erotomania, himself blowing the trumpet that brought the walls of his own city tumbling down, and having convinced himself that he was too numerous, labored with pill and scalpel and syringe to make himself fewer. Until at last, having educated himself into imbecility, and polluted and drugged himself into stupefaction, he heeled over – a weary, battered old brontosaurus – and became extinct." -Malcom Muggeridge,
The True Crisis of our Time

"Our entire society needs to be reoriented so that young people can participate earlier and more meaningfully. This is no less necessary in the church than in any other social institution. The youth programs of many churches do a good job of entertaining young people and keeping them busy but do little in the way of bringing them into responsible positions within the church community." -Jack Balswick & Judith Balswick, 2014, The Family: A Christian Perspective on the Contemporary Home, p. 170

“My father’s life was changed right before my eyes. It was like someone reached down and switched on a light inside him. He touched alcohol only once after that. He got the drink only as far as his lips and that was it—after forty years of drinking! He didn’t need it any more. Fourteen months later, he died from complications of his alcoholism. But in that fourteen-month period over a hundred people in the area around my tiny hometown committed their lives to Jesus Christ because of the change they saw in the town drunk, my dad.” –Josh McDowell, The New Evidence that Demands a Verdict, xxvii.

"While Western atheists turn from belief in God because a tsunami in another part of the world caused great suffering, many brokenhearted survivors of that same tsunami found faith in God. This is one of the great paradoxes of suffering. Those who don't suffer much think suffering should keep people from God, while many who suffer a great deal turn to God, not from him." –Randy Alcorn, If God is Good, p. 102

"Throughout church history, Christians have been on the forefront of changing society with hospitals, schools, orphanages, and other institutions to minister to the poor and those in need. Now for a variety of reasons, the church is sometimes running behind society; observe the church's slow response to the AIDS epidemic. Now we run the risk of needing the world to lead us to the areas of great human need, rather than taking the lead in transforming our culture by ministering to the poor in the name of Christ. When those who do not know Christ do a better job of championing justice and bestowing mercy than do Christ's followers,the church's witness to the gospel is damaged and weakened." -Cathy Butler, Breaking the Cycle: Issues Affecting Poverty

“Mastering our emotions has nothing to do with asceticism or repression, for the purpose is not to break the emotions or deny them but to "break in" the emotions, making them teachable because they are tamed.” ― Os Guinness, God In The Dark Pb 

“Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened.”
― Winston Churchill

Above all, don't lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

“Thinking something does not make it true. Wanting something does not make it real.”
Michelle Hodkin, The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer 



“Most men would rather deny a hard truth than face it.”
George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones 



“Never be afraid to raise your voice for honesty and truth and compassion against injustice and lying and greed. If people all over the world...would do this, it would change the earth.”
William Faulkner



“All truth passes through three stages: First, it is ridiculed; Second, it is violently opposed; Third, it is accepted as self-evident.”
Arthur Schopenhauer


“I have a theory that the truth is never told during the nine-to-five hours.” ― Hunter S. Thompson
 
“Sometimes it takes a good fall to really know where you stand.”
Hayley Williams


“The truth will set you free. But not until it is finished with you.”
David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest 

"Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism.

It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is an absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door." -Professor Richard Lewontin, a geneticist (and self-proclaimed Marxist) 


“We are living now, not in the delicious intoxication induced by the early successes of science, but in a rather grisly morning-after, when it has become apparent that what triumphant science has done hitherto is to improve the means for achieving unimproved or actually deteriorated ends.” -Aldous Huxley

“A man can no more diminish God's glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word 'darkness' on the walls of his cell.” ― C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain
 

The Claim: “Religion has been the primary cause of war and oppression throughout the history of mankind.”

The Truth: In their comprehensive Encyclopedia of Wars, Phillips and Axelrod document the recorded history of warfare. Of the 1,763 wars presented, a mere 7% involved a religious cause. When Islam is subtracted from the equation, that number drops to 3.2%.  In terms of casualties, religious wars account for only 2% of all people killed by warfare. This pales in comparison to the number of people who have been killed by secular dictators in the 20th century alone."

"The greatest enemy to human souls is the self-righteous spirit which makes men look to themselves for salvation." -Charles Spurgeon


"We believe in Marxfreudanddarwin. We believe everything is OK as long as you don't hurt anyone, to the best definition of hurt, and to the best of your knowledge. We believe in sex before, during and after marriage. We believe in the therapy of sin. We believe that adultery is fun. We believe that sodomy's OK. We believe that taboos are taboo. We believe that everything's getting better, despite evidence to the contrary. The evidence must be investigated And you can prove anything with evidence. We believe that there's something in horoscopes, UFO's and bent spoons; Jesus was a good man just like Buddha, Mohammed and ourselves. He was a good moral teacher although we think His good morals were bad. We believe that all religions are basically the same -- at least the one that we read was. They all believe in love and goodness. They only differ on matters of creation, sin, heaven, hell, God, and salvation. We believe that after death comes the Nothing Because when you ask the dead what happens they say nothing. If death is not the end, if the dead have lied, then it's compulsory heaven for all excepting perhaps Hitler, Stalin and Genghis Khan. We believe in Masters and Johnson. What's selected is average. What's average is normal. What's normal is good. We believe in total disarmament. We believe there are direct links between warfare and bloodshed. Americans should beat their guns into tractors and the Russians would be sure to follow. We believe that man is essentially good. It's only his behavior that lets him down. This is the fault of society. Society is the fault of conditions. Conditions are the fault of society. We believe that each man must find the truth that is right for him. Reality will adapt accordingly. The universe will readjust. History will alter. We believe that there is no absolute truth excepting the truth that there is no absolute truth. We believe in the rejection of creeds, and the flowering of individual thought. If chance be the Father of all flesh, disaster is his rainbow in the sky, and when you hear State of Emergency! Sniper Kills Ten! Troops on Rampage! Whites go Looting! Bomb Blasts School! It is but the sound of man worshiping his maker."- Steve Turner

"Once we see, however, that the probability of life originating at random is so utterly miniscule as to make it absurd, it becomes sensible to think that the favorable properties of physics on which life depends are in every respect deliberate ... . It is therefore almost inevitable that our own measure of intelligence must reflect ... higher intelligences ... even to the limit of God ... such a theory is so obvious that one wonders why it is not widely accepted as being self-evident. The reasons are psychological rather than scientific."
-Fred Hoyle and N. Chandra Wickramasinghe, Evolution from Space (London: J.M. Dent & Sons, 1981), pp. 141, 144, 130
"The chance that higher life forms might have emerged in this way is comparable with the chance that a tornado sweeping through a junk-yard might assemble a Boeing 747 from the materials therein." Fred Hoyle, Hoyle on evolution, Nature, Vol. 294, No. 5837 (November 12, 1981), p. 105

"I am who I am" - God

"The impact of a hollow Christianity is more far-reaching than might be imagined. Ask any waiter or waitress when they least like to work, and they will uniformly point to Sunday afternoons—when churches let out. It is too often the case that instead of a true tip, they will receive gospel tracts or nothing at all. It is hard to feed your family, though, on gospel tracts. We wonder why people are disaffected by our overtures to come to church, when we have failed to connect our actions with our words. As John Perkins observes, “we need the person of Jesus Christ to transform not just the poor but also ourselves.” Worth reflecting on is this startling reality: when do we ever see Jesus or the apostles invite anyone to church? Instead, they sought out those who were hurting, or who were utterly aware of their emptiness: they brought the gospel to men and women in need." -Ted Rivera, Reforming Mercy Ministry (2013)
“Child, to say the very thing you really mean, the whole of it, nothing more or less or other than what you really mean; that's the whole art and joy of words.” ― C.S. Lewis
"Acceptance is the answer to ALL of my problems today. When I am disturbed, it is because I find some person, place, thing or situation- some fact of my life- unacceptable to me, and I can find no serenity until I accept that person, place, thing, or situation as being exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment. Nothing, absolutely nothing, happens in God's world by mistake. Until I could accept that, I could not be serene; unless I accept my life completely on life's terms, I cannot be happy. I need to concentrate not so much on what needs to be changed in the world as on what needs to be changed in me and in my attitudes." -The Big Book, pg. 417 (4th sentence edited for clarification)

"The most effective way to do it, is to do it." - Amelia Earhart

“So the final conclusion would surely be that whereas other civilizations have been brought down by attacks of barbarians from without, ours had the unique distinction of training its own destroyers at its own educational institutions, and then providing them with facilities for propagating their destructive ideology far and wide, all at the public expense. Thus did Western Man decide to abolish himself, creating his own boredom out of his own affluence, his own vulnerability out of his own strength, his own impotence out of his own erotomania, himself blowing the trumpet that brought the walls of his own city tumbling down, and having convinced himself that he was too numerous, labored with pill and scalpel and syringe to make himself fewer. Until at last, having educated himself into imbecility, and polluted and drugged himself into stupefaction, he keeled over--a weary, battered old brontosaurus--and became extinct.” ― Malcolm Muggeridge, Vintage Muggeridge: Religion and Society

"Post-modernism is really a move against certainty, meaning, and truth. It tosses out all 3 as impossible, yet claims to be a tangible worldview." -Justin Steckbauer

"The human spirit will not even begin to try to surrender self-will as long as all seems to be well with it.... But pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pain: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world." -C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain

"Knowing is not enough, we must apply. Willing is not enough, we must do" -Bruce Lee

"Life can only be understood backward; but it must be lived forward." -Søren Kierkegaard

"Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst." -Apostle Paul

"A Jedi must have the deepest commitment, the most serious mind. This one a long time have I watched. All his life has he looked away… to the future, to the horizon. Never his mind on where he was. Hmm? What he was doing. Hmph. Adventure. Heh. Excitement. Heh. A Jedi craves not these things. You are reckless.”
-Yoda, The Empire Strikes Back


"The example of Waterfront Community Church in Schaumburg, Illinois will strike many as particularly radical. All of the funds taken in by the church via offerings are given away to people in need; the church itself operates so far as possible by minimizing expenses. I remember reading about this congregation back in 2008, and happily, the church is not only still in existence, but is going strong." -Ted Rivera, Reforming Mercy Ministry

“What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny "failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for distractions." In 1984, Orwell added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we fear will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we desire will ruin us.” -Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death

"Some Christians have wrongly used Scripture to abandon the political landscape entirely, although there are no commands in Scripture which encourage this. Jesus engaged with the political leaders of his day, as did Paul and the other apostles, and we ourselves fall short of the calling of God’s Word if we neglect this central duty." -Ted Rivera, Reforming Mercy Ministry (2013)


"Christians acting judgmental and hypocritical is perhaps the worst damage ever done to the cause of Christ in the history of mankind. Love, care, stop judging, please, please, love and care for all around you." - Justin Steckbauer

"You ever have one of those moments.. when God does something really amazing in your life. And you're just filled with joy. And so humbled. And so excited. And just happy. And you kinda huff back into your car seat.. and say my God... quietly, slowly, wondering at the power of this awesome being.. with tears in your eyes. At all you're being taught and being given. Yeah, wow, yeah." - Justin Steckbauer

“Will we turn our backs on science because it is perceived as a threat to God, abandoning all the promise of advancing our understanding of nature and applying that to the alleviation of suffering and the betterment of humankind? Alternatively, will we turn our backs on faith, concluding that science has rendered the spiritual life no longer necessary, and that traditional religious symbols can now be replaced by engravings of the double helix on our alters?
Both of these choices are profoundly dangerous. Both deny truth. Both will diminish the nobility of humankind. Both will be devastating to our future. And both are unnecessary. The God of the Bible is also the God of the genome. He can be worshipped in the cathedral or in the laboratory. His creation is majestic, awesome, intricate and beautiful - and it cannot be at war with itself. Only we imperfect humans can start such battles. And only we can end them.”
Francis S. Collins, The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief  

“Whenever God means to make a man great, he always breaks him in pieces first.”Charles Spurgeon 

“The Christian does not think God will love us because we are good, but that God will make us good because He loves us.”
C.S. Lewis

“A man can no more diminish God's glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word 'darkness' on the walls of his cell.”
C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain


“Fallacies do not cease to be fallacies because they become fashions.”
G.K. Chesterton

“It isn't that they can't see the solution. It is that they can't see the problem.”
G.K. Chesterton

“Jesus Christ lived in the midst of his enemies. At the end all his disciples deserted him. On the Cross he was utterly alone, surrounded by evildoers and mockers. For this cause he had come, to bring peace to the enemies of God. So the Christian, too, belongs not in the seclusion of a cloistered life but in the thick of foes. There is his commission, his work. 'The kingdom is to be in the midst of your enemies. And he who will not suffer this does not want to be of the Kingdom of Christ; he wants to be among friends, to sit among roses and lilies, not with the bad people but the devout people. O you blasphemers and betrayers of Christ! If Christ had done what you are doing who would ever have been spared' (Luther).” ― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together: The Classic Exploration of Faith in Community 

“There are those who hate Christianity and call their hatred an all-embracing love for all religions.”
G.K. Chesterton

“If you don't behave as you believe, you will end by believing as you behave.”
Fulton J. Sheen 


“Power, no matter how well-intentioned, tends to cause suffering. Love, being vulnerable, absorbs it. In a point of convergence on a hill called Calvary, God renounced the one for the sake of the other.”
Philip Yancey, The Jesus I Never Knew 


“A dead thing goes with the stream, but only a living thing can go against it.”
G.K. Chesterton

"God exist whether or not men may choose to believe in Him. The reason why many people do not believe in God is not so much that it is intellectually impossible to believe in God, but because belief in God forces that thoughtful person to face the fact that he is accountable to such a God." -Robert A. Laidlaw

“So when the devil throws your sins in your face and declares that you deserve death and hell, tell him this: "I admit that I deserve death and hell, what of it? For I know One who suffered and made satisfaction on my behalf. His name is Jesus Christ, Son of God, and where He is there I shall be also!”
Martin Luther


“The riddles of God are more satisfying than the solutions of man.”
G.K. Chesterton

“The wild worship of lawlessness and the materialist worship of law end in the same void. Nietzsche scales staggering mountains, but he turns up ultimately in Tibet. He sits down beside Tolstoy in the land of nothing and Nirvana. They are both helpless—one because he must not grasp anything, and the other because he must not let go of anything. The Tolstoyan’s will is frozen by a Buddhist instinct that all special actions are evil. But the Nietzscheite’s will is quite equally frozen by his view that all special actions are good; for if all special actions are good, none of them are special. They stand at the crossroads, and one hates all the roads and the other likes all the roads. The result is—well, some things are not hard to calculate. They stand at the cross-roads.”
G.K. Chesterton

“Once abolish the God and the government becomes the God.”
G.K. Chesterton

“To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you.”
C.S. Lewis


“If men will not be governed by the Ten Commandments, they shall be governed by the ten thousand commandments”
G.K. Chesterton

“[To have Faith in Christ] means, of course, trying to do all that He says. There would be no sense in saying you trusted a person if you would not take his advice. Thus if you have really handed yourself over to Him, it must follow that you are trying to obey Him. But trying in a new way, a less worried way. Not doing these things in order to be saved, but because He has begun to save you already. Not hoping to get to Heaven as a reward for your actions, but inevitably wanting to act in a certain way because a first faint gleam of Heaven is already inside you.”
C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity