In our tv ads, it is as though the ecstasy of the spirit experienced by a St. Theresa or a St. Francis can be reduced to the gratification coming from a particular car, and the kind of love that Christ compared to His love for His church can be expressed by buying the right kind of wristwatch "for that special person in your life." . . .

Hitherto, spiritual gratification could come only via spiritual means. Thus, people were urged to choose between the things of this world and the blessings of God. Now, that duality has been overcome. Ours is an age in which spiritual blessings are being promised to those who buy material things. The spiritual is being absorbed by the physical. The fruit of the spirit, suggests the media, can be had without God and without spiritual disciplines.

-Tony Campolo in Wake Up America

You can't climb for others

You cannot pull people uphill who do not want to go; you can only point up.

-Amy Carmichael in

Learning of God

Set your affections . . .

All human beings pass away. Do not let your happiness depend on something you may lose. If love is to be a blessing, not a misery, it must be for the only beloved who will never pass away.

-C. S. Lewis in The Four Loves

The truth within

The author who benefits you most is not the one who tells you something you did not know before, but the one who gives expression to the truth that has been dumbly struggling in you for utterance.

-Oswald Chambers in

My Utmost for His Highest

The road less traveled

Within the New Testament, there is no indication that Christians should expect to be healthy, wealthy, and successful in this present age. . . . Christ never told his disciples that they would get an Academy Award for their performances, but He did tell them to expect to have ...