Classic and contemporary excerpts.
Grace Undeserved
What an immense grace God is giving me! But how did I come to deserve it after so many sins? Truly our God is a God of mercy! He loads you with gifts at the very time you’re giving Him no thought, or worse, betraying him.
—Carlo Caretto in Letters to Dolcidia
Choose Real Worship
Strange things are happening all around us in Christian circles because we are not truly worshipers.
For instance, any untrained, unprepared, unspiritual empty rattletrap of a person can start something “religious” and find plenty of followers who will listen and promote it! Beyond that, it may become very evident that he or she had never heard from God in the first place.…
Because we are not truly worshipers, we spend a lot of time in the churches just spinning our wheels; making a noise but not getting anywhere.… I would rather worship God than do any other thing I know of in all this wide world!
—A. W. Tozer in Renewed Day by Day
Life’S Grievous Sorrows
There are two tragedies in life. One is to lose your heart’s desire. The other is to gain it.
—George Bernard Shaw in Man and Superman
Conversion Experience
I have been determined in captivity, and still am determined, to convert this experience into something that will be useful and good for other people. I think that’s the way to approach suffering. It seems to me that Christianity doesn’t in any way lessen suffering. What it does is enable you to take it, to face it, to work through it, and eventually to convert it.
—Terry Waite, quoted in Church Times (Dec. 27, 1991)
The Challenge Of Crisis
The modern world is said to have made discipleship harder. But it has also made evangelism easier. Today’s world is said to be multiplying crises all around us. But we must never forget that, for the gospel, each crisis is an opportunity.
—Billy Graham addressing the National Association of Evangelicals’ fiftieth anniversary convention (Mar. 5, 1992)
The Art Of Overcoming Doubt
When we are in doubt, God will never fail to give light when we have no other plan than to please him and to act in love for him.
—Brother Lawrence in The Practice of the Presence of God
Irreplaceable Loss
The single greatest loss in my time has been the idea that we are moral agents. Religion helped a great deal here. Religion taught that we are accountable for our own actions. Tribute is still paid to it today, but all that we have been talking about indicates that nobody really expects it anymore.
—Bill Moyers, interviewed in the Washington Post (quoted in First Things, Dec. 1992)
Heaven Is For Those Who Want It
We are afraid that Heaven is a bribe, and that if we make it our goal we shall no longer be disinterested. It is not so. Heaven offers nothing that a mercenary soul can desire. It is safe to tell the pure in heart that they shall see God, for only the pure in heart want to.
—C. S. Lewis in The Problem of Pain
Denial Lives On
My denial of my sin protects, preserves, perpetuates that sin! Ugliness in me, while I live in illusions, can only grow the uglier.
—Walter Wangerin, Jr., in Reliving the Passion
