ADRIFT WITHOUT FAITH
Life has an orientation, a final end toward which everything moves. I realize, however, that I can say this only because I am a Christian. I know that the human adventure moves on to fulfillment, not in glory, but in a rupture followed by a re-creation which is the consummation of this whole history. If I step outside this faith, the human adventure has no orientation of its own. It is not true that history as such has meaning. . . . Human history is in fact a tale told by an idiot.
–Jacques Ellul in
“What I Believe”
BURIED ALIVE
We must be careful what we bury in our heart. To bury something does not mean it is dead. It may simply mean we have buried something alive that will devour and destroy us from within.
–Maxie Dunnam in
“Let Me Say That Again”
PASS ON THE JOY
Are you proving that the Christian life is a joyful, happy thing? Do you look glad that you are a Christian? Does your life radiate joy and enthusiasm? Check yourself carefully on this before you teach it. Make the Christian life contagious.
–Henrietta Mears in
“Dream Big: The Henrietta Mears Story”
CHARITY BEGINS AT HOME
Without love, almsgiving is no more important an action than brushing your hair or washing your hands, and the Pharisees had just as elaborate a ritual for those things as they had for alms, too, because all these things were prescribed by law, and had to be done so. But love does not give money, it gives itself. If it gives itself first and a lot of money too, that is all the better. But first it must sacrifice itself.
–Thomas Merton in
“Run to the Mountain: The Journals of Thomas Merton” (Vol. 1, 1939-41)
UNTANGLED MAJESTY
Although the threads of my life have often seemed knotted, I know, by faith, that on the other side of the embroidery there is a crown.
–Corrie Ten Boom in
“My Heart Sings”
AFFECTION OF EXCHANGE
The saints’ love to God is the fruit of God’s love to them; it is the gift of that love. God gives them a spirit of love for Him because He loved them from eternity. His love is the foundation of their regeneration and the whole of their redemption.
–Jonathan Edwards in
“Religious Affections”
DEEP CLEANING
What happened to the reality that forgiveness of sin, before God or before humankind, is a spiritual cleansing, not just a coping skill?
–Katie Funk Wiebe in
“Border Crossing”
TRUE MIRACLES
Miracles can occur without special effects. It takes more doing for a holy God to forgive an errant person than it does to part the waters of a sea.
–Martin Marty in
“Places Along the Way”
BUSYNESS AS ADDICTION
The Desert Fathers (a protest movement against worldliness in the early church) spoke of busyness as “moral laziness.” Busy-ness can also be an addictive drug, which is why its victims are increasingly referred to as “workaholics.” Busyness acts to repress our inner fears and personal anxieties, as we scramble to achieve an enviable image to display to others. We become “outward” people, obsessed with how we appear, rather than “inward” people, reflecting on the meaning of our lives.
–James Houston in
“The Transforming Power of Prayer”
POOR SUBSTITUTE
Where injustice governs . . . propaganda replaces thought and art becomes impossible.
–John Gardner in
“On Moral Fiction”
JANITORIAL MINISTRY
The world is to be cleaned by somebody, and you are not called of God if you are ashamed to scrub.
–Henry Ward Beecher in
“Heirlooms”
THE FAITH VITAMIN
Faith is the vitamin that makes all we take from the Bible digestible and makes us able to receive it and assimilate it. If we do not have faith, we cannot get anything.
–A. W. Tozer in
“Rut, Rot or Revival”
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