Attitude
Many people quench the Spirit by being down in the mouth rather than rejoicing, by planning rather than praying, by murmuring rather than giving thanks, and by worrying instead of trusting in him who is faithful.
Cameron Townsend founder of Wycliffe Bible Translators
Thank God every morning when you get up that you have something to do that day which must be done whether you like it or not. Being forced to work and forced to do your best will breed in you a hundred virtues which the idle will never know.
Charles Kingsley
Bitterness
Bitterness is the poison we swallow, while hoping the other person dies.
Skip Gray, Navigators missionary
Commitment
The kamikaze pilot who flew 50 missions was involved-but never committed.
Lou Holtz football coach
Cross
Take away the cross from the Bible, and it’s a dark book.
J. C. Ryle
The cross of Christ destroyed the equation “religion equals happiness.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Grace
Your worst days are never so bad that you are beyond the reach of God’s grace. Your best days are never so good that you are beyond the need of God’s grace.
Jerry Bridges, author of The Discipline of Grace
Materialism
Advertising has altered humankind. We’ve gone from caveman and cavewoman to craveman and cravewoman.
Frank Tyger
Mediocrity
Only a mediocre person is always at his or her best.
Laurence Peter
I always wanted to be somebody, but I should have been more specific.
comedienne Lily Tomlin
Prayer
Real prayer comes not from gritting our teeth, but from falling in love.
Richard Foster
Scripture
Most people are bothered by those Scripture passages which they cannot understand. But for me, the passages in Scripture which trouble me most are those which I do understand.
Mark Twain
Servanthood
Everybody can be great. Because anybody can serve. You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. You don’t have to make your subject and your verb agree to serve. … You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Worship
It is madness to wear ladies’ straw hats and velvet hats to church. We should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews. For the sleeping god may awake someday and take offense, or the waking god may draw us out to where we can never return.
Annie Dillard in Teaching a Stone to Talk
1996 by Christianity Today/LEADERSHIP, journal.
Last Updated: October 8, 1996
