Where the Power Is
We are not told that Jesus ever taught His disciples how to preach, but He taught them how to pray. He wanted them to have power with God; then He knew they would have power with man.
—Dwight L. Moody inD. L. Moody’s Little Instruction Book
Truthfulness Can Hurt
If truth-telling springs from love, it will not only pain those who hear it, it will pain those who speak it. If telling the truth is fun, it probably doesn’t come from love. Jeremiah told the truth and was called the “weeping prophet.”
—Philip Gulley on the Fruits of the Spirit
Pledge Fulfilled
Jesus is the yes to every promise of God.
—William Barclay inDaily Study Bible
How to Be Miserable
Count your troubles, name them one by one—at the breakfast table, if anybody will listen, or as soon as possible thereafter.
—Elisabeth Elliot inKeep a Quiet Heart
Keep Rowing
Obedience to God’s will does not mean everything will go smoothly, that the wind will always be at our backs, and that the journey will be easy. Jesus told his disciples to cross to the other side of the lake, even though he knew the wind would be working against them. Despite the wind’s contrariness, they struggled on, because they knew they were doing his will.
—Shawn Craig inBetween Sundays
False Love
He who begins by loving Christianity better than Truth will proceed by loving his own sect or church better than Christianity, and end by loving himself better than all.
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge inAids to Reflection: Moral and Religious Aphorisms
Right with God
My great concern is not whether God is on our side; my great concern is to be on God’s side, for God is always right.
—Abraham Lincoln in a reply to a deputation of Southerners
Poor Substitute
What makes the temptation of power so seemingly irresistible? Maybe it is that power offers an easy substitute for the hard task of love. It seems easier to be God than to love God, easier to control people than to love people, easier to own life than to love life. Jesus asks, “Do you love me?” We ask, “Can we sit at your right hand and your left hand in your Kingdom?” (Mt. 20:21). … We have been tempted to replace love with power.
—Henri Nouwen inMornings with Henri J. M. Nouwen
Unexpected Defeat
Beware when you take on the Church of God. Others have tried and have bitten the dust.
—Desmond Tutu in a speech (April 1987)
Compromising Success
We are so steeped in the antichrist philosopy—namely, that success consists in embracing not the values of the Sermon on the Mount but an infinity of material things, of sex and status—that we little sense how much of what passes for practical Christianity is really an apostate compromise with the spirit of the age.
—Carl F. H. Henry in Carl Henry at His Best
True Contentment
Being happy with [God] now means:
Loving as he loves,
Helping as he helps,
Giving as he gives,
Serving as he serves,
Rescuing as he rescues,
Being with him twenty-four hours,
Touching him in his distressing disguise.
—Mother Teresa inTeachings of the Christian Mystics
Consistent in All Things
Occasional high days, answers to prayer now and then, temporary blessings, make an uneven and spasmodic Christian life. But to live day in and out, all kinds of days, in simple dependence on Christ as the branch on the vine, constantly abiding, that is the supreme experience.
—Vance Havner inThe Vance Havner Quote Book
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