Thursday, September 30, 2010

"O how melancholy is it, to leave all below; unless we have an earnest of a better inheritance!  How can any reasonable man bear the thoughts of death, till he has a prospect beyond the grave?"  John Wesley, Thursday, January 4, 1753

"In my deepest heart I know that some of us have to face our comfortable, self-oriented lives all over again.  The times are too tragic, God's sorrow is too great, man's night is too dark, the Cross is too glorious for us to live as we have lived, in anything short of holy obedience." ---Thomas Kelly in A Testament of Devotion

"We are placed here in this world to learn. Some lessons we could doubtless get along very well without. Some teaching is essential. A good deal of our information came through processes that were simply heartbreaking, though afterwards it was heartmaking. Strange to say that nearly all learning is attended with pain. There are lessons that in their mastery we felt soul and body would part. The obtainment of still other knowledge left us stricken, stunned, and all but hopeless as we saw the sun go down at midday with no prospect apparently of ever rising again. But the ivy grew over the life ruin. There came strange, sweet resurrections from the tomb we had built. And another Sun rose upon us bringing healing in his wings, and under whose gentle, penetrating, revealing light we learned more precious, heart comforting, life delivering and character-exalting truths than could ever be acquired under the natural sun, or all the illuminations of candle, lamp, arc light and burner falling on manuscript and book, and streaming over desk, platform and pulpit itself." ---Beverly Carradine in A Box of Treasure

"Why are we enchanted by tales of transformation?  I can't think of a movie or novel or fairy tale that doesn't somehow turn on this.  Why is it an essential part of any great story?  Because it is the secret to Christianity, and Christianity is the secret to the universe.  'You must be born again' (John 3:7).  You must be transformed." ---John Eldredge in Waking the Dead: The Glory of a Heart Fully Alive 

"Jesus never mentioned unanswered prayer.  He had the boundless certainty that prayer is always answered." ---Oswald Chambers

Wednesday, September 29, 2010

"If the Spirit of God brings to your mind a word of the Lord that hurts you, you may be sure that there is something He wants to hurt to death." ---Oswald Chambers

"Whenever one of your friends makes a dumb comment, remember to laugh.  It may not be long before you will need the same mercy." ---Walter Albritton in Life is Short So Laugh Often, Live Fully and Love Deeply

"[Like Moses and the children of Israel], we, too, are pilgrims over the desert-waste to the eternal Home. We need to be more careful of our days, watching their decreasing number, with careful anxiety to make the most of those that are left. We need to be satisfied and replenished each morning with God's mercy, that we may have perennial springs of rejoicing and gladness. We long to help in the overthrowing of the power of evil, and as we grow older, we pray that the beauty of the Lord our God may be upon us, and may we feel that He has given permanence to the work of our hands." ---F. B. Meyer

“Standing in the way of the path to life—the way of the heart—is a monstrous barrier.  It has stopped far too many pilgrims dead in their tracks, for far too long.  There is a widespread belief among Christians today that the heart is desperately wicked—even after a person comes to Christ.  It is a crippling belief.  And it is untrue.” ---John Eldredge in Waking the Dead: The Glory of a Heart Fully Alive

"I preached morning, afternoon, and evening, and then exhorted the society to stand fast in the good old Bible-way; and not move from it, to the right hand or to the left." ---John Wesley, Sunday, April 8, 1750

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

"There is a glory to your life that your Enemy fears, and he is hell-bent on destroying that glory before you act on it.  This part of the answer will sound unbelievable at first; perhaps it will sound too good to be true; certainly, you will wonder if it is true for you.  But once you begin to see with those eyes, once you have begun to know it is true from the bottom of your heart, it will change everything.  The story of your life is the story of the long and brutal assault on your heart by the one who knows what you could be and fears it." ---John Eldredge in Waking the Dead: The Glory of a Heart Fully Alive

"There is no question of your rights.  The stamp of the saint is that he can waive his own rights and obey the Lord Jesus." ---Oswald Chambers

"God knows who you are, where you are, and what His plans for you are. If you will but humbly acknowledge that He is in control, a shift will occur in your heart and in your outlook — sunshine will break through the dark clouds and your life will sprout with new purpose and great effectiveness." ---James Ryle

"Job's friends drove him deeper into despair by insisting that he deserved his suffering.  What Job needed was someone who could inspire him to hope again.  And that is really what we all need when we are down.  Like Job we need a friend who will crawl down into our hole with us and convince us there has got to be 'another morning,' and a brighter day." ---Walter Albritton in Life is Short So Laugh Often, Live Fully and Love Deeply

"Some people claim that we can be Christians without necessarily becoming disciples.  I wonder, then, why the last thing Jesus told us was to go into the world, making disciples of all nations, teaching them to obey all that He commanded?  You'll notice that He didn't add, 'But hey, if that's too much to ask, tell them to just become Christians—you know, the people who get to go to heaven without having to commit to anything." ---Francis Chan in Crazy Love

Monday, September 27, 2010

"Our Lord's making of a disciple is supernatural.  He does not build on any natural capacity at all.  God does not ask us to do the things that are easy to us naturally; He only asks us to do the things we are perfectly fitted to do by His grace . . . ." ---Oswald Chambers

"How wonderful it is to be able to say, 'I am on assignment by Jesus.' All my talents, gifts, abilities, experiences, discoveries, longings, dreams, thoughts, and labors are focused on doing His bidding at this time, in this place, for this reason." ---James Ryle

"The honest simplicity with which several spoke, in declaring the manner of God's dealings with them, set the hearts of others on fire.  And the flame spread more and more . . . ." ---John Wesley, Sunday, February 18, 1750

"When it comes my time to slip through that thin curtain that separates this life from the next, I hope I can exit with courage.  I want to follow the example of those beautiful people who kept smiling through hard times and refused to give up.  I owe them a debt I can repay only by imitating their courage." ---Walter Albritton in Life is Short So Laugh Often, Live Fully and Love Deeply

“Life is designed to be a story of achievement in spite of adversity, not in the absence of adversity, for without adversity achievement could not exist.  Would any worthy life exist on earth if all life were to surrender when first confronted by difficulty?  The constant, unrelenting pull of life is downward—giving cause for disappointment, despair, and discouragement.  There shall always be cause to give up; there shall always be cause for complaint, but engage in complaining and you add to the downward pull of life.” ---Jim Rohn in The Seasons of Life

Weekend Edition, September 24-26, 2010

"Never discard a conviction.  If it is important enough for the Spirit of God to have brought it to your mind, it is that thing He is detecting.  You were looking for a great thing to give up.  God is telling you of some tiny thing that must go. But behind that tiny thing lies the stronghold of obstinacy, and you say, 'I will not give up my right to myself'— the very thing that God intends you to give up if you are to be a disciple of Jesus Christ." ---Oswald Chambers

"He wants possession of every area of our lives, and if you surrender your life to him, you will find yourself with a future.  What Christ receives he cleanses, and what he cleanses he fills, and what he fills he uses.  The hope of the world lies in the people who give themselves to him for cleansing and filling." ---Dennis Kinlaw in This Day With the Master

"One of my strong convictions is that I should resist whining when things do not go my way.  I try to remember that nobody, not one living soul, wants to listen to me whine about anything." ---Walter Albritton in Life is Short So Laugh Often, Live Fully and Love Deeply

"I had a long conversation with Mr. Simpson.  And of this I am fully persuaded, that whatever he does, is in the uprightness of his heart.  But he is led into a thousand mistakes by one wrong principle, the making inward impressions his rule of action, and not the written Word." ---John Wesley, Tuesday, June 22, 1742

"There are few things more crucial to us than our own lives.  And there are few things we are less clear about.  This journey we are taking is hardly down the yellow brick road.  Then again, that's not a bad analogy at all.  We may set out in the light, with hope and joy, but eventually, our path always seems to lead us into the woods, shrouded with a low-lying mist.  We come to doubt our place, we come to question God's intentions toward us, and we lose track of the most important things in life.  We're not fully convinced that God's offer to us is life.  We have forgotten that the heart is central.  And we had no idea that we were born into a world at war." ---John Eldredge in Waking the Dead

"My caution to you is this: Do not assume you are good soil.  I think most American churchgoers are the soil that chokes the seed because of all the thorns.  Thorns are anything that distracts us from God.  When we want God and a bunch of other stuff, then that means we have thorns in our soil.  A relationship with God simply cannot grow when money, sins, activities, favorite sports teams, addictions, or commitments are piled on top of it." ---Francis Chan in Crazy Love

"Walk on the streets and chat with your friends.  But every moment behind the scenes be in prayer, offering yourselves in continuous obedience.  I find this internal continuous prayer life absolutely essential.  It can be carried on day and night, in the thick of business, in home and school.  Such prayer of submission can be so simple." ---Thomas Kelly in A Testament of Devotion

 

"Life is truly a constant beginning, a constant opportunity, a constant springtime.  We need only learn to look once again at life as we did as children, letting fascination and curiosity give us welcome cause for taking a second look, rather than taking for granted." ---Jim Rohn in The Seasons of Life

"God can use any of us to make a significant difference for Christ in this broken world.  And the means of doing it are not some grand plan or program, but something right there on the path in front of us.  At first we might not recognize it.  It may not look like much.  Then we might see it as a quest, an opportunity—or an interruption.  We can choose to pass it by.  Or we can pick it up." ---Dois I. Rosser, Jr. & Ellen Vaughn in The God Who Hung on the Cross