Friday, October 29, 2010

"To make the best use of your life, you must never forget two truths: First, compared with eternity, life is extremely brief.  Second, earth is only a temporary residence.  You won't be here long, so don't get too attached." ---Rick Warren in The Purpose Driven Life

"We must decide where we want our ministry to count—in the momentary applause of popular recognition or in the reproduction of our lives in a few chosen people who will carry on our work after we have gone.  Really it is a question of which generation we are living for.” ---Robert E. Coleman in The Master Plan of Evangelism




"It was the vocation of Christ to bear witness to the truth; it is our vocation to bear witness to Him. ---Elton Trueblood in The Company of the Committed

Thursday, October, 28, 2010

"All God's men are ordinary men made extraordinary by the matter He has given them.  'I have chosen you.'  Keep that note of greatness in your creed.  It is not that you have got God but that He has got you." ---Oswald Chambers

“. . . there is but one solution that will support you when people and events hurt you—and that is to learn to work harder on your own personal growth than anything else.  Since you cannot control the weather, or the traffic, or the one you love, or your neighbors, or your boss, then you must learn to control you . . . the one whose response to the difficulties of life really counts.” ---Jim Rohn in The Seasons of Life

"We all need encouragement.  I soak it up like a sponge.  I tell all my friends, if you have any to spare, give me some.  I can always use it." ---Walter Albritton in Lord, Please Deliver Me, I Beg You, from Another Live Manger Scene

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

"The evidence of the gospel is not primarily in some document but in the lives of Christ's followers.  It is the modest persons who have heard Christ's call to involvement and who try, imaginatively, to respond, who constitute the proof that the gospel is true.  Since the proof is never completed, each person is important.  Each is important because each can add, by some unique and irrevocable act, to the cumulative evidence." ---Elton Trueblood in The Company of the Committed

"Countless Christians play around in the wading pool of spiritual experience, settling for a minimum relationship with Christ.  We need to dive into the deep end of the pool, explore the vast reservoir of His grace, and experience Christ to the maximum.  We can dabble in everything and leave a blur, or we can focus on God's priorities and make a difference." ---Doug Carter in Big Picture People

"I am a member of the Church of England: But I love good men of every Church.  My ground is the Bible.  Yea, I am a Bible-bigot.  I follow it in all things, both great and small." ---John Wesley, Monday, June 2, 1766

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

“We are not in God’s showroom, we are here to exhibit one thing—the absolute captivity of our lives to Jesus Christ.” ---Oswald Chambers

"Years ago a popular slogan encouraged people to live each day as 'the first day of the rest of your life.'  Actually, it would be wiser to live each day as if it were the last day of your life.  Matthew Henry said, 'It ought to be the business of every day to prepare for our final day.' " ---Rick Warren in The Purpose Driven Life

 

"In essence, there is only one thing God asks of us—that we be men and women of prayer, people who live close to God, people for whom God is everything and for whom God is enough.  That is the root of peace.  We have that peace when the gracious God is all we seek.  When we start seeking something besides Him, we lose it.” ---Brennan Manning in The Ragamuffin Gospel

Monday, October 25, 2010

"We are never free until we are detached.  Holy detachment comes when we live not for our wishes or for another human or for our future, but only for God.  He is our life.  God does not want people who are grabbing for what they can get.  God wants people who can hold everything—their profession, their wealth, their status, their family—on an open palm.  The only thing we are to clutch to our hearts is God himself." ---Dennis Kinlaw in This Day With the Master

"There is only one thing God wants of us, and that is our unconditional surrender." ---Oswald Chambers

"Try an experiment today. Rather than praying for THINGS, pray instead for PEOPLE. Just for today. Open your heart to someone you know, someone you love—and pray for them. Then watch and wait to see how God responds. You just might be so amazed that it becomes a regular exercise from today forward. So much so that indeed you may be able to say along with the apostle Paul, 'Every time I say your name in prayer—which is practically all the time—I thank God for you.' " ---James Ryle

Friday, October 22, 2010

"We do not need the grace of God to stand crises, human nature and pride are sufficient, we can face the strain magnificently; but it does require the supernatural grace of God to live twenty-four hours in every day as a saint, to go through drudgery as a disciple, to live an ordinary, unobserved, ignored existence as a disciple of Jesus.  It is inbred in us that we have to do exceptional things for God; but we have not.  We have to be exceptional in the ordinary things, to be holy in mean streets, among mean people, and this is not learned in five minutes." ---Oswald Chambers

"His life was ordered by his objective.  Everything he did and said was a part of the whole pattern.  It had significance because it contributed to the ultimate purpose of his life in redeeming the world for God.  This was the motivating vision governing his behavior.  His steps were ordered by it.  Mark it well.  Not for one moment did Jesus lose sight of his goal." ---Robert E. Coleman in The Master Plan of Evangelism

"Learn to accept the perpetual existence of negativity, and learn also that negativity always yields to constant human effort coupled with the constantly growing human faith and attitude.  It is written that as you sow, so also shall you reap, but only when you combine the efforts of sowing with the mental effort of believing, and the physical effort of constant attention to those things of value.  Smile at adversity, and act quickly to eliminate it.  Expect adversity, for it shall surely appear.  Be grateful for adversity, for it forces the human spirit to grow—for surely, the human character is formed not in the absence of difficulty, but in our response to difficulty." ---Jim Rohn in The Seasons of Life

Thursday, October, 21, 2010

"There is nothing thrilling about a laboring man's work, but it is the laboring man who makes the conceptions of the genius possible; and it is the laboring saint who makes the conceptions of his Master possible.  You labor at prayer and results happen all the time from His standpoint.  What an astonishment it will be to find, when the veil is lifted, the souls that have been reaped by you, simply because you had been in the habit of taking your orders from Jesus Christ." ---Oswald Chambers

"I am still persuaded much good will be done here, if we have zeal and patience." ---John Wesley, Monday, May 30, 1763

"We do need counseling.  All of us.  Jesus sends us his Spirit as Counselor; that ought to make it clear.  In fact, we apparently need quite a lot of counsel—the Spirit isn’t just stopping in to give us a tune-up; not even an annual checkup.  He has come to stay.” ---John Eldredge in Waking the Dead: The Glory of a Heart Fully Alive