Quotes for the Day

Tuesday, November 30, 2010

2010-11-30T08:23:00.004-06:00

"Our commitment to a life of prayer opens the doors for us to enter into the fullness of God's work in the earth. Being made sensitive to His presence, to His Voice, and to His ways while we are in His House, makes us ready and available to see His Hand at work in our world — bringing His kingdom all around us in the lives of our families, our friends — and even our foes." ---James Ryle

"The one concern of the devil is to keep Christians from praying. He fears nothing from prayerless studies, prayerless work and prayerless religion. He laughs at our toil, mocks at our wisdom, but he trembles when we pray." ---Samuel Chadwick

"God never gives us discernment in order that we may criticize, but that we may intercede." ---Oswald Chambers

Monday, November 29, 2010

2010-11-29T08:10:00.006-06:00

"For the Christian soul there is a silver lining in every cloud; a blue patch in the darkest sky; a turn in the longest lane; a mountain view which shall compensate the steepest ascent. Wait on the Lord, and keep His way, and He shall exalt thee to inherit the land. The thing impossible shall be; because all things are possible to God." ---F. B. Meyer

"Beware of posing as a profound person; God became a baby." ---Oswald Chambers

"When you give someone your time, you are giving them a portion of your life that you'll never get back. That is why the greatest gift you can give someone is your time. The most desired gift of love is . . . focused attention. Why is now the best time to express love? Because you don't know how long you will have the opportunity. Circumstances change. People die. Children grow up. You have no guarantee of tomorrow. If you want to express love, you had better do it now. The best use of life is love. The best expression of love is time. The best time to love is now." ---Rick Warren in The Purpose Driven Life

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

2010-11-23T06:22:00.000-06:00

"God will not discipline us, we must discipline ourselves. God will not bring every thought and imagination into captivity; we have to do it." ---Oswald Chambers

Monday, November 22, 2010

2010-11-22T04:00:00.001-06:00

"We are designed with a great capacity for God; and sin and our individuality are the things that keep us from getting at God. God delivers us from sin: we have to deliver our selves from individuality, i.e., to present our natural life to God and sacrifice it until it is transformed into a spiritual life by obedience." ---Oswald Chambers

"Rather than insisting that others respect us, we need to make sure that we are respecting others, holding others in the proper esteem. We need to make sure that we demonstrate a respect for others simply because they are here, trying their best to be all they were created to be. Those who truly live out that quality will make the best spouses, teammates, parents, friends, and business partners." ---Tony Dungy in Uncommon

"Love should be your top priority, primary objective, and greatest ambition. Love is not a good part of your life; it's the most important part. Love leaves a legacy. How you treated other people, not your wealth or accomplishments, is the most enduring impact you can leave on earth. In our final moments we all realize that relationships are what life is all about. Wisdom is learning that truth sooner rather than later." ---Rick Warren in The Purpose Driven Life

Friday, November 19, 2010

2010-11-19T04:00:00.022-06:00

"The test of the life of a saint is not success, but faithfulness in human life as it actually is. We will set up success in Christian work as the aim; the aim is to manifest the glory of God in human life, to live the life hid with Christ in God in human conditions. Our human relationships are the actual conditions in which the ideal life of God is to be exhibited." ---Oswald Chambers

"If we were to take the idea of a militant company seriously, the church building would be primarily designed as a drill hall for the Christian task force. It would be a place where Christian ambassadors in common life would come to be trained, to strengthen one another, and to find solitude when it is needed. The building might reasonably resemble the plan of a small college, with much emphasis upon the Christian library, the book store, the seminar rooms. It would be equipped with sleeping accommodations for the constant stream of visiting recruits and with an easily accessble quiet room. It would be armory, arsenal, barracks, and college, all in one." ---Elton Trueblood in The Company of the Committed

"None of us, not even Jesus, is self-explanatory. We are all interrelated, and the key to every person is in somebody else. Your physical life started in somebody else's womb. Your salvation began in somebody else's heart. Every one of us is the result of somebody else's caring. God became a human person for us, taking all of our sins into himself. Are we willing to carry other people in our heart?" ---Dennis Kinlaw in This Day With the Master

Thursday, November 18, 2010

2010-11-18T04:00:00.012-06:00

"The tendency is to look for the marvellous in our experience; we mistake the sense of the heroic for being heroes. It is one thing to go through a crisis grandly, but another thing to go through every day glorifying God when there is no witness, no limelight, no one paying the remotest attention to us." ---Oswald Chambers

"Worship is important, but it tends to be overemphasized in the contemporary church. It is very easy for the emphasis on worship to become a throwback to the Temple rather than a pushing forward to the strategy of Christ as represented in the Valiant Seventy. There is a tendency, for example, to forget that Christ rejected the idea of a shrine as a necessary physical center of religious experience. This is the clear point of His unequivocal answer to the question of the Samaritan woman. 'The hour is coming,' He said, 'when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father' (John 4:21). Worship for the follower of Christ, whatever its details, can never be a matter of place." ---Elton Trueblood in The Company of the Committed

"There is a beauty in community that the world longs to experience. When one is a part of a growing circle of true friends, he or she will experience acceptance of who they really are, affirmation of what God has given them to do, and accountability that keeps them on the right path. But there's more! The Lord didn't simply fuse us together with one another, He joined us inseparably to Himself as well! And in so doing unleashed the power of heaven into each one of our lives. Now, He wants to release that very power through our lives to a world still in need of a Savior's redeeming love and grace. In a day when confusion seems to be mounting a worldwide comeback, this could be our finest moment. ---James Ryle

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

2010-11-17T04:00:00.014-06:00

"Most of us live on the borders of consciousness—consciously serving, consciously devoted to God. All this is immature, it is not the real life yet. The mature stage is the life of a child which is never conscious; we become so abandoned to God that the consciousness of being used never enters in. A saint is never consciously a saint; a saint is consciously dependent on God." ---Oswald Chambers

"Life is all about love. Learning to love unselfishly is not an easy task. It runs counter to our self-centered nature. That's why we're given a lifetime to learn it." ---Rick Warren in The Purpose Driven Life

"I like spring, but it is too young. I like summer, but it is too proud. So I like best of all autumn, because its leaves are a little yellow, its tone mellower, its colors richer, and it is tinged a little with sorrow . . . . Its golden riches speak not of the innocence of spring, nor of the power of summer, but of the mellowness and kingly wisdom of approaching age. It knows the limitations of life and is content." ---Lin Yutang

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

2010-11-16T06:12:00.022-06:00

"It takes imagination to believe a marriage will work, that you can master a language or learn a job skill. When times were tough in the early years of our marriage, my wife and I imagined that we could make it and that better days were ahead. Many a marriage has been saved by a woman's willingness to say, 'So what if my old man is not a handsome prince on a white charger, he is still my husband and, when I get through with him, he'll be somebody I can be proud to call my own.' " ---Walter Albritton in Lord, Please Deliver Me, I Beg You, from Another Live Manger Scene

"We can all see God in exceptional things, but it requires the culture of spiritual discipline to see God in every detail. Never allow that the haphazard is anything less than God's appointed order, and be ready to discover the Divine designs anywhere." ---Oswald Chambers

" . . . a small fellowship. We hear each other's stories. We discover each other's glories. We learn to walk with God together. We pray for each other's healing. We cover each other's back. This small core fellowship is the essential ingredient for the Christian life. Jesus modeled it for us for a reason. Sure, he spoke to the masses. But he lived in a little platoon, a small fellowship of friends and allies. His followers took his example and lived this way, too." ---John Eldredge in Waking the Dead: The Glory of a Heart Fully Alive

Monday, November 15, 2010

2010-11-15T06:54:00.011-06:00

"Abraham did not choose the sacrifice. Always guard against self-chosen service for God. Self-sacrifice may be a disease. If God has made your cup sweet, drink it with grace; if He has made it bitter, drink it in communion with Him. If the providential will of God means a hard and difficult time for you, go through it, but never decide the scene of your own martyrdom. God chose the test for Abraham, and Abraham neither delayed nor protested, but steadily obeyed." ---Oswald Chambers

"We are often challenged to do 'great things' for God. Actually, God is more pleased when we do small things for him out of loving obedience. Great opportunities may come once in a lifetime, but small opportunities surround us every day." ---Rick Warren in The Purpose Driven Life

“The deeper we grow in the Spirit of Jesus Christ, the poorer we become—the more we realize that everything in life is a gift. The tenor of our lives becomes one of humble and joyful thanksgiving. Awareness of our poverty and ineptitude causes us to rejoice in the gift of being called out of darkness into wondrous light and translated into the Kingdom of God’s beloved Son.” ---Brennan Manning in The Ragamuffin Gospel

Friday, November 12, 2010

2010-11-12T07:25:00.009-06:00

"If you seek great things for yourself, thinking, “God has called me for this and for that,” you barricade God from using you. As long as you maintain your own personal interests and ambitions, you cannot be completely aligned or identified with God’s interests. This can only be accomplished by giving up all of your personal plans once and for all, and by allowing God to take you directly into His purpose for the world."

---Oswald Chambers

"He was so preternaturally serene, so comfortable with himself, that matters of personal credit never occurred to him. His style, in effect, was not to have one. As a result, his arguments during debates tended to arrive without rhetorical frills or partisan edges, but rather with the naked power of pure thought. He habitually compensated for his deficiencies as an orator by always being the most fully prepared participant, the kind of frustrating opponent who always had more relevant information at his fingertips and who also somehow understood the logical implications of your argument better than you did." --Joseph J. Ellis, writing of James Madison in American Creation

"This is the way of the kingdom of God. Though we are part of a great company, we are meant to live in little platoons. The little companies we form must be small enough for each of the members to know one another as friends and allies. Is it possible for five thousand people who gather for an hour on a Sunday morning to really and truly know each other? Okay, how about five hundred? One hundred and eighty? It can't be done. They can't possibly be intimate allies. It can be inspiring and encouraging to celebrate with a big ol' crowd of people, but who will fight for your heart?" ---John Eldredge in Waking the Dead: The Glory of a Heart Fully Alive

Thursday, November 11, 2010

2010-11-11T04:00:00.005-06:00

"[George] Washington shared [John] Adam's contempt for British presumptions of superiority. The fact that he had once been rejected for a commission in the British army did not strike Washington as a measure of his inferiority so much as a statement of their stupidity." ---Joseph J. Ellis in American Creation

"You are a fertile seed of the creator of all things, destined not to lie dormant, but to spring forth from the soil called life, and grow upward toward the unlimited horizons—overcoming all obstacles in the process. It is your destiny to tap your talents and to achieve all that of which you believe yourself to be worthy . . . to love more, anticipate more, overcome more, plan more, attract more, and to enjoy more than you ever dreamed possible." ---Jim Rohn in The Seasons of Life

"We are a product of neither nature nor nurture; we are a product of choice, because there is always a space between stimulus and response." ---Stephen R. Covey in The 8th Habit

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

2010-11-10T04:00:00.008-06:00

"Do not doubt yourself, for where doubt resides, confidence cannot. Do not neglect yourself, for with neglect comes loss. Do not imagine yourself to be less than you are, nor more than you are, but seek always to become all of which you are capable." ---Jim Rohn in The Seasons of Life

"Count on God knocking on the doors of time. I am persuaded that religious people do not with sufficient seriousness count on God as an active factor in the affairs of the world. 'Behold, I stand at the door and knock,' but too many well-intentioned people are so preoccupied with the clatter of effort to do something for God that they don't hear Him asking that He might do something through them." ---Thomas Kelly in A Testament of Devotion

"We all have the power to decide to live a great life, or even simpler, to have not only a good day but a great day. No matter how long we've walked life's pathway to mediocrity, we can always choose to switch paths. Always. It's never too late. We can find our voice." ---Stephen R. Covey in The 8th Habit

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

2010-11-09T06:26:00.009-06:00

"Even though there are plenty of models for the argumentative style displayed on the various television networks, and even though this worldly spirit has found a place in many of today's pulpits, passing itself off in the guise of "apologetics" — this is not what the Lord wants us to be: combative, belligerent, self-exalting know-it-alls. Rather, He tells us that by being winsome, we just might win some." ---James Ryle

"What Western Christianity needs first and foremost is not more Christians, but for Christians to be much more Christian than they are. Our world does not need to hear more people talk about God or even about Jesus if those people do not have a lifestyle that reinforces every word they utter. The interesting thing is that the closer we walk in intimacy with God, the less we have to say. Our very lives become a bold and beautiful testimony to the purity, the freedom, and the beauty of the Lord Jesus." ---Dennis Kinlaw in This Day With the Master

"William Booth, founder of the Salvation Army, said, 'The greatness of a man's power is in the measure of his surrender.' Nothing is more powerful than a surrendered life in the hands of God. Regardless, surrendering is never just a one-time event. Paul said, 'I die daily.' There is the moment of surrender, and there is the practice of surrender, which is moment-by-moment and lifelong. The problem with a living sacrifice is that it can crawl off the altar, so you may have to resurrender your life fifty times a day." ---Rick Warren in The Purpose Driven Life

Monday, November 8, 2010

2010-11-08T06:24:00.001-06:00

"I spent two or three hours in one of the loveliest places, and with one of the loveliest families, in the kingdom. How willingly could I have accepted the invitation to spend a few days here! Nay, at present I must be about my Father's business: But I trust to meet them in a still lovelier place." ---John Wesley, Monday May 22, 1775

"The Church is never true to itself when it is living for itself, for if it is chiefly concerned with saving its own life, it will lose it. The nature of the Church is such that it must always be engaged in finding new ways by which to transcend itself. Its main responsibility is always outside its own walls in the redemption of common life. That is why we call it a redemptive society." ---Elton Trueblood in The Company of the Committed

"If you are going to be used by God, He will take you through a multitude of experiences that are not meant for you at all, they are meant to make you useful in His hands, and to enable you to understand what transpires in other souls so that you will never be surprised at what you come across." ---Oswald Chambers

Thursday, November 4, 2010

2010-11-04T04:00:00.002-05:00

"In the front of an old Family Bible, I found these words — 'This Book contains the mind of God, the state of man, the way of salvation, the doom of sinners, and the happiness of believers. Its doctrines are holy, its precepts are binding, its histories are true, and it decisions are immutable.

'Read it to be wise, believe it to be safe, and practice it to be holy. It contains light to direct you, food to support you, and comfort to cheer you. It is the traveler's map, the pilgrim's staff, the pilot's compass, the soldier's sword, and the Christian's charter. Here Paradise is restored, Heaven opened, and the Gates of Hell disclosed.

'Christ is its Grand Subject, our good its design, and the Glory of God its end. It should fill the memory, rule the heart, and guide the feet.

'Read it slowly, frequently, and prayerfully. It is a mine of wealth, a paradise of glory, and a river of pleasure. It is given you in life, will be opened at the judgment, and be remembered forever. It involves the highest responsibility, rewards the greatest labor, and condemns all who trifle with its holy contents. This volume is the Word of GOD.' " ---James Ryle

"My personal life may be crowded with small petty incidents, altogether unnoticeable and insignificant; but if I obey Jesus Christ in the haphazard circumstances, they become pinholes through which I see the face of God, and when I stand face to face with God I will discover that through my obedience thousands were blessed." ---Oswald Chambers

"Rarely do we recognize the cost that other people have paid to be faithful to the Lord Jesus. In our society, we focus so much on our own personal needs that few people will stand up and say, 'Whatever God asks, I will do.' Are you willing to do that? No devotion to Christ is ever wasted. No lover of Christ is ultimately rejected. Everybody's redemption begins in somebody else. What is he calling you to do?" ---Dennis Kinlaw in This Day With the Master

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

2010-11-03T04:00:00.020-05:00

"God has frequently to knock the bottom board out of your experience if you are a saint in order to get you into contact with Himself. God wants you to understand that it is a life of faith, not a life of sentimental enjoyment of His blessings." ---Oswald Chambers

"God chooses what we go through; we choose how we go through it." ---John C. Maxwell

"God doesn't owe you an explanation or reason for everything he asks you to do. Understanding can wait, but obedience can't. Instant obedience will teach you more about God than a lifetime of Bible discussions. In fact, you will never understand some commands until you obey them first. Obedience unlocks understanding." ---Rick Warren in The Purpose Driven Life

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

2010-11-02T04:00:00.004-05:00

"Our world is over-run with paganism and hedonism, along with huge doses of socialism, communism, and atheism. In a day of increasing encroachment by the powers of darkness, perhaps the opportunity to let our light shine was never more significant than now. Thus, for those of us who love the Lord and His Word, we — like Timothy of old — must guard the precious treasure with the help of the Holy Spirit, lest it fall idly unattended and we miss out on one of History's epic moments. In other words, conduct your affairs with a strong sense of security — insuring that the ability, the opportunity, and the power which the Lord Jesus has entrusted to you to communicate truth to others does not become ripped off by the schemes of the devil in the day of global crisis." ---James Ryle

"Do not settle for smallness, even significant smallness. God is waiting to take you into places and open you up to opportunities that exist only in your wildest dreams. The key is that you must let him give you the opportunities and move you into new places. Are you ready for an adventure?" ---Dennis Kinlaw in This Day With the Master

"Nothing Jesus Christ ever said is common sense, it is revelation sense, and it reaches the shores where common sense fails." ---Oswald Chambers

Monday, November 1, 2010

2010-11-01T04:00:00.004-05:00

"Our view of the Holy Spirit is too small. The Holy Spirit is the One who changes the church, but we have to remember that the Holy Spirit lives in us. It is individual people living Spirit-filled lives that will change the church. ---Francis Chan in Crazy Love

"Jesus cuts to the heart of the matter as He sits the child on His knee. The child is unself-conscious, incapable of pretense. The child doesn't have to struggle to get himself in a good position for having a relationship with God; he doesn't have to craft ingenious ways of explaining his position to Jesus; he doesn't have to create a pretty face for himself; he doesn't have to achieve any state of spiritual feeling or intellectual understanding. All he has to do is happily accept the cookies: the gift of the Kingdom." ---Brennan Manning in The Ragamuffin Gospel

"We had a poor sermon at church. However, I went again in the afternoon, remembering the words of Mr. Philip Henry, 'If the Preacher does not know his duty, I bless God that I know mine.' " ---John Wesley, Sunday, June 17, 1770

Friday, October 29, 2010

2010-10-29T04:00:00.003-05:00

"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

2010-10-28T04:00:00.003-05:00

"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

2010-10-27T04:00:00.003-05:00

"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

2010-10-26T04:00:00.004-05:00

“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

2010-10-25T04:00:00.000-05:00

"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

2010-10-22T05:32:00.015-05:00

"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

2010-10-21T05:23:00.010-05:00

"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

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

2010-10-20T06:05:00.005-05:00

"Prayer is the battle; it is a matter of indifference where you are. Whichever way God engineers circumstances, the duty is to pray. Never allow the thought—‘I am of no use where I am;' because you certainly can be of no use where you are not." ---Oswald Chambers

"This is the God of the gospel of grace. A God, who out of love for us, sent the only Son He ever had wrapped in our skin. He learned how to walk, stumbled and fell, cried for His milk, sweated blood in the night, was lashed with a whip and showered with spit, was fixed to a cross and died whispering forgiveness on us all." ---Brennan Manning in The Ragamuffin Gospel

"Death is not your termination, but your transition into eternity, so there are eternal consequences to everything you do on earth. Every act of our lives strikes some chord that will vibrate in eternity." ---Rick Warren in The Purpose Driven Life

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

2010-10-19T05:18:00.012-05:00

"The test of a man's religious life and character is not what he does in the exceptional moments of life, but what he does in the ordinary times, when there is nothing tremendous or exciting on. The worth of a man is revealed in his attitude to ordinary things when he is not before the footlights." ---Oswald Chambers

"I visited as many as I could of the sick. How much better is it, when it can be done, to carry relief to the poor, than to send it! And that both for our own sake and theirs. For theirs, as it is so much more comfortable to them and as we may then assist them in spirituals as well as temporals; and for our own, as it is far more apt to soften our heart, and to make us naturally care for each other." ---John Wesley, Monday, November 24, 2010

"Approach the Scriptures not so much as a manual of Christian principles but as the testimony of God's friends on what it means to walk with him through a thousand different episodes. When you are at war, when you are in love, when you have sinned, when you have been given a great gift—this is how you walk with God. Do you see what a different mind-set this is? It's really quite exciting." ---John Eldredge in Waking the Dead: The Glory of a Heart Fully Alive

Monday, October 18, 2010

2010-10-18T07:28:00.011-05:00

"You will find that God has trusted you in the most intimate way possible, with an absolute silence, not of despair, but of pleasure, because He saw that you could stand a bigger revelation. If God has given you a silence, praise Him, He is bringing you into the great run of His purposes. The manifestation of the answer in time is a matter of God's sovereignty. Time is nothing to God." ---Oswald Chambers

"There is more than an intellectual component in the Christian faith; there is also a subjective element in receiving the gospel. The truth must break into our lives in a deeply penetrating and intimately personal way. Then we can say, 'He is not only the Savior; he is my Savior.' Then the gospel message becomes authenticated by our witness. Has the truth you are proclaiming exploded into your heart? Is the truth you are proclaiming authenticated by your life?" ---Dennis Kinlaw in This Day with the Master

"Knowing your purpose focuses your life. It concentrates your effort and energy on what's important. You become effective by being selective." ---Rick Warren in The Purpose Driven Life

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

2010-10-12T04:00:00.001-05:00

"Sooner or later the last word will be spoken. All debate will cease, and arguments will come to an end. Somebody somehow in someway will be able to sum it all up and put everything and everyone in their place. That somebody is Jesus. Until then we are surrounded by a hurricane of opinions, ideas, suggestions, postulations, pontifications, exaggerations, exclamations, theories, concepts, notions, imaginations, vanities, snippets, and a host of other verbal squalls that wreck lives and strew debris across the landscape. The wind blows faster and faster, the swirl moves more and more quickly — gathering speed and force. The vortex of the man-made Blow Cloud sucks virtually everything and everyone into it spin. Soon it will reach such velocity that one will hardly be able to put a clear thought on the table for discussion. BOOM! That's when a trumpet blast will call the whole thing to a screeching halt and we will find ourselves dizzy with nonsense as we stand before the Lord. He will look us over, and His gaze will humble us one and all. And then He will speak — and what He says goes. He will have the final word on everything and everyone. It would be a good idea to become friends with Him now, don't you think?"

Monday, October 11, 2010

2010-10-11T06:58:00.004-05:00

"We have been called to live exemplary lives — the kind that inspire others to do the same. This is our assignment from Jesus. The challenge is that we have been placed in a world filled with un-exemplary conduct. From Main Street to the Back Streets; from Broadway to the Belt-Way; from Wall Street to the Waysides — name calling, finger pointing, blame-fixing, sass and sarcasm are the standard fare. We are living in a grown up school yard — but no one seems to have grown up. So the Lord has given us a job. 'BLESS,' He says to each one of us, 'That's your job — to bless.' And then He adds this wonderful promise: 'You will BE and blessing, and will also GET a blessing.' " ---James Ryle

"If you obey God in the first thing He shows you, then He instantly opens up the next truth to you. You could read volumes on the work of the Holy Spirit, when five minutes of total, uncompromising obedience would make things as clear as sunlight. Don’t say, 'I suppose I will understand these things someday!' You can understand them now. And it is not study that brings understanding to you, but obedience. Even the smallest bit of obedience opens heaven, and the deepest truths of God immediately become yours. Yet God will never reveal more truth about Himself to you, until you have obeyed what you know already." ---Oswald Chambers

Thursday, October, 7, 2010

2010-10-07T06:15:00.007-05:00

"The power of the peace of God will enable you to steer your course in the mix-up of ordinary life." ---Oswald Chambers

"If the heart be toward God, he will, in due time, enlighten the understanding." ---John Wesley, Saturday, March 8, 1760

"There is nothing quite as potent as a focused life, one lived on purpose. If you want your life to have impact, focus it! Stop dabbling. Stop trying to do it all. Do less. Prune away even good activities and do only that which matters most. Never confuse activity with productivity." ---Rick Warren in The Purpose Driven Life

Wednesday, October 6, 2010

2010-10-06T04:00:00.004-05:00

"If you intend to live in the Story that God is telling, and if you want the life he offers, then you are going to need more than a handful of principles, however noble they may be. There are too many twists and turns in the road ahead, too many ambushes waiting only God knows where, too much at stake. You cannot possibly prepare yourself for every situation. Narrow is the way, said Jesus. How shall we be sure to find it? We need God intimately, and we need him desperately." ---John Eldredge in Waking the Dead: The Glory of a Heart Fully Alive

"God doesn't call us to be comfortable. He calls us to trust Him so completely that we are unafraid to put ourselves in situations where we will be in trouble if He doesn't come through." ---Francis Chan in Crazy Love

"There is a deeper, an internal simplification of the whole of one's personality, stilled, tranquil, in child-like trust listening ever to Eternity's whisper, walking with a smile into the dark." ---Thomas Kelly in A Testament of Devotion

"There is a price to be paid for the privilege of seeing the view from the top of the mountain. But it is worth it, for on a clear day you really can see forever." ---Walter Albritton in Lord, Please Deliever me, I Beg You, from Another Live Manger Scene

"We cannot talk to God unless we walk with Him when we are not talking." ---Oswald Chambers

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

2010-10-05T07:12:00.009-05:00

"Jesus doesn't merely clean us up, dust us off, and patch up a few dings here and there — He performs a total overhaul. His grace transformation of our lives is not cosmetic — it's cosmic!" ---James Ryle

"The association with God will leave in us the hallowing impact of place and people and seasons, but our hearts will hunger for his presence. He is the source of all good, but he is better than all good. There is no justification needed for our searching for him. Although some do not know it, to be near God is the deepest desire of every human heart." ---Dennis Kinlaw in This Day With the Master

"After preaching, I rode on to Newcastle. Certainly if I did not believe there was another world, I should spend all my summers here; as I know no place in Great Britain comparable to it for pleasantness. But I seek another country, and therefore am content to be a wanderer upon earth." ---John Wesley, Monday, June 4, 1759

"It is impossible to do everything people want you to do. You have just enough time to do God's will. If you can't get it all done, it means you're trying to do more than God intended for you to do (or, possibly, that you're watching too much television)." ---Rick Warren in The Purpose Driven Life

Monday, October 4, 2010

2010-10-04T08:19:00.003-05:00

"What is best for others? I have an influence over some; perhaps more look to me for guidance than I know. I must be on my guard not to put a stumbling block in another's way. Though certain things are innocent to me, yet, if they will destroy, directly or indirectly, one for whom Christ died, it will be better for me to abstain from them." ---F. B. Meyer

"I preached morning and evening at the Foundery. How pleasing would it be to flesh and blood, to remain in this little quiet place, where we have at length weathered the storm! Nay, I am not to consult my own ease, but the advancing the kingdom of God." ---John Wesley, Friday March 9, 1759

"I don't know all the keys to success, but one key to failure is to try to please everyone. Being controlled by the opinions of others is a guaranteed way to miss God's purposes for your life. Jesus said, "No on can serve two masters." ---Rick Warren in The Purpose Driven Life

Weekend Edition, October 1-3, 2010

2010-10-01T04:00:00.027-05:00

"We are products of our past, but we don't have to be prisoners of it. God's purpose is not limited by your past. He turned a murderer named Moses into a leader and a coward named Gideon into a courageous hero, and he can do amazing things with the rest of your life, too." ---Rick Warren in The Purpose Driven Life

"We were to sail, the wind being fair; but as we were going aboard, it turned full east. I find it of great use to be in suspense: It is an excellent means of breaking our will. May we be ready either to stay longer on this shore, or to launch into eternity!" ---John Wesley, Sunday, August 8, 1756

"It is a great thing to be on the mount with God, but a man only gets there in order that afterwards he may get down among the devil-possessed and lift them up. We are not built for the mountains and the dawns and aesthetic affinities, those are for moments of inspiration, that is all. We are built for the valley, for the ordinary stuff we are in, and that is where we have to prove our mettle." ---Oswald Chambers

"You say, 'there are people in my life whom I cannot love.' Granted, but you must distinguish between love and the emotion or feeling of love. You may not be able to feel love at the outset, but you can be willing to be the channel of Christ's love. I cannot love, but Christ is in me, and He can." ---F. B. Meyer

"The last fruit of holy obedience is the simplicity of the trusting child, the simplicity of the children of God. It is the simplicity which lies beyond complexity. It is the naivete which is the yonder side of sophistication. It is the beginning of spiritual maturity, which comes after the awkward age of religious busyness for the Kingdom of God—yet how many are caught, and arrested in development, within this adolescent development of the soul's growth! The mark of this simplified life is radiant joy. It lives in the Fellowship of the Transfigured Face. Knowing sorrow to the depths it does not agonize and fret and strain, but in serene, unhurried calm it walks in time with the joy and assurance of Eternity." ---Thomas Kelly in A Testament of Devotion

"You've been far more than forgiven. God has removed your heart of stone. You've been delivered of what held you back from what you were meant to be. You've been rescued from the part of you that sabotages even your best intentions. Your heart has been circumcised to God. Your heart has been set free. And there is even more." ---John Eldredge in Waking the Dead: The Glory of a Heart Fully Alive

“Suppose the flood had never come—Noah would have been the biggest laughingstock on earth. Having faith often means doing what others see as crazy. Something is wrong when our lives make sense to unbelievers.” ---Francis Chan in Crazy Love

"Einstein said we need to be reminded that even God always takes the simplest ways. While we live in a complex world, it doesn't mean we have to lead complicated lives. But we often do just that because we spend too much of our time struggling with life's complexities while ignoring its simplicities." ---Hal Urban in Life's Greatest Lessons: 20 Things That Matter

"Relationship is eternal; 'things' are temporal. Intimacy with [Jesus] is not a passing issue, but will endure forever. This is His focus regarding you. He values you more than He values 'things.' Every 'thing' was sacrificed for the sake of embracing you. Even His own life was not protected that He might embrace you. He held on to no position, even to the highest power as God in order to know you (Philippians 2:6, 7). To a scribe Jesus said, 'Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head,' (Matthew 8:20). No 'thing' has greater importance to Him than you and me." ---Stephen Manley, the Jesus Pusher

Thursday, September 30, 2010

2010-09-30T04:00:00.026-05:00

"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

2010-09-29T04:00:00.021-05:00

"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

2010-09-28T13:42:00.000-05:00

"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

2010-09-27T06:35:00.009-05:00

"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

2010-09-24T05:22:00.025-05:00

"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

Thursday, September 23, 2010

2010-09-23T04:00:00.015-05:00

“Something has been calling to you all the days of your life. You’ve heard it on the wind and in the music you love, in laughter and in tears, and most especially in the stories that have ever captured your heart. There is a secret written on your heart. A valiant Hero-Lover and his Beloved. An Evil One and a great battle to fight. A Journey and a Quest, more dangerous and more thrilling than you could imagine. A little Fellowship to see you through. This is the gospel of Christianity. Now—what is your part? What is your role in the Story?” ---John Eldredge in Epic

" 'Inner' stances are more important than circumstances and we can choose our inner stances. Our attitudes and convictions determine our actions and reactions. We can set high standards for our personal behavior. These convictions become our inward, moral goals for daily living. Without them we tend to overreact to every jerk we encounter. And there are jerks everywhere." ---Walter Albritton in Life is Short So Laugh Often, Live Fully and Love Deeply

"Make time to be alone sometimes. It is a mistake always to be in the presence of another. The soul must be still and quiet. There are accents in the voice of God so deep and still, that the breathing of a companion may make them inaudible." ---F. B. Meyer

"In the United States, numbers impress us. We gauge the success of an event by how many people attend or come forward. We measure churches by how many members they boast. We are wowed by big crowds. Jesus questioned the authenticity of this kind of record keeping. According to the account in Luke chapter 8, when a crowd started following Him, Jesus began speaking in parables—‘so that’ those who weren’t genuinely listening wouldn’t get it.” ---Francis Chan in Crazy Love

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

2010-09-22T05:06:00.014-05:00

"I found more and more undeniable proofs, that the Christian state is a continual warfare; and that we have need every moment to 'watch and pray, lest we enter into temptation.' " ---John Wesley, Saturday, May 17, 1740

"Perhaps in heaven we will have the opportunity to tell some of our friends what we neglected to tell them down here. In the meantime we shall be wise to find the time to let our friends know how much they mean to us. The opportunity to do so can vanish in the twinkling of an eye." ---Walter Albritton in Life is Short So Laugh Often, Live Fully and Love Deeply

"Endeavour to say all the good that can be said, and none of the evil. It is remarkable that when we make the effort to speak kindly on behalf of those against whom we feel exasperated, the whole inward temper changes and takes on the tone of our voice." ---F. B. Meyer

"One thing we can lay up in heaven is money. One would think from the grudging gifts of many of God's people, the way that many contributions to the cause of the gospel have to be begged, surprised and literally wrenched out of others, that the general idea is that all such money given is value lost; when the fact is that the only part of our earthly treasure in gold and silver and bank notes which is saved from a burning world and the wreck and ruin of time is that portion which we gave to heaven." ---Beverly Carradine in A Box of Treasure

"The life that intends to be wholly obedient, wholly submissive, wholly listening, is astonishing in its completeness. Its joys are ravishing, its peace profound, its humility the deepest, its power world-shaking, its love enveloping, its simplicity that of a trusting child. It is the life and power in which the prophets and apostles lived. It is the life and power of Jesus of Nazareth, who knew that 'when thine eye is single thy whole body is full of light' (Luke 11:34)." ---Thomas Kelly in A Testament of Devotion

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

2010-09-21T04:00:00.005-05:00

". . . within the silences of the souls of men an eternal drama is ever being enacted, in these days as well as in others. And on the outcome of this inner drama rests, ultimately, the outer pageant of history. It is the drama of the Hound of Heaven baying relentlessly upon the track of man. It is the drama of the lost sheep wandering in the wilderness, restless and lonely, feebly searching, while over the hills comes the wiser Shepherd. For His is a shepherd's heart, and He is restless until He holds His sheep in His arms." ---Thomas Kelly in A Testament of Devotion

"At the point of our deepest betrayal, when we had run our farthest from him and gotten so lost we could never find our way home, God came and died to rescue us. You have never been loved like this. He has come to save you in every way a person can be saved. That is God's heart toward you." ---John Eldredge in Epic

"The irony is that while God doesn't need us but still wants us, we desperately need God but don't really want Him most of the time. He treasures us and anticipates our departure from this earth to be with Him—and we wonder, indifferently, how much we have to do for Him to get by.” ---Francis Chan in Crazy Love

"We need to view it [time] as a resource. It's always there, but like any other resource, it can be put to good use or it can be wasted. But there's one big difference between this resource and others: we can't save it, store it up, stockpile it, or hoard it. We can't turn it on or off, and we can't replace it. We're forced to spend it minute by minute. and once we spend it, we can't retrieve it. That's why the way we spend our time is the way we measure the quality of our lives. Time is life. ---Hal Urban in Life's Greatest Lessons: 20 Things That Matter

"It must be admitted that we are now a great distance—not only in practice but even in theory—from the fellowship of universal witness. Millions are merely back-seat Christians, willing to be observers of a performance which the professionals put on, ready to criticize or to applaud, but not willing even to consider the possibility of real participation. Here is the fundamental weakness of the contemporary Church. Millions claim to have some sort of connection with the Church, but it is not a connection of involvement. The result is bound to be superficiality. Whatever the nature of the situation, only the involved ever really know anything thoroughly.” ---Elton Trueblood in The Company of the Committed, 1961

Monday, September 20, 2010

2010-09-20T05:02:00.023-05:00

“To see Christ face to face, to be with Him in unbroken fellowship, and to be like Him—this is the threefold destiny of every Christian soul. But how little can we imagine our future life! We strive to penetrate the dense veil of mist in vain—what the resurrection body will be like; what the converse with holy beings will amount to; what ministry may be assigned to us—we know not what we shall be, but "we know that we shall be like Him"—and it is enough! All that we have ever dreamed and hoped for will find its flower and fruitage in that glad summer time.” ---F. B. Meyer

"The true expression of Christian character is not in good-doing, but in God-likeness. If the Spirit of God has transformed you within, you will exhibit divine characteristics in your life, not just good human characteristics. God’s life in us expresses itself as God’s life, not as human life trying to be godly. The secret of a Christian’s life is that the supernatural becomes natural in him as a result of the grace of God, and the experience of this becomes evident in the practical, everyday details of life, not in times of intimate fellowship with God. And when we come in contact with things that create confusion and a flurry of activity, we find to our own amazement that we have the power to stay wonderfully poised even in the center of it all." ---Oswald Chambers

"The greatest enemy to fruitfulness in my life is my own way. If I let Christ purge me and cleanse me so that I am wholly his, then the Spirit can begin to shape my life so it conforms to his master design." ---Dennis Kinlaw in This Day With the Master

"Countless generations have come and gone, each leaving a precious deposit of memories and achievements. The progress of civilization depends upon each of us doing what we can to make life better for our heirs. We are stewards of the past with the opportunity add to our rich heritage." ---Walter Albritton in Life is Short So Laugh Often, Live Fully and Love Deeply

"Let me think and speak as a little child! Let my religion be plain, artless, simple! Meekness, temperance, patience, faith, and love, be these my highest gifts: And let the highest words wherein I teach them, be those I learn from the book of God!" ---John Wesley, Sunday, December 30, 1739

Weekend Edition, September 17-19, 2010

2010-09-17T04:00:00.023-05:00

"My own love and desire for my kids' love is so strong that it opened my eyes to how much God desires and loves us. Through this experience, I came to understand that my desire for my children is only a faint echo of God's great love for me and for every person He made. I am just an earthly, sinful father, and I love my kids so much it hurts. How could I not trust a heavenly, perfect Father who loves me infinitely more than I will ever love my kids?" ---Francis Chan in Crazy Love

"I accepted a pressing invitation to go to Plaistow. At five in the evening I expounded there, and at eight again. But most of the hearers were very quiet and unconcerned. In the morning, therefore, I spoke stronger words. But it is only the voice of the Son of God which is able to wake the dead." ---John Wesley, Monday, September 10, 1739

"Maturity does not come easily. It comes gradually, usually the result of a lifelong search. None of us reaches it without help. The help we all need is that strange thing we call encouragement. It is hard to describe but when you receive it, you know you have been given something more valuable than money." ---Walter Albritton in Life is Short, So Laugh Often, Live Fully and Love Deeply

"He [Jesus] sets aside his glory, clothes himself with humility, and sneaks into the enemy camp, under cover of night, to whisper words of love to his own: 'I have come for you.' The coming of Jesus of Nazareth was . . . like the opening scenes of Saving Private Ryan. A dangerous mission, a great invasion, a daring raid into enemy territory, to save the free world, but also to save one man. In the midst of the great invasion, like the storming of the beaches at Normandy, God yet sets his eye on one lost soul. On you." ---John Eldredge in Epic

"Much of the effort and opportunity of springtime rests in the depth and degree of our faith. Life provides no assurances that the planting of seeds will provide the reaping of crops. We have only the demonstrated experiences of others to draw upon. The storms of life could cancel our efforts expended in the fields of opportunity. But to expend no effort during the spring will assure no results during the fall." ---Jim Rohn in The Seasons of Life

"The value of the individual story of Christ's healing power lies largely in the undeniable fact that each human life stands at a unique point in the total web of human experience, and, as a consequence, each one has an approach to others which is not identical with the opportunity of any other human being. If I do not open the door for another, it may never be opened, for it is possible that I may be the only one who holds this particular key." ---Elton Trueblood in The Company of the Committed

"Totalitarian are the claims of Christ. No vestige of reservation of 'our' rights can remain. Straddle arrangements and compromises between our allegiances to the surface level and the divine Center cannot endure. Unless the willingness is present to be stripped of our last earthly dignity and hope, and yet still praise Him, we have no message in this our day of refugees, bodily and spiritual. Nor have we yielded to the monitions of the Inner Instructor." ---Thomas Kelly in A Testament of Devotion

"Satan does not tempt us to do wrong things; he tempts us in order to make us lose what God has put into us by regeneration, viz., the possibility of being of value to God. He does not come on the line of tempting us to sin, but on the line of shifting the point of view, and only the Spirit of God can detect this as a temptation of the devil." ---Oswald Chambers

"If you had live in Rome in those [Paul's] days, where would you have thought the future was? The typical person would have looked to Nero's palace for the power and the future, believing that the significant figure was the emperor ruling from his throne. The reality is that today, two thousand years later, we name our dogs Nero and our sons Paul. The world's ways are never the ways of God, and the world's people are never the people of God. The one who cast a long shadow over the next two thousand years was one who was tucked away in a simple house and shackled to a Roman soldier, not the one who sat on the throne, dictating to people how they should please him." ---Dennis Kinlaw in This Day With the Master

Thursday, September 16, 2010

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"I went to a gentleman who is much troubled with what they call lowness of spirits. Many such have I been with before; but in several of them, it was no bodily distemper. They wanted something, they knew not what; and were, therefore, heavy, uneasy, and dissatisfied with every thing. The plain truth is, they wanted God, they wanted Christ, they wanted faith. And God convinced them of their want, in a way their physicians no more understood than themselves. Accordingly nothing availed till the Great Physician came. For in spite of all natural means, He who made them for himself, would not suffer them to rest, till they rested in Him." ---John Wesley, Thursday, July 12, 1739

"The challenge God faces is rescuing a people who have no idea how captive they are; no real idea how desperate they are. We know we long for Eden, but we hesitate to give ourselves back to God in abandoned trust. We are captivated by the lies of our Enemy. But God has something up his sleeve." ---John Eldredge in Epic

"If, once in awhile, I can make one lonely soul feel that Jesus cares, because I care, then my life has meaning. In quiet moments I hear a voice saying, 'Do what you can today to make some lonely person smile.' " ---Walter Albritton in Life is Short So Laugh Often, Live Fully and Love Deeply

"No one to whom the love of Christ has been mediated so that he is in some sense a new person, is free to let this stop so long as he lives. If he has been, in any sense, liberated, he must join in the eternal fellowship of liberation. If the enkindling fire which Christ said He came to light has in any sense entered his soul, he cannot rest until he lights as many other fires as possible. In short, a person cannot be a Christian and avoid being an evangelist. Evangelism is not a professionalized job of a few gifted or trained men but is, instead, the unrelenting responsibility of every person who belongs, even in the modest way, to the Company of Jesus." ---Elton Trueblood in The Company of the Committed

"God does not hear us because we pray earnestly— He hears us solely on the basis of redemption. God is never impressed by our earnestness. Prayer is not simply getting things from God— that is only the most elementary kind of prayer. Prayer is coming into perfect fellowship and oneness with God." ---Oswald Chambers

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

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"Not being able to fully understand God is frustrating, but it is ridiculous for us to think we have the right to limit God to something we are capable of comprehending. If my mind is the size of a soda can and God is the size of all the oceans, it would be stupid for me to say He is only the small amount of water I can scoop into my little can." ---Francis Chan in Crazy Love

"Many of our difficulties come when we complicate the things of God with our own thoughts, ideas, opinions and views. The first lesson for all dreamers is that you must receive God's promise with childlike faith. So, go to bed; sleep well; dream large — and wake up in the morning as a kid again." ---James Ryle

"Simplicity is the secret to seeing things clearly. You cannot think through spiritual confusion to make things clear; to make things clear, you must obey. Spiritual confusion can only be conquered through obedience. As soon as we obey, we have discernment." ---Oswald Chambers

"I look upon all the world as my parish; thus far I mean, that, in whatever part of it I am, I judge it meet, right, and my bounden duty, to declare unto all that are willing to hear, the glad tidings of salvation. This is the work which I know God has called me to; and sure I am, that his blessing attends it." ---John Wesley, Monday, June 11, 1739

“To me it is important to express feelings in words. It is not enough to hope that by intuition and hunches people will figure out how we feel in our hearts. Words can make a powerful difference. At my age I am still trying to learn how to use them wisely—either spoken or in print. Sharing memories seems to inspire us to express the deeper feelings of the soul with one another.” ---Walter Albritton in Life is Short So Laugh Often, Live Fully and Love Deeply

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

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"Don't give up on your dreams, my friend, even if it looks like all is lost — for God will bring them to pass just as He promised. Though it may take longer than you expected, and lead you through things you never anticipated — let the dream do its work, and it will bring you to the place where you see with your eyes what you dared to believe in your heart." ---James Ryle

"His art, His handiwork, and His creation all echo the truth that He is glorious. There is no other like Him. He is the King of Kings, the Beginning and the End, the One who was and is and is to come. I sometimes struggle with how to properly respond to God's magnitude in a world bent on ignoring or merely tolerating Him. But know this: God will not be tolerated. He instructs us to worship and fear Him." ---Francis Chan in Crazy Love

"Surrender is not the surrender of the external life, but of the will; when that is done, all is done." ---Oswald Chambers

"There is a world out there. Jesus has shown us the way to win it: his Father sent him to lay down his life. Now he is sending you." ---Dennis Kinlaw in This Day With the Master

"All these days I scarce remember to have opened the Testament, but upon some great and precious promise. And I saw more than ever, that the Gospel is in truth but one great promise, from the beginning of it to the end." ---John Wesley, Sunday, June 4, 1738

Monday, September 13, 2010

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"Hope is a promise. Hope is a promise that holds our hearts forward to a better day, that lifts us above the present darkness of a bad stretch and keeps us buoyant in the midst of turbulence and trouble." ---James Ryle

"We have grown dull toward this world in which we live; we have forgotten that it is not normal or scientific in any sense of the word. It is fantastic. It is fairy tale through and through. Really now. Elephants? Caterpillars? Snow? At what point did you lose your wonder at it all? ---John Eldredge in Epic

"[You can have] dreams that usually don't become reality because they don't have enough clarity. The human mind won't move in the direction of a generality; it will move when it has something specific to aim at." ---Hal Urban in Life's Greatest Lessons: 20 Things That Matter

"In the evening I went very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate-Street, where one was reading Luther's preface to the Epistle to the Romans. About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation: And an assurance was given me, that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death." ---John Wesley, May 24, 1738

"God gives us songs in the midst of our trials and teaches us lessons in the storm that we could never learn in the sunshine." ---Dennis Kinlaw in This Day With the Master

Thursday, September 9, 2010

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"There is a way of ordering our mental life on more than one level at once. On one level we may be thinking, discussing, seeing, calculating, meeting all the demands of external affairs. But deep within, behind the scenes, at a profounder level, we may also be in prayer and adoration, song and worship and a gentle receptiveness to divine breathings." ---Thomas R. Kelly in A Testament of Devotion

"Life is very confusing if you do not take into account that there is a Villain. That you, my friend, have an Enemy." ---John Eldredge in Epic

"We are apt to forget that a man is not only committed to Jesus Christ for salvation; he is committed to Jesus Christ's view of God, of the world, of sin and of the devil, and this will mean that he must recognize the responsibility of being transformed by the renewing of his mind." ---Oswald Chambers

"The future is never where the world thinks it is. The only thing that will make your life count for anything lasting and significant is inviting Christ's presence into your life." ---Dennis Kinlaw in This Day With the Master

"Faith is a power. Faith reaches into the future and brings into the present a borrowed power that enables us to live today in the strength of tomorrow; to posses this earth with heaven in mind; to live in the presence of the 'not yet'." ---James Ryle

Wednesday, September 8, 2010

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"There is value in looking back. It is good for the soul. Reminiscing can help us identify the lessons of the past that can help us better live the days ahead." ---Walter Albritton in Life is Short So Laugh Often, Live Fully and Love Deeply

"In the history of God's work you will nearly always find that it has started from the obscure, the unknown, the ignored, but the steadfastly true to Jesus Christ." ---Oswald Chambers

"Never doubt that the clouds will break. Never dream that wrong will triumph. Never count yourself God-forsaken or forgotten. The Master may seem to be asleep on His pillow, oblivious and uncaring, but His hand is on the helm. He guides your course. He rules the waves and they obey Him." ---F. B. Meyer

"The Company of Jesus is not people streaming to a shrine; and it is not people making up an audience for a speaker; it is laborers engaged in the harvesting task of reaching their perplexed and seeking brethren with something so vital that, if it is received, it will change their lives." ---Elton Trueblood in The Company of the Committed

"He [Jesus] is the center and source of action, not the end-point of thought. He is the locus of commitment, not a problem for debate. Practice comes first in religion, not theory or dogma. And Christian practice is not exhausted in outward deeds. These are the fruits, not the roots." ---Thomas R. Kelly in A Testament of Devotion

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

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"The Master of the House may place you in a very small dark corner, and on a very humble stand, but some day, as He passes by, you shall light His footsteps as He goes forth to seek and save that which is lost. What is your stand?—your place in society, your position in the home, your situation in some business house, factory, or school—wherever it be, it doesn't matter, so long as your light is shining forth, steady and clear, warning and directing men and women in the path of life.” ---F. B. Meyer

"Let us explore together the secret of a deeper devotion, a more subterranean sanctuary of the soul, where the Light Within never fades, but burns, a perpetual Flame, where the wells of living water of divine revelation rise up continuously, day by day and hour by hour, steady and transfiguring." ---Thomas R. Kelly in A Testament of Devotion

"Desire is the seed from which all achievement grows. More than any other characteristic, it determines whether we're going to be mediocre or successful in life. Desire, not ability, separates average people from those who excel. It's that something extra which makes it possible for ordinary people to accomplish extraordinary things." ---Hal Urban in Life's Greatest Lessons: 20 Things That Matter

"It is impossible that it simply started of its own accord, by an accident. Just as implausible (as the argument goes) that a Swiss watch will come together if you toss a thousand parts in your clothes dryer and start it all banging round. No, the earth has all the marks of an artist's hand." ---John Eldredge in Epic

"VIRTUE is not one thing; it is a cluster of many noble things. It is humility in victory . . . It is silence in suffering . . . It is generosity in wealth . . . . Virtue is kindness in power . . . It is decisiveness in crisis . . . It is courage in battle . . . . Virtue is grace in greatness. May you in all things at all times be known as a virtuous person." ---James Ryle