c2p-cmd/Good-Quotes-Authors huggingface dataset:
It rains on everyone. It may be storming but there is a covering.Life may be challenging, but there is a covering.It may seem impossible, hopeless, doubtful, fear-ridden, and pain-laden, but there is a covering. There are other umbrellas, but only one is red with the blood of Jesus. We need to love Jesus more than the noise.
— Eric Samuel Timm, Static Jedi: The Art of Hearing God Through the Noise
Make no mistake, sin has been dealt with once for all, and we are as close to Him as we will ever be.
— D.R. Silva, It's All About Jesus: What They Never Told You in Church
Battling the noise is creating a space for God and acknowledging the space He occupies, which is all of it. Invite God into all twenty-four hours of your day.This is the path of a #StaticJedi.
— Eric Samuel Timm, Static Jedi: The Art of Hearing God Through the Noise
The more we have of Jesus, the greater the love we have; the greater the love, the greater the sacrifice; the greater the sacrifice, the more we become like Jesus; the more we become like Jesus, the more successful our local churches become.
— Eric Samuel Timm, Static Jedi: The Art of Hearing God Through the Noise
When God appoints the gospel of his Son as the universal remedy for the guilt and corruption of mankind, and we diminish that, the gospel is diminished. And you cannot diminish the gospel without being diminished yourself.
— John Piper, Jesus: The Only Way to God: Must You Hear the Gospel to Be Saved?
How does the Christian who claims a weeping statue of Mary is a miracle explain the milk-drinking statues of the Hindu god Ganesha?How does the Christian who says a healing miracle proves the existence of Jesus feel about millions of claims of divine healings by Muslims and Hindus?
— Guy P. Harrison, 50 Simple Questions for Every Christian
Ask the question, receive the answer; don't ask the question, don't receive the answer.
— D.R. Silva, It's All About Jesus: What They Never Told You in Church
The Beatitudes, far from being a new set of virtues that further divide the religious haves and have nots, are words of hope and healing to those who have been marginalized.
— James Bryan Smith, The Good and Beautiful Life: Putting on the Character of Christ
When others sit, a #StaticJedi is found standing—even standing along, with a message not in hand but secure in heart!
— Eric Samuel Timm, Static Jedi: The Art of Hearing God Through the Noise
We need to get to the heart of each heart issue—and we can’t do it. Only the Maker can. The world needs #Jesus.
— Eric Samuel Timm, Static Jedi: The Art of Hearing God Through the Noise
Guess what, Jesus loves to walk with us. He loves to be with us all the time—not just in the scheduled time or in the leftovers. The only change He wants is our hearts.Let’s change by rearranging the change.
— Eric Samuel Timm, Static Jedi: The Art of Hearing God Through the Noise
The church is not a brick-and-mortar structure. The church is made of flesh & blood. Followers of #Christ are the church.
— Eric Samuel Timm, Static Jedi: The Art of Hearing God Through the Noise
If sickness brought glory God, Jesus would have spread disease, not healed it.
— D.R. Silva
If Jesus didn't do it, don't say the Father does. If Jesus did do it, don't say the Father doesn't.
— D.R. Silva
We are living in a time where the hearing from God is bombarded by many frequencies and voices. This noise, corrosive in nature, makes it difficult to hear God’s voice...living with more noise means we live less like a disciple. We need a prism. Eric Samuel Timm is a prism.
— Mark Batterson
Only Jesus is perfect!" isn't in the Bible.
— D.R. Silva
God created through love and for love. God did not create anything except love itself, and the means to love. He created love in all its forms. He created beings capable of love from all possible distances. Because no other could do it, he himself went to the greatest possible distance, the infinite distance. This infinite distance between God and God, this supreme tearing apart, this agony beyond all others, this marvel of love, is the crucifixion. Nothing can be further from God than that which has been made accursed.
— Simone Weil, Waiting for God
When I was trying to earn Jesus by being good, I missed the real Jesus who wants us to love him and serve him not for what he gives but for who he is—dangerous, unpredictable, radical, and amazing.
— Jefferson Bethke, Jesus > Religion: Why He Is So Much Better Than Trying Harder, Doing More, and Being Good Enough
I asked her what was so scary about unmerited free grace? She replied something like this: "If I was saved by my good works -- then there would be a limit to what God could ask of me or put me through. I would be like a taxpayer with rights. I would have done my duty and now I would deserve a certain quality of life. But if it is really true that I am a sinner saved by sheer grace -- at God's infinite cost -- then there's nothing he cannot ask of me.
— Timothy J. Keller, The Prodigal God: Recovering the Heart of the Christian Faith
Choosing one thing over another doesn't necessarily mean we love the thing we choose. If given the choice to eat spinach or broccoli, you may choose broccoli. It may only mean you don't want to eat spinach. Heaven is not for people who just want to skip Hell. Heaven is reserved for those who love Jesus, who have been rescued by Him and who long to praise Him. If someone doesn't have much use for praising Him now, it's foolish to think they're ready for Heaven.
— Matt      Chandler, Creature of the Word: The Jesus-Centered Church
But freedom starts with honesty. We aren’t doing ourselves any favors by defining our- selves as good and others as bad. Let’s just agree that we all need help, that we are all in this together.
— Judah Smith, Jesus Is: Find a New Way to Be Human
Jesus is not your accuser. He’s not your prosecutor. He’s not your judge. He’s your friend and your rescuer. Like Zacchaeus, just spend time with Jesus. Don’t hide from him in shame or reject him in self-righteousness. Don’t allow the opinions of other people to shape your concept of him. Get to know him for yourself, and let the goodness of God change you from the inside out.
— Judah Smith, Jesus Is: Find a New Way to Be Human
Someone is pounding on a door within you and hoping for an answer. They want to tell us the secret tale of ourselves. The stories we’ve never told. Some African tribes believe if you were to tell someone your entire story the audience would actually become you. From then on, the only life the teller would have would be in and through the listener. Some believe this is the relationship between Jesus and his disciples. How I wished for my story to be blemish free. How I wished to be a good-natured soul giving back to the world, regardless of how broken I was. In the end, it’s those things we are willing to die to change that sculpt our story. Some people open the floodgates of their minds and hearts so memories burst forth like water through a breached dam. Pieces of our lives can be found among the floating wreckage, and somewhere, the presence of God hovers over the surface of the deep. Inside, I am treading, biding my time, waiting for the magic I thought I owned as a child. Many seek this enchantment. I sought my wife, daughter and the power to conjure hope.
— Christopher Hawke, Unnatural Truth
God knows we have our own demons to be cast out, our own uncleanness to be cleansed. Neurotic anxiety happens to be my own particular demon, a floating sense of doom that has ruined many of what could have been, should have been, the happiest days of my life, and more than a few times in my life I have been raised from such ruins, which is another way of saying that more than a few times in my life I have been raised from death - death of the spirit anyway, death of the heart - by the healing power that Jesus calls us both to heal with and to be healed by.
— Frederick Buechner, Secrets in the Dark: A Life in Sermons
Jesus was stoned, but no rock hit him. He slipped into the crowd and was found later teaching on a hill somewhere. History tells us that he did nothing wrong, and we sacrificed him anyway. The day my father died, I assured him he was headed for heaven, though I had a hard time believing in something that floated so aimlessly through the minds of children. The concept seemed fair and unfair in such equal amounts that it appeared to cancel itself out. I’d never met someone so deserving of eternal bliss, yet from the time I was a child I was taught we all deserve hell. I wondered if heaven existed at all. But I wanted everlasting life to be real for the man who let me lie on his chest on a hammock in the backyard and taught me not to fear thunder. One of the many things my father taught me not to fear. His breaths were labored and aided by machines. He wore a white hospital gown. I remember thinking, “I can’t believe my father’s going to die in a gown.” “Are you afraid?” I asked.“Not at all,” he strained. “I’m going to be with the Lord.”I wished I shared his confidence. For him, it was a priceless thing no one could take. I wished the fear of death was like the fear of a passing storm cloud—something we outgrow with understanding. For men like my dad, I guess it was.
— Christopher Hawke, Unnatural Truth
A moment with Jesus changed everything.
— Judah Smith, Jesus Is: Find a New Way to Be Human
Getting stuck can be the best thing that could happen to us, because it forces us to stop. It halts the momentum of our lives. We have no choice but to notice what is around us, and we end up searching for Jesus.
— Michael Yaconelli, Messy Spirituality
If the Cross is God’s masterpiece of His love, then the Eucharist is the centerpiece of our worship.
— Gangai Victor, The Worship Kenbook
Mackenzie, the truth shall set you free and the truth has a name; he's over in the woodshop right now covered in sawdust. Everything is about him. And freedom is a process that happens inside a relationship with him. Then all that stuff you feel churnin' around inside will start to work its way out.
— William Paul Young, The Shack
I don't care what it looks, I don't care what it feels like, I believe God.
— Michelle Cook-Hall, This Journey Is a Process
No Condemnation now I dread,Jesus, and all in Him, is mineAlive in Him, my Living Head,And clothed in Righteousness Divine,Bold I approach th' eternal Throne,And claim the Crown, through Christ my own
— Charles Wesley
If Jesus is not the focus, the worship is bogus.
— Gangai Victor, The Worship Kenbook
if we fail to root ourselves in Scripture, our souls will be starved for Christ.
— Gangai Victor, The Worship Kenbook
if you want more of Jesus, give Him more of yourself
— Gangai Victor
I ended up going into this big art historical argument.' [Barry Blinderman] invoked, for example, Matthias Grünewald’s Isenheim altarpiece, painted in the sixteenth century for a monastery where monks cared for people with skin diseases—so the suffering Christ in that painting shows symptoms of skin disease. 'It’s because he’s the man of sorrows,' Blinderman argued. 'He takes on the suffering of the world. So if Christ were to appear physically today, one of the sicknesses he would have to take on would be drug addiction.
— Cynthia Carr, Fire in the Belly: The Life and Times of David Wojnarowicz
I would not be practicing love toward God OR my neighbour if I were to smile benignly on an unjust social order. It is not charitable to refrain from moral judgment: when Jesus says 'Judge not, lest ye be judged," he is forbidding condemnation, not discernment. There are times indeed when Christian charity demands that one speak forcibly.
— Alan Jacobs, A Visit to Vanity Fair: Moral Essays on the Present Age
Obedience is the virtue that determines whether a person is either a servant or a rebel. Life of integrity is built on obedience of God's statutes and nothing else.
— Israelmore Ayivor
There is no physician like Him, none can save as He can; we love Him, and He loves us, and therefore we put ourselves into His hands, accept whatever he prescribes, and do whatever He bids.We feel that nothing can be wrongly ordered while He is the director of our affairs; for He loves us too well to let us perish, or suffer a single needless pang
— Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Some people have a warped idea of living the Christian life. Seeing talented, successful Christians, they attempt to imitate them. For them, the grass on the other side of the fence is always greener. But when they discover that their own gifts are different or their contributions are more modest (or even invisible), they collapse in discouragement and overlook genuine opportunities that are open to them. They have forgotten that they are here to serve Christ, not themselves.
— Billy Graham, Hope for Each Day: Words of Wisdom and Faith
Since Genesis 3 we have been addicted to setting our sights on something, someone, smaller than Jesus.
— Tullian Tchividjian
Your call is clear, cold centuries across;You bid me follow you, and take my cross,And daily lose myself, myself deny,And stern against myself shout ‘Crucify’.My stubborn nature rises to rebelAgainst your call. Proud choruses of hellUnite to magnify my restless hateOf servitude, lest I capitulate.The world, to see my cross, would pause and jeer.I have no choice, but still to persevereTo save myself – and follow you from far,More slow than Magi-for I have no star.And yet you call me still. Your crossEclipses mine, transforms the bitter lossI thought that I would suffer if I cameTo you- into immeasurable gain.I kneel before you, Jesus, crucified,My cross is shouldered and my self denied;I’ll follow daily, closely, not refuseFor love of you and man myself to lose.
— John R.W. Stott, Basic Christianity
You will not find Jesus in heaven, reclining on a cloud. He isn’t in church on Sunday morning, sitting in the pews. He isn’t locked away in the Vatican or held hostage by a denominational seminary. Rather, Jesus is sitting in the Emergency Room, an uninsured, undocumented immigrant needing healing. He is behind bars, so far from his parole date he can’t think that far into the future. He is homeless, evicted from his apartment, waiting in line at the shelter for a bed and a cup of soup. He is the poor child living in government housing with lice in his hair, the stripes of abuse on his body and a growl in his stomach. He is an old forgotten woman in a roach infested apartment who no one thinks of anymore. He is a refugee in Sudan, living in squalor. He is the abused and molested child who falsely feels responsible for the evil that is perpetrated against her. He is the young woman who hates herself for the decisions she has made, decisions that have imperiled her life, but did the best she could, torn between impossible choices. Jesus is anyone without power, ability or the means to help themselves, and he beckons us to come to him; not on a do-gooding crusade, but in solidarity and embrace.
— Ronnie McBrayer, How Far Is Heaven?: Rediscovering the Kingdom of God in the Here and Now
If God absolutely and pretemporally decrees that particular persons shall be saved and others damned, apart from any cooperation of human freedom, then God cannot in any sense intend that all shall be saved, as 1 Timothy 4:10 declares. The promise of glory is conditional on grace being received by faith active in love.
— Thomas C. Oden, The Transforming Power of Grace
Being a “friend of sinners” is an accusation that Christians should wear as a badge of honor, for nothing could honor Jesus more, and nothing is more revealing of who God actually is.
— Ronnie McBrayer, Leaving Religion, Following Jesus
To deny the existence of God would be to close your eyes to the beauty around you, to close your ears to the symphony of nature, to close your nostrils to the scents wafting on the breeze, to close your mouth to the delicacies of nourishment, to close your hands to the feel of luxury, to close your mind to the ability to think, and to close your heart to the only love that can penetrate the depths of the soul. For in Him all things consist, in Him we live, and move, and have our being, and without Him we cannot help but be fools.
— J.E.B. Spredemann, A Secret of the Heart
I wonder, said the Lord I wonder if I know the answer any more.
— Norman Mailer, Deaths For The Ladies
As we actually taste the flavor of what he's teaching, we begin to see that it's not proverbs for daily living, or ways of being virtuous. He's proposing a total meltdown and recasting of human consciousness, bursting through the tiny acorn-selfhood that we arrived on the planet with into the oak tree of our fully realized personhood. He pushes us toward it, teases us, taunts us, encourages us, and ultimately walks us there.
— Cynthia Bourgeault, The Wisdom Jesus: Transforming Heart and Mind
Violence promises us something we all deeply desire, something we genuinely want; violence promises us peace. Violence promises us, that in the end, when the last battle is fought, the last bomb is dropped, and the last enemy is slain, we will have what we always dreamed of – safety, a world without suffering, death or bloodshed; a world at rest. Yet, these are the very things Christ offers with the Kingdom of God. A world where the lamb will lay down with the lion, where swords are beaten into plowshares, where mercy and justice flow down like the waters, where every tear will be wiped away from our eyes, and where there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. Christ and violence seem to offer the same final result, the two being competitors for our allegiance.
— Ronnie McBrayer, The Jesus Tribe: Following Christ in the Land of the Empire
Jesus Followers are called to be reflectors of His character, servants of his grace, ambassadors of His message and magnifiers of His glory!” ~ © gfp '42
— Gary Patton
By telling stories, Jesus isn’t somehow putting sugar in a spoon to make the medicine go down a bit easier. These stories are the medicine. These stories are an extension and explanation of Jesus’ revolutionary ministry. These stories show us that things are not as they appear. Our tidy, well-packaged ideas about spirituality, faith, and reality shatter when confronted by Christ and the God he represents.
— Ronnie McBrayer, Leaving Religion, Following Jesus
Jesus is not a white, middle-class Republican. Jesus is not a Democrat, a Libertarian, a Marxist, or a Socialist. Jesus is not a Baptist, a Catholic, a Lutheran, or a Buddhist. Jesus isn’t even a Christian. Jesus Christ is Lord.
— Ronnie McBrayer, Leaving Religion, Following Jesus
Jesus did not come to start a religion. He came to blow religion off the map. Jesus did not come to tinker with our ideas about God. He came to show us who God really is. Jesus did not come to build cathedrals or pulpits. He came to start a revolution. Jesus came to initiate a way of life, a new way to live, that knocks the props from beneath everything else we have ever known.
— Ronnie McBrayer, Leaving Religion, Following Jesus
To not follow Jesus is to be unmoved. To be unmoved is to risk the greatest danger of all: To misunderstand and misrepresent God.
— Ronnie McBrayer, Leaving Religion, Following Jesus
Jesus does not demand of us higher standards, he offers us himself. Jesus does not require of us super-human ability or commitments. He gives us his ability and grace.
— Ronnie McBrayer
The face he showed in Jesus is really his true and single face.
— Hans Küng, On Being a Christian
You deserve every mountain falling. You deserve every ocean reaching. You deserve all creation crying out your worth.You deserve all of Heaven singing. You deserve every nation rising, but I have heard that what You want most is my love.
— Natalie Grant
Jesus and institutional religion are on a collision course, and those who go with Jesus will find more adventure, freedom, and religion-bursting grace than they can stand, all the things that make traveling worth the effort. But they will also find clash and conflict. The path of Jesus is not well tolerated by the establishment.
— Ronnie McBrayer, Leaving Religion, Following Jesus
It considers this Jesus as ultimately decisive, definitive, archetypal for man in these various dimensions of his.
— Hans Küng, On Being a Christian
A Jesus Follower can explain our "One God in Three Persons" is like an "equilateral triangle". Both have three, conjoined, and distinct but identical parts. This is a simple way to help non-Followers of Jesus who struggle with the concept of Trinity to better understand the Three Personalities of our One Living God...God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit." ~ gfp '42©
— Gary F. Patton
We read about the name Jesus was given at his birth; Immanuel, meaning “God with us”. This God wasn’t content with dwelling in fiction, this God wasn’t content living with the seraphim and this God wasn’t content with bulls and goats anymore. This God wanted to dwell with you, with all of your mess, with all of your failures with all the dirtiness that is you; he wanted to sit with you. Here’s the amazing thing, God doesn’t care if you’re a catholic, a Lutheran, Post modern or Emergent; he wants to sit with you.
— Ricky Maye, An Emerging Spirituality
I have faith in God to put me where I need to be at the right time, and to put on my heart what I’m called to do… Sometimes we’re called to be very proactive about one thing, and then in another season, we’re supposed to let it go, trust God and pick up something else. You have to be in constant prayer and connected with the Holy Spirit to lead you.
— Lacey Sturm
But God's love is big enough to touch any life, to make light out of any darkness. Jesus came that we might have life, so that no more would we have to die in depression, anger or pain. He loved people back to life. He would go anywhere, talk to anyone. And wherever He went, He would stop for the one-- the forgotten one, the one who was rejected, outcast, sick, even stone dead. Even a thief who was dying for his crimes on the cross next to Him. In the Kingdom of God's love there is no sinner who cannot come home.
— Heidi Baker, Learning to Love: Passion, Compassion and the Essence of the Gospel
...the basic premise of religion—that if you live a good life, things will go well for you—is wrong. Jesus was the most morally upright person who ever lived, yet he had a life filled with the experience of poverty, rejection, injustice, and even torture.
— Timothy J. Keller, The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism
I mean Jesus never asked a man to do a damn thing that Jesus didn’t do.
— Walter M. Miller Jr., A Canticle for Leibowitz
I finally knew... why Christ's prayer in the garden could not be granted. He had been seeded and birthed into human flesh. He was one of us. Once He had become mortal, He could not become immortal except by dying. That He prayed the prayer at all showed how human He was. That He knew it could not be granted showed his divinity; that He prayed it anyhow showed His mortality, His mortal love of life that His death made immortal.
— Wendell Berry, Jayber Crow
Love may challenge and love may correct but love will never shame. Love may call us out to uncomfortable places but love will never cast us aside. Love may demand but will never demean. Love will never ask us to dim our light lest we shine too brightly. Love will never ask us to be less than we were created to be.By this we know God. By this we follow Jesus. By this we serve one another.Love. Not fear.
— Peggy Haymes, Strugglers, Stragglers and Seekers: daily devotions for the rest of us
Everywhere my sons and I go, we're telling people the good news about Jesus, blowing duck calls, and making people, happy, happy– then down the road we go.
— Phil Robertson, Happy, Happy, Happy
Jesus said his disciples would be known for their love, not for their placards of protest and angry letters to the editor.
— Brian Zahnd, Radical Forgiveness: God's Call to Unconditional Love
The devout life does not solely entail living as a monk or ascetic, though that is fine. The devout life requires bringing God into all things.
— David Paul Kirkpatrick, Breakfast in the temple
From a personal experience and the examination of literature, I feel that we cannot take for granted that a dialogue, without information and perhaps without understanding, is possible between any individuals or groups on all levels. So the prerequisite is information.
— Idries Shah, The Elephant in the Dark
The important place held by Jesus among the world's six hundred million Moslems... and the agreement of both religions about the necessity for surrender to God as the means of salvation, thus makes it comparatively easy for a Moslem to address himself to Christians: the sympathy and the history are already there.
— Idries Shah, The Elephant in the Dark
From imperial, economic and ideological causes, many cultures are the inheritors, and hence the prisoners, of attitudes of scorn and disdain for other faiths – outlooks which are not ennobling to anyone.
— Idries Shah, The Elephant in the Dark
When in doubt, look to Jesus.
— David Paul Kirkpatrick, Breakfast in the temple
He is Jesus, only. God has revealed Himself to us through Jesus. Jesus is what God wanted us to know and to love. He is not Napoleon the Great. He is not Alexander the Great. He is Jesus only. He is enough. My purpose in life is to worship Jesus and, in so doing, become more Christ-like
— David Paul Kirkpatrick, Breakfast in the temple
And there are many people, both Moslem and Christian, who have a good grasp of each others0 conceptions of surrender to God an other principles. But the widespread existence of bias, misinformation and lack of knowledge (…) militate against the effectiveness of dialogue, (…) by the most subtle and one of the most effective of instruments, the subconscious, almost the subliminal, introduction of hostility.
— Idries Shah, The Elephant in the Dark
The greatest gift we have ever received, and ever will or could receive, is the Spirit of God Himself. He enters the essence of our human form and changes us from within. He fills us with joy, love and peace. He subdues our passions and transforms our very being into the likeness of Christ.
— David Paul Kirkpatrick, Breakfast in the temple
People have been fed a Lean Cuisine® in the name of Jesus and told that it was a feast and they’ve decided there must not be much to this faith stuff after all. People see folks who bear the name of Christ who are acting loudly out of fear and have decided that peace must be found elsewhere. People are hungry to be a part of something that matters and to know that they matter.
— Peggy Haymes, Strugglers, Stragglers and Seekers: daily devotions for the rest of us
Jesus is supposed to be the Alpha and the Omega, but in the Bible he's neither. He's stuck in the middle like the letter Q.
— Jim Adam, Five Times More Jesus:  Why Christians Should Decanonize the Old Testament
Christian scholars often say that Sufi theories are close to those of Christianity. Many Moslems maintain that they are essentially derived from Islam. The resemblance of many Sufi ideas to those of several religious and esoteric systems are sometimes taken as evidence of derivation. The Islamic interpretation is that religion is of one origin, differences being due to local or historical causes.
— Idries Shah, The Elephant in the Dark
These lecture provide material for the consideration of common factors, in theory and in development, from the viewpoint of the idea of surrender to the Divine Will, reviewing some aspects of the interplay between Christians and Moslems, and introducing material from and about Sufis.
— Idries Shah, The Elephant in the Dark
… when we are talking about 'Christians' and 'Moslems' we must first make sure that we are talking about people who have an idea, which should be more or less correct, as to what the other is supposed to believe and what he is expected to do as a consequence of that belief.
— Idries Shah, The Elephant in the Dark
The phrase, "American Dream", a lifestyle approach that doesn't require God's power, just ours, was coined in 1931 by James T. Adams.
— Gary Patton
Psalm 91My Refuge and My Fortress91:1 He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty.2 I will say to the Lord, “My refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.
— LaNina King
Christians who say we are not to judge others are only partially correct! Judging rightly is what Jesus commands. Love and truth are “The Commanded Conjoined Twins” for Jesus Followers
—  they must never be separated if we wish to obey Jesus’ “Platinum Rule”!
The sin of man was placed on a sinless Savior. 2 Cor. 5:21
— John Paul Warren
I seek not a long life, but a full one, like you Lord Jesus.
— Jim Elliot
Jesus, who comes across in the Gospels as extraordinarily strong, begged in the garden, with drops of sweat like blood running down his face, that he might be spared the terrible cup ahead of him, the betrayal and abandonment by his friends, death on the cross. Because Jesus cried out in anguish, we may too. But our fear is less frequent and infinitely less if we are close to the Creator. Jesus, having cried out, then let his fear go, and moved on.
— Madeleine L'Engle, Glimpses of Grace: Daily Thoughts and Reflections
If you want to get warm you must stand near the fire: if you want to be wet you must get into the water. If you want joy, power, peace, eternal life, you must get close to, or even into, the thing that has them. They are not a sort of prize which God could, if He chose, hand out to anyone. They are a great fountain of energy and beauty spurting up at the very centre of reality. If you are close to it, the spray will wet you: if you are not,, you will remian dry. Once a man is united to God, how could he not live forever? Once a man is separated from God, what can he do but wither and die.
— C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
Eternity is not just looking to the future and our place with God in Heaven, but it is looking at our Eternity as if it were only moments away.
— Beth Nimmo, Rachel's Tears: The Spiritual Journey of Columbine Martyr Rachel Scott
If one Egyptian tailor hadn’t cheated on the threads of Joseph’s mantle, Potiphar’s wife would never have been able to tear it, present it as evidence to Potiphar that Joseph attacked her, gotten him thrown in prison, and let him be in a position to interpret Pharaoh’s dream, win his confidence, advise him to store seven years of grain, and save his family, the seventy original Jews from whom Jesus came. We owe our salvation to a cheap Egyptian tailor.
— Peter Kreeft
The first and foremost reality is that suffering and death are not only enemies of life, but a means of reminding us of life's twin realities, love and hate.
— Ravi Zacharias, Jesus Among Other Gods: The Absolute Claims of the Christian Message
We are not saved by good deeds
—  we are saved for good deeds. Jesus transforms us to transform others.
God is fucking stealing souls again!
— Stephen Adly Guirgis, The Last Days of Judas Iscariot
Jesus was a man for simple people. He didn't make his messages incredibly complex. If you were a person that had the eyes to see and the ears to hear... then his message was easily understood.
— Brandon Andress, And Then the End Will Come!: But Five Things You Need to Know in the Meantime
Don't look at the present storm, but look to the Son coming.
— Anthony Liccione
...Jesus saw the eternal in the everyday. Your last day on earth should be spent as you spent all your others-- doing your daily tasks with love and honesty... An ordinary day is, perhaps, the most holy of all.
— Margaret George, Mary, Called Magdalene
Sometimes, most times, when I think back to the people that I loved, the person that I was... I feel like I'm reading the pages of a book written about someone else's life.I can't believe that was me. I can't believe that was you. I can't believe there was an us.It's not that I regret it. It just doesn't feel like it happened to me and yet, I can't forget it. I feel like it's still refracting and reflecting back on me, haunting me.Jesus intercepted my mind, my thoughts, my mistakes, my shame. He's changed me from the inside out. But I'm afraid you still see the stain.Lord, let them see my heart, look at You and Your still-in-progress work of art. Help us all to look beyond our burned bridges, charred reputations, scattered shards of memories, and gaze at the One who took on the weight of all the hate to find the freedom in redemption that we all crave.
— Katie Kiesler, 22 and Single: A Coming of Age Story...in Progress
It is possible that our present-day discussion about needs might be framed more by secular psychological theories than by Scripture. If this is so, we should be careful about saying, "Jesus meets all our needs." At first, this has a plausible biblical ring to it. Christ _is_a friend; God _is_ a loving Father; Christians _do_ experience a sense of meaningfulness and confidence in knowing God's love. It makes Christ the answer to our problems. Yet if our use of the term "needs" is ambiguous, and its range of meaning extends all the way to selfish desires, then there will be some situations where we should say that Jesus does not intend to meet our needs, but that he intends to change our needs.
— Edward T. Welch, When People Are Big and God is Small: Overcoming Peer Pressure, Codependency, and the Fear of Man
Be willing to be unliked and ridiculed in order to speak the words of the One who matters most.
— Dillon Burroughs
So he had them into the slaughter house, where was a butcher killing a sheep. And behold, the sheep was quiet and took her death patiently. Then said the Interpreter, "You must learn of this sheep to suffer, and put up wrongs without murmurings and complaints. Behold how quietly she takes her death! And without objecting she suffereth her skin to be pulled over her ears. Your King doth call you his sheep.
— John Bunyan, The Pilgrim's Progress
When Jesus was wrapping up his days on earth, he didn't tell us to go to church. He didn't tell us to engage in a spiritualized version of channel surfing, as we hop from place to place in search of just the right programming to entertain us. He told us to get out and actually do the stuff he'd already been doing, painting the hope of God's reign on the canvas of God's world. He told us we're artists.
— Richard Dahlstrom, The Colors of Hope: Becoming People of Mercy, Justice, and Love
Many overlook the fact that Jesus was homeless. He did not only teach the poor
—  He lived among them.
Do not view the Lord as your temporary solution
—  see Him as your eternal Savior.
If thou wilt be well with GOD, and have grace to rule thy life, and come to the joy of love: this name JESUS, fasten it so fast in thy heart that it come never out of thy thought. And when thou speakest to Him, and through custom sayst, JESUS, it shall be in thine ear, joy; in thy mouth, honey; and in thine heart, melody: for men shall think joy to hear that name be named, sweetness to speak it, mirth and song to think it. If thou thinkest (on) JESUS continually, and holdest it firmly, it purges thy sin, and kindles thine heart; it clarifies thy soul, it removes anger and does away slowness. It wounds in love and fulfils charity. It chases the devil, and puts out dread. It opens heaven, and makes a contemplative man. Have JESUS in mind, for that puts all vices and phantoms out from the lover.
— Richard Rolle, The Form of Perfect Living and Other Prose Treatises
If economies collapse and lawlessness rules and resources are scarce, many people who claim with their mouths that they follow Jesus... will abandon him with their lives.
— Brandon Andress, And Then the End Will Come!: But Five Things You Need to Know in the Meantime
In our modern world, we often separate faith from practice. But the way of Jesus rejects this notion. Only living our faith offers the credibility to teach our faith. Anything less is less that the teachings of Christ.
— Dillon Burroughs, Thirst No More: A One-Year Devotional Journey
Jesus rejoices in even the smallest gifts to His children.
— Dillon Burroughs, Thirst No More: A One-Year Devotional Journey
I want to be known as the 23 year-old who is foolishly in love with a Prince she can't see. I want to rejoice while holding the rose of singleness, even when my hands bleed from its thorns. I want to resist the urge to envy the pairs growing in the middle of my neighbors' gardens. I want to be rooted in the simple truth that unripen pairs taste like lies and lingering loneliness.  I want to put Jesus on my bullet wound and cling to His heart wrenching hope because He was kind enough to be a Band-Aid when He should have stayed a King.
— Katie Kiesler, 22 and Single: A Coming of Age Story...in Progress
Greatness is obedience to what Jesus said, to the commission to go to the ends of the earth. It means setting out to make some difference somewhere to someone, in the Name of Jesus Christ.
— Ross Paterson, The Antioch Factor: The Hidden Message of the Book of Acts
Strange, how the name Israel, God's own chosen nation, who don't believe Jesus to be the Messiah, sounds almost the same as saying "is He real?
— Anthony Liccione
Sometimes we are outright rude when we interact with people. We meet a gay guy or a couple living together, and we think we have the obligation and right to warn them what God thinks about their sexuality on our first meeting. As if their sex life is the first thing on God’s agenda.It’s not.Love is. Grace is. Mercy is. Jesus is.
— Judah Smith, Jesus Is: Find a New Way to Be Human
Only God can give us a selfless love for others, as the Holy Spirit changes us from within. This is one reason we must receive Christ, for apart from His Spirit we can never be freed from the chains of selfishness, jealousy, and indifference. Will others see Christ's love in your life today?
— Billy Graham, Hope for Each Day: Words of Wisdom and Faith
There are no unique postures and times and limitations that restrict our access to God. My relationship with God is intimate and personal. The Christian does not go to the temple to worship. The Christian takes the temple with him or her. Jesus lifts us beyond the building and pays the human body the highest compliment by making it His dwelling place, the place where He meets with us. Even today He would overturn the tables of those who make it a marketplace for their own lust, greed and wealth.
— Ravi Zacharias, Jesus Among Other Gods: The Absolute Claims of the Christian Message
In other words, The­ol­ogy is prac­ti­cal: espe­cially now. In the old days, when there was less edu­ca­tion and dis­cus­sion, per­haps it was pos­si­ble to get on with a very few sim­ple ideas about God. But it is not so now. Every­one reads, every­one hears things dis­cussed. Con­se­quently, if you do not lis­ten to The­ol­ogy, that will not mean that you have no ideas about God. It will mean that you have a lot of wrong ones — bad, mud­dled, out-of-date ideas. For a great many of the ideas about God which are trot­ted out as novel­ties to-day are simply the ones which real The­olo­gians tried cen­turies ago and rejected.
— C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
I find it appalling that the Church claims Mary consented at the age of thirteen to become the mother of God.”“But she did,” James said. “There is ample evidence to show she consented.”“Isn’t that the classic defense of the pedophile?” Helena asked. “In Christ’s time and even today in some countries in the Middle East and India, child marriages are customary. But that doesn’t make it right. In Europe and the U.S. we prosecute adults for preying on children. God would be arrested for impregnating a girl below the age of consent.”“People didn’t live as long then,” James said.Helena would not back down. “But human biology hasn’t changed. My point is she was too young to consent. The brain of a young teenager isn’t fully developed.”“The mysteries of the faith require us to have faith.” “Don’t hide behind that nonsense. What kind of message is the Church sending to women? Only virgin children are pure? Experienced mothers are impure and unfit to raise Christ? It’s creepy and insulting when you think about it, but you would have me suspend rational judgment and just accept something I would tear your eyes out for thinking about my underage sister?
— Janet M. Tavakoli, Archangels: Rise of the Jesuits
Praise is declaration, a victory cry, proclaiming faith to stand firm in the place God has given you. Praise is a proclamation that the enemy's intent to plunder you will not rock you. Praise declares that you will not be moved by the enemy's attempt to snatch you away.
— Darlene Zschech
Does that mean,' said Mack, 'that all roads lead to you?''Not at all.' Jesus smiled as he reached for the door handle to the shop. 'Most roads don't lead anywhere. What it does mean is that I will travel any road to find you.
— William Paul Young, The Shack
Jesus said “Give us THIS DAY our daily bread”, knowing that you cannot fight today’s battles with yesterday’s bread. Knowing that you cannot fight today’s battles with the hope of tomorrow’s bread.  Knowing that today you will be nourished by this daily bread, and it’s what you have to fight today’s battle.
— Steve Maraboli, Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience
Throughout human history, countries rise and fall. But not America--we continue to rise and rise, like dough, until Jesus bakes us in the fiery Afterscape of the Rapture.
— Stephen Colbert, America Again: Re-becoming the Greatness We Never Weren't
Jesus was not a Christian, nor was Marx a Marxist.
— Eric Hoffer, The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements
True worship can only take place when we agree to God sitting not only on His throne in the center of the universe, but on the throne that stands in the center of our heart.
— Robert Colman
When we worship, we ascend, when we ascend we gain revelation from God.
— Chuck D. Pierce
The truth was always the truth, but until I knew the truth for myself, I couldn't be free.
— Shelley Hendrix, Why Can't We Just Get Along?: 6 Effective Skills for Dealing with Difficult People
The Western post-Christian civilization has picked up the Christ without His Cross. But a Christ without a sacrifice that reconciles the world to God is a cheap, colorless, itinerant preacher who deserves to be popular for His great Sermon on the Mount, but also merits unpopularity for what He said about His Divinity on the one hand, and divorce, judgment, and hell on the other. This sentimental Christ is patched together with a thousand commonplaces, sustained sometimes by academic etymologists who cannot see the Word for the letters, or distorted beyond personal recognition by a dogmatic principle that anything which is Divine must necessarily be a myth. Without His Cross, He becomes nothing more than a sultry precursor of democracy or a humanitarian who taught brotherhood without tears.
— Fulton J. Sheen, Life of Christ
Then I read that Jesus was a friend of sinners. This still bothers me. Not because Jesus was a friend of sinners (because that came in really handy in my case). It bothered me because if I'm trying to live like Jesus, that means I'm supposed to be a friend of sinners too.
— Dillon Burroughs, Undefending Christianity: Embracing Truth Without Having All the Answers
It is precisely this refusal of the Cartesian paradigm that characterizes Radical Orthodoxy, which seeks to reanimate the account of knowledge offered by Augustine and Aquinas. On this ancient-medieval-properly-postmodern model, we rightly give up pretensions to absolute knowledge or certainty, but we do not thereby give up on knowledge altogether. Rather, we can properly confess that we know God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, but such knowledge rests on the gift of (particular, special) revelation, is not universally objective or demonstrable, and remains a matter of interpretation and perspective (with a significant appreciation for the role of the Spirit's regeneration and illumination as a condition for knowledge). We confess knowledge without certainty, truth without objectivity.
— James K.A. Smith, Who's Afraid of Postmodernism?: Taking Derrida, Lyotard, and Foucault to Church
The real turning point in human history is less apt to be the day the wheel is invented or Rome falls than the day a boy is born to a couple of hick Jews.
— Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking: A Theological ABC
Jesus came to give us life. We don't have to hang on a cross like he did. For him, it was a sacrifice. For us, it is a gift.
— Dillon Burroughs, Undefending Christianity: Embracing Truth Without Having All the Answers
Trust in Jesus, wholeheartedly. Don't try to figure things out yourself. Just be intimate with Him!
— Gary Patton
For years, the church has emphasized evangelism, teaching, fellowship, missions, and service to society to the neglect of the very source of its power--worship.
— Robert E. Webber
If I were you," he said with a wink and a smile as his eyes swept over those who's started the discussion, "I would waste far less time ragging on religion and find out just how much Jesus wants to be your friend without any strings attached. He will care for you and if given a chance will become more real to you than your best friend, and you will cherish him more than anything else you desire. He will give you a purpose and a fullness of life that will carry you through every stress and pain and will change you from the inside to show you what true freedom and joy really are.
— Wayne Jacobsen, So You Don't Want to Go to Church Anymore: An Unexpected Journey
The first miracle Jesus performed was instant winemaking. No wonder people loved Him! He probably received a bunch of wedding invitations after that one.
— Dillon Burroughs, Undefending Christianity: Embracing Truth Without Having All the Answers
If I have the gift of the prophecy, and can fathom all mystery's and knowledge, and if I have faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.
— Anonymous, ESV Study Bible
But should we accept this negative view of power? Is power all bad? Specifically, can Christians share in this devaluation of power and discipline as inherently evil? Can we who claim to be disciples - who are called and predestined to be conformed to the likeness of the Son (Rom. 8:29) - be opposed to discipline and formation as such? Can we who are called to be subject to the Lord of life really agree with the liberal Enlightenment notion of the autonomous self? Are we not above all called to subject ourselves to our Domine and conform to his image? Of course, we are called not to conform to the patterns of 'this world' (Rom. 12:2) or to our previous evil desires (1 Peter 1:14), but that is a call not to nonconformity as such but rather to an alternative conformity through a counterformation in Christ, a transformation and renewal directed toward conformity to his image. By appropriating the liberal Enlightenment notion of negative freedom and participating in its nonconformist resistance to discipline (and hence a resistance to the classical spiritual disciplines), Christians are in fact being conformed to the patterns of this world (contra Rom. 12:2).
— James K.A. Smith, Who's Afraid of Postmodernism?: Taking Derrida, Lyotard, and Foucault to Church
Over and over these organizations tell America that family, above all, is what Christianity is about. Devotion to one's family is, indeed, a wonderful thing. Yet it is hardly something to brag about. For all except the most pathologically self-absorbed, love for one's parents, spouse, and children comes naturally. Jesus did not make it his business to affirm these ties; he didn't have to. Jews feel them, Buddhists feel them, Confucians and Zoroastrians and atheists feel them. Christianity is not about reinforcing such natural bonds and instinctive sentiments. Rather, Christianity is about challenging them and helping us to see all of humankind as our family. It seems clear that if Jesus had wanted to affirm the "traditional family" in the way that Pat Robertson claims, he would not have lived the way he did.
— Bruce Bawer, Stealing Jesus: How Fundamentalism Betrays Christianity
I'm Jesus Christ, whether you want to accept it or not, I don't care.
— Charles Manson
It was to a virgin woman that the birth of the Son of God was announced. It was to a fallen woman that His Resurrection was announced.
— Fulton J. Sheen, Life of Christ