c2p-cmd/Good-Quotes-Authors huggingface dataset:
When we are asked to show our love for God, our desire for him, when he asks us as Jesus asked Peter, 'Lovest thou me?' we have to give proof of it. 'Lovest thou me more than these, more than any human companionship, more than any human love?' It is not filth and ugliness, drugs and drink and perversion he is asking us to prefer him to. He is asking us to prefer him to all beauty and loveliness. To all other love. He is giving us a chance to prove our faith, our hope, our charity. It is as hard and painful as Abraham's ordeal, when he thought he was asked to perform a human sacrifice and immolate his son.
— Dorothy Day, The Reckless Way of Love: Notes on Following Jesus
The aim of the climb is not intellectual satisfaction. The aim is worship. God gets more honor when we worship on the basis of what we know about him than he gets if we worship on the basis of what we don’t know.
— John Piper, Does God Desire All to Be Saved?
The reward of the good man is to be allowed to worship in truth.
— Søren Kierkegaard, Purity of Heart is to Will One Thing: Spiritual Preparation for the Office of Confession
David cuts through all the many needs, wants, and desires that may have been bouncing around inside him and essentially says, "If I could have only one thing, I want to be with God, to be in His presence, to know that he is always with me." Whether in good times or bad times, David knew the thing he needed most: to feel God's presence close by, intimately, through worship.
— Craig Groeschel, Weird: Because Normal Isn't Working
Work becomes worship when you dedicate it to God and perform it with an awareness of his presence.
— Rick Warren, The Purpose Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here for?
here is nothing which any way pertains to the the worship of God left to the determination of human laws, besides the mere circumstances, which neither have any holiness in them, forasmuch as they have no other use and praise in sacred than which have in civil things, nor yet were particularly determinable in Scripture.
— George Gillespie, A Dispute Against the English Popish Ceremonies Obtruded on the Church of Scotland: Wherein Not Only Our Own Arguments Against the Same Are Strongly Confirmed, But Likewise the Answers and Defences of Our Opposites, Such as Hooker, Morton, Burges, Spri...
We can worship God imperfectly, but we cannot worship him insincerely.
— Rick Warren, The Purpose Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here for?
Real worship costs.
— Rick Warren, The Purpose Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here for?
It is not always convenient or comfortable, and sometimes worship is a sheer act of the will--a willing sacrifice.
— Rick Warren, The Purpose Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here for?
When you committed your life to Christ, he moved into the center; but you must keep him there through worship.
— Rick Warren, The Purpose Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here for?
This worship of Humanity, with its rituals of Liberty and Equality, always struck me as like being a revival of the ancient cults, in which animals were gods or the gods bore the heads of animals.
— Pessoa
Becoming an object of worship is to serve God for what you can get from him
— Sunday Adelaja
It is a fanatical notion that we interfere with the Holy Spirit if we make any preparation for prayer. The theological deficit in that assumption is that the Holy Spirit would not have us reason or use foresight or imagination or fit language. It assumes incorrectly that the only part of us that the Spirit wishes to work through is emotive impulsivity and spontaneous feeling-flow. It assumes incorrectly that the Holy Spirit does not also work through discipline, reason, reflection, and organization.
— Thomas C. Oden, Pastoral Theology: Essentials of Ministry
The ‘gods’ that do us the greatest harm are the gods we deny having.
— Craig D. Lounsbrough
At that time I also had, for a short while, the strength to bear it. But all too soon I lost external sight of the shape of that beautiful man, and I saw him disappear to nothing, so quickly melting away and fusing together that I could not see or observe him outside of me, nor discern him within me. It was to me at that moment as if we were one without distinction.
— Hadewijch, Hadewijch: The Complete Works
Here’s the inevitable truth: our hearts will always find something to worship, and that will motivate how we live.
— Jacquelle Crowe
Your butt in a pew does not true worship make.
— Jacquelle Crowe
Any outward acts of worship in a church service must begin in the heart. Right worship starts with right thinking.
— Jacquelle Crowe
Look where we worship.
— Jim Morrison, The Lords and the New Creatures
...small bits of our day are profoundly meaningfulbecause they are the site of our worship. The crucible of our formation is in the monotony of our daily routines.
— Tish Harrison Warren, Liturgy of the Ordinary: Sacred Practices in Everyday Life
Sure, there are good things, lots, sure, blow jobs, chocolate mousse, winning streaks, the warm fire in your enemy’s house, good book, hunk of cheese, flagon of ale, office raise, championship ring, the misfortunes of others, sure, good things, beyond count, queens, kings, old clocks, comfy clothes, lots, innumerable items in stock, baseball cards and bingo buttons, pot-au-feu, listen, we could go on and on like a long speech, sure it’s a great world, sights to see, canyons full of canyon, corn on the cob, the eroded great pyramids, contaminated towns, eroded hillsides, deleafed trees, those whitened limbs stark and noble in the evening light, geeeez, what gobs of good things, no shit, service elevators, what would we do without, and all the inventions of man, Krazy Glue and food fights, girls wrestling amid mounds of Jell-O, drafts of dark beer, no end of blue sea, formerly full of fish, eroded hopes, eruptions of joy, because we’re winning, have won, won, won what? the . . . the Title.
— William H. Gass, Tests of Time
In medieval India, the Hindu Vaishnava system of bhakti-yoga (devotional yoga) developed highly sophisticated categories of relation (rasa) to God, including santa (awe and reverence), vatsalya (parental attitude toward God), dasya (servant of God), sakhya (being friends and playmates with God), and madburya (passionate, romantic love).
— Siobhan Houston, Invoking Mary Magdalene: Accessing the Wisdom of the Divine Feminine
If by worshipping stones one can find God, I shall worship a mountain. If by immersion in the water salvation be attained, the frogs who bathe continually would attain it. As the frogs, so are these men, again and again fall into the womb.
— Kabir
For invented gods invariably disappoint those who worship them.
— John Clellon Holmes
The instinct of worship is still so strong upon us that, having nearly worn out our capacity for treating kings and such kind of persons as sacred, we are ready to invest a majority of our own selves with the same kind of reverence.
— Auberon Herbert
Pray more often and read and obey The Holy Scriptures in The Holy Bible.
— Errol Anthony Smythe.
The spiritual muscles I hadn't used for decades began to acquire some tone, and since they were Catholic muscles too, it was natural to look for a church to work out in.It was hard. Appalling though the predations exacted on the monastic liturgy were, they were nothing compared to the desecration exacted on the secular. Latin was gone entirely, replaced by dull, oppressive, anchorman English, slavishly translated from its sonorous source to be as plain and "direct" as possible. It didn't seem to have occurred to the well-meaning vandals who'd thrown out baby, bath, and bathwater that all ritual is a reaching out to the unknowable and can be accomplished only by the noncognitive: evocation, allusion, metaphor, incantation—the tools of the poet.
— Tony Hendra, Father Joe: The Man Who Saved My Soul
We have a tendency to worship great people but do not adapt their ideas in our lives.
— Girdhar Joshi, Some Mistakes Have No Pardon
I'd rather worship bloody bones than the murderer who makes them.
— Rosamund Hodge, Crimson Bound
So yes, I worship nature. I worship a blind Goddess. For me, she is the only worthy object of worship. She will never care that I worship her. She will never answer a single prayer. But she is always with me… shaping me as I shape her. I will struggle with her to the last gasp of my life. And in the end, in my final act of devotion, I will yield to her. - John Halstead, "I Worship the Blind Goddess
— John Halstead, Godless Paganism: Voices of Non-Theistic Pagans
Therefore, God elected the people of Israel to reveal authentic worship and the pursuit of ultimate wisdom so he could reinstate order to a chaotic world.
— James Mikołajczyk, Jesus the Jew, Christ the King: Exploring the Hypostatic Union Between the Jesus of History and the Christ of Faith
If we all knew who God really was and what he really wanted for each and every one of us, we would all know that only a fool could really deny him.
— Criss Jami
You don't really get to choose. We worship you, and that makes you our God.
— Brandon Sanderson, Warbreaker
Einstein's was a beautiful mix of confidence and awe.
— Walter Isaacson, American Sketches: Great Leaders, Creative Thinkers, and Heroes of a Hurricane
Faith is the road, but communion with Jesus is the well from which the pilgrim drinks.
— Charles Haddon Spurgeon
It has always been dangerous to institutionalize hope, and we no longer live in a society in which we will be allowed to institutionalize memory.
— Harold Bloom, The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages
When her daughter was frightened of a thunderstorm, the author pointed out the verse which declares the Heavens reveal the glory of God. When another storm occurred, her daughter ran to the window. "Mommy, God's really showing off today!
— Beth Moore, To Live Is Christ
All images and sensations, if idolatrously mistaken for Joy itself, soon honestly confessed themselves inadequate. All said, in a last resort, "It is not high. I am only a reminder. Look! Look! What do I remind you of?" CS Lewis
— Philip Zaleski, The Fellowship: The Literary Lives of the Inklings: J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Owen Barfield, Charles Williams
The bottle of the creature cracks and dries up, but the well of the Creator never fails; happy is he who dwells at the well.
— Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Morning and Evening, Based on the English Standard Version
He felt gladness roar through his soul.
— Stephen King, Misery
Romance depends upon imperfect knowledge.
— Harold Bloom, The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages
The world is sacred, of course, it is full of gods, numina, great powers and presences. We give some of them names – Mars of the fields and the war; Vesta the fire; Ceres the grain; Mother Tellus the earth; the Penates of the storehouse. The rivers, the springs. And in the stormcloud and the light is the great power called the father god. But they aren’t people. They don’t love and hate, they aren’t for or against. They accept the worship due them, which augments their power, through which we live.
— Ursula K. Le Guin
I said to all the things that throng about the gateways of the senses: "Tell me of my God, since you are not He. Tell me something of Him." And they cried out in a great voice: "He made us." CS Lewis
— Philip Zaleski, The Fellowship: The Literary Lives of the Inklings: J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Owen Barfield, Charles Williams
Terror and rapture to Emily Dickinson are alternative words for "transport".
— Harold Bloom, The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages
Only he who cries out for the persecuted Jews can sing Gregorian chants. – Dietrich Bonhoeffer
— Jen Pollock Michel, Teach Us to Want: Longing, Ambition & the Life of Faith
If you enjoy being at work more than being at home it doesn't mean you are a workaholic, it simply means you are in love with your work and you worship it.
— honeya
This was especially true in some millennialist sects that filled their literature with paintings of Armageddon. Pictures of terrified people running away from some formless fiery doom that burned their world down behind them, while smug worshipers—of the correct religion, of course—watched from safety as God got with the smiting.
— James S.A. Corey, Abaddon's Gate
Praising God is contagious
—  especially for those of us who like to be affected by Him.
As we gaze on Christ, the mind is informed, and the heart is inflamed, and the body begins to line up.
— Matt      Chandler
Show me a church's songs and I'll show you their theology.
— Gordon D. Fee
Cupping her face, I reclaim her lips and gently guide her body next to mine on the bed. Rachel’s tank rides up and my fingers explore the satin skin of her belly. There are so many places I long to go, so many places I crave to tak
— Katie McGarry, Crash into You
A susceptible child is capable of great hero worship, and a young mind can easily be obsessed by an idea which persists into adult life.
— Agatha Christie, Murder in Mesopotamia
The longing for Joy is in itself Joy. When he recalled when he had experienced Joy, he was, in that recollection, experiencing Joy anew, though he knew it not. Joy was not a state; it was an arrow pointing to something beyond all states, something objective yet unattainable – at least in our earthly existence.
— Philip Zaleski, The Fellowship: The Literary Lives of the Inklings: J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Owen Barfield, Charles Williams
J.R.R. Tolkien told a questioning correspondent, life's purpose is to know, praise, and thank God.
— Philip Zaleski, The Fellowship: The Literary Lives of the Inklings: J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Owen Barfield, Charles Williams
The only restorative for a guilty conscience is a sight of Jesus suffering on the cross.
— Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Morning and Evening, Based on the English Standard Version
I think "HALLELUJAH" translates into "HALLELUJAH" in every language out there.
— Matt      Chandler
Wonder at God's merciful love is a very practical emotion. Holy wonder will lead you to grateful worship and heartfelt thanksgiving. It will cause within you godly watchfulness
—  you will be afraid to sin against such a love as this.
I’m feeling very thin and vulnerable, in a good way.
— Amy Layne Litzelman
Adoration drives obedience, but throughout history people are prone to forget the faithfulness of God yesterday.
— Matt      Chandler
Karate is not A religion, cult or dogma. It is incumbent on every generation of martial artists, to find the weaknesses of the previous generations, not to revere it . . .
— Soke Behzad Ahmadi, Shorinjiryu Ryujin Kenpo
If I can hold God's attention, I can hold the world's..
— Dolly Parton, Coat of Many Colors
On God's calendar, there are no ordinary days.
— David McGee
The particular creature we love is never God’s rival. What ends in apostasy is the worship of man, the cult of humanity.
— Nicolás Gómez Dávila, Escolios a un texto implícito
Worship is no longer worship when it reflects the culture around us more than the Christ within us.
— A.W. Tozer, A Disruptive Faith: Expect God to Interrupt Your Life
We are hardwired for glory because we are hardwired for God.
— Paul David Tripp, Sex and Money: Pleasures That Leave You Empty and Grace That Satisfies
We become what we behold.
— Matt      Chandler, Creature of the Word: The Jesus-Centered Church
He experiences a connection where knowledge does not interfere with wonder.
— Sherry Turkle, Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other
James Smith argues that liturgies “are compressed, performed narratives that recruit the imagination through the body.
— James K.A. Smith, Imagining the Kingdom: How Worship Works
To still seek God after discovering Him may be a love paradox of the soul, as A.W. Tozer reminds us; but to earnestly continue to perceive God and make Him perceivable, is the quintessence of worship.
— Tristan Sherwin, Love: Expressed
We delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment
—  it is its appointed consummation.
Augustine in City of God pictures a resurrection in which the bodily systems we no longer need to protect ourselves can use energy to praise God.
— Matt      Chandler
Truth could never be wholly contained in words.
— Catherine Marshall, Christy
The highest form or worship is the worship of unselfish Christian service. The greatest form of praise is the sound of consecrated feet seeking out the lost and helpless.
— Billy Graham
The more loftily we see Christ enthroned, and the more lowly we are when bowing before the foot of the throne, the more truly shall we be prepared to act our part towards Him.
— Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Morning and Evening, Based on the English Standard Version
Music enables an ability of divine expression transcending any words.
— Temi Peters, Instruments of Praise & Acts of Worship
The place where music and worship meet is like a divine mystery of sorts.
— Temi Peters, Instruments of Praise & Acts of Worship
All music has a message and a spirit behind it.
— Temi Peters, Instruments of Praise & Acts of Worship
When the music is birthed from a place of worship it carries a spirit of worship.
— Temi Peters, Instruments of Praise & Acts of Worship
When the lyrical content is based on the word of God it becomes covenanted.
— Temi Peters, Instruments of Praise & Acts of Worship
The heart of service is grace of belonging.
— Lailah Gifty Akita, Think Great: Be Great!
This child-like spirit soon perceives the grandeur of the Father "in heaven," and ascends to devout adoration, "Hallowed be Thy name." The child lisping, "Abba, Father," grows into the cherub crying, "Holy, Holy, Holy.
— Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Morning and Evening, Based on the English Standard Version
It is the heaven-born instinct of a gracious soul to seek shelter from all ills beneath the wings of Jehovah. A hypocrite, when afflicted by God, resents the infliction, and, like a slave, would run from the Master who has scourged him
— Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Morning and Evening, Based on the English Standard Version
If only you will hate that bad attitude, that bad character God is willing to take it away from you. But if you love it, you are ‪worshiping‬ that spirit and no prayer nor pastor can help.
— Mary Tornyenyor
It was well to be Martha and serve, but better to be Lazarus and commune.
— Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Morning and Evening, Based on the English Standard Version
The library became the cathedral where I would come to worship amd the stories were as precious to me as prayers.
— Anita Anand, The Library Book
God is the greatest thing that exists, ever has existed or ever will…for us to glory in anything else, would be sin, as there is nothing greater than God, there is no calling greater than praising God.
— John Piper
A quite specific astonishment stands at the beginning of every theological perception, inquiry, and thought.
— Karl Barth, Evangelical Theology: An Introduction
The first function of mythology is showing everything as a metaphor to transcendence.
— Joseph Campbell, The Hero's Journey: Joseph Campbell on His Life & Work
The one who makes the idols never worships them, however tenderly he might have molded the clay. You cannot have knowledge and worship at the same time. Mystery is the essence of divinity. Gods must keep their distances from men.
— Zora Neale Hurston, I Love Myself When I Am Laughing... And Then Again: A Zora Neale Hurston Reader
The highest form of worship is the worship of unselfish Christian service. The greatest form of praise is the sound of consecrated feet seeking out the lost and helpless.
— Billy Graham
The highest form of worship is to answer God's prayer.
— Agona Apell, The Success Genome Unravelled: Turning Men from Rot to Rock
Once more, the joyful character of the eucharistic gathering must be stressed. For the medieval emphasis on the cross, while not a wrong one, is certainly one-sided. The liturgy is, before everything else, the joyous gathering of those who are to meet the risen Lord and to enter with him into the bridal chamber. And it is this joy of expectation and this expectation of joy that are expressed in singing and ritual, in vestments and in censing, in that whole 'beauty' of the liturgy which has so often been denounced as unnecessary and even sinful.Unnecessary it is indeed, for we are beyond the categories of the 'necessary.' Beauty is never 'necessary,' 'functional' or 'useful.' And when, expecting someone whom we love, we put a beautiful tablecloth on the table and decorate it with candles and flowers, we do all this not out of necessity, but out of love. And the Church is love, expectation and joy.
— Alexander Schmemann, For the Life of the World: Sacraments and Orthodoxy
Grace is the music that happens inside of you when you hear the music.
— Jason Gray
The apostle only commands that each action and ceremony of God's worship be decently and orderly performed, but gives us no leave to excogitate [contrive] or devise new ceremonies, which have not been instituted before. He has spoken in that chapter of assembling in the church, prophesying and preaching, praying and praising there. Now let all these things, and every other action of God's worship, ceremonies and all, be done decently and in order.
— George Gillespie, A Dispute Against the English Popish Ceremonies Obtruded on the Church of Scotland: Wherein Not Only Our Own Arguments Against the Same Are Strongly Confirmed, But Likewise the Answers and Defences of Our Opposites, Such as Hooker, Morton, Burges, Spri...
I've never found time to indulge more than a single ambition.
— Cornelius Vanderbilt Jr.
Thus [the altar] brings heaven into the community assembled on earth, or rather it takes the community beyond itself into the communion of saints of all times and places. We might put it this way: the altar is the place where heaven is opened up.
— Pope Benedict XVI
The author says the mark of a true rest your creature is an inability to be still without a kind of resignation.
— C.S. Lewis
The intensity of the love of the upright is not so much to be judged by what it appears as by what the upright long for. It is our daily lament that we cannot love enough.
— Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Morning and Evening, Based on the English Standard Version
But godhead is, after all, a matter of fact, not a matter of opinion: if a man is generally worshipped as a god then he is a god. And if a god ceases to be worshipped he is nothing.
— Robert Graves, Claudius the God and His Wife Messalina
The becoming attitude for us to take is that of godly fear, implicit obedience, and unreserved resignation and submission. But not only so: the recognition of the sovereignty of God, and the realization that the Sovereign Himself is my Father, ought to overwhelm the heart and cause me to bow before Him in adoring worship. At all times I must say “Even so, Father, for so it seemeth good in Thy sight.
— Arthur W. Pink, The Sovereignty of God
I can't imagine that the God of the universe is limited to our ideas of God. I can't imagine that God doesn't reveal God's self in countless ways outside of the symbol system of Christianity. In a way, I need a God who is bigger and more nimble and mysterious than what I could understand and contrive. Otherwise it can feel like I am worshipping nothing more than my own ability to understand the divine.
— Nadia Bolz-Weber
To give the whole store away to match what this year's market says the unchurched want is to have the people who know least about the faith determine most about its expression.
— Martin E. Marty
My heart is filled with profound gratitude to God.
— Lailah Gifty Akita, Pearls of  Wisdom: Great  mind
When grace has won the day, the worldling seeks the world to come.
— Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Morning and Evening, Based on the English Standard Version
Your worship is proportional to your communion with God and how you are free with Him.
— Paul Gitwaza
I remembered Patel’s words, “Surrender is not giving up, it is worship.” “Show me how to step,” I said, “so that it pleases you. Make me one with you and also this land. Be with me.
— Richard Payment, For Want of Wonders
This wasn't a legalistic play. He simply wanted more and more of God.
— Matt      Chandler
No man can rationally live, worship, or love his neighbour on an empty stomach.
— Woodrow Wilson, The Papers of Woodrow Wilson, Vol. 1
...Don't ever worry bout bein holy, babychild. Just keep your eyes wide open except when you sleep. Then let the Lord's mighty vision see you through the night.
— Rebecca Wells, Little Altars Everywhere
Setting fire to the roofs, getting away with the loot, suiting herself. She studied modern philosophy, read Sartre on the side, smoked Gitanes, and cultivated a look of bored contempt. But inwardly, she was seething with unfocused excitement, and looking for someone to worship.
— Margaret Atwood, Wilderness Tips
Automatic praise is a mere succession of noises.
— C.E.M. Joad
That girl has done things to your head.'He pats my back, 'Don’t pretend she’s not crawling inside of yours.
— James W. Bodden, The Red Light Princess
I so often feel terrible that I am not offering the worship God is worthy to receive. My worship is so inadequate and so fickle. What I am learning is that God is receiving the worship that God is worthy to receive. The Father is receiving it from the Son; the Son is receiving it from the Father. And I am invited - I am drawn by the Spirit - into that altogether worthy worship! God is being glorified quite well, thank you. God being rightly glorified is not my burden. It is happening - and you and I are being moved by the Spirit to enter into it.
— Darrell W. Johnson, Experiencing the Trinity
Because it was natural, could he not see that it was marvelous? Poor creature!
— André Gide
Much water has flown under Tiber's bridges, carrying away splendour and mystery from Rome, since the pontificate of Pius XII. The essentials, I know, remain firmly entrenched and I find the post-Conciliar Mass simpler and generally better than the Tridentine; but the banality and vulgarity of the translations which have ousted the sonorous Latin and little Greek are of a super-market quality which is quite unacceptable. Hand-shaking and embarrassed smiles or smirks have replaced the older courtesies; kneeling is out, queueing is in, and the general tone is rather like a BBC radio broadcast for tiny tots (so however will they learn to put away childish things?) The clouds of incense have dispersed, together with many hidebound, blinkered and repressive attitudes, and we are left with social messages of an almost over-whelming progressiveness. The Church has proved she is not moribund. ‘All shall be well,’ I feel, ‘and all manner of things shall be well,’ so long as the God who is worshipped is the God of all ages, past and to come, and not the idol of Modernity, so venerated by some of our bishops, priests and mini-skirted nuns.
— Alec Guinness, Blessings in Disguise
Never was living beauty so enchanting as a dying Saviour.
— Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Morning and Evening, Based on the English Standard Version
Quality Workplace: "a place of wor(k)ship is frequently equated as holy as that of worshiping
— Priyavrat Thareja- The Temple of TQM, OmniScience, Vol 2, No 2 (2012)Thareja- The Temple of TQM, Omn
Prayer is an act of praise and worship to God
— Lailah Gifty Akita, Think Great: Be Great!
It is the privilege of the new Jerusalem which is above, that there is no temple therein, Rev. 21.22, no ministry, no preaching, no sacraments in heaven, but God shall be all in all. An immediate enjoyment of God in this world without ordinances is but a delusion. In the church triumphant prophecies shall fail, 1 Cor. 13.8; but in the church militant, "despise not prophesyings," 1 Thess. 5.20.
— George Gillespie
While Johns (Martin Luther King's predecessor as pastor in Montgomery) agreed with Dexter's general disdain for emotionalism, he was very fond of traditional spirituals, believing they represented a part of their history they ought to embrace and celebrate.
— Troy Jackson, Becoming King: Martin Luther King Jr. and the Making of a National Leader
Whatever confronts your faith can be a test but if it stands to oppose the content of your personality and the validity of your convictions then it's threat.
— Kingsley Opuwari Manuel
The worship of God is…the only thing which renders men superior to brutes, and makes them aspire to immortality.
— John Calvin, A Compend of the Institutes of the Christian Religion
She (his future wife) was so deep into the Lord's presence that I felt like an outsider.
— Jeremy Camp, I Still Believe
Service is the highest form of worship.
— Debasish Mridha
John Calvin called the Book of Psalms ‘an anatomy of all parts of the soul.’ All the range of emotions are expressed
—  the Psalms weave an emotional fabric for the human soul. These inspired lyrics take us by the hand and train us in proper emotion. They lead us to emotional maturity.
If you do not need something that it is still useful, give it to someone who will appreciate it before you douse it in lighter fluid in hopes Santa Odin will put a new one under your Yule tree.
— Thomm Quackenbush, Pagan Standard Times: Essays on the Craft
We ascribe to God. We don't add to Him.
— John Piper
The loss of psalmody in the church is one of the early indicators of the loss of faith.
— Kevin Swanson
All we need to release our inner God is a pulpit and an audience, both of which the Internet supplies in great abundance. Too bad that the corollaly to being in God mode in cyberspace is an explosion of narcissism and self-centeredness.
— Elias Aboujaoude Md
Say what you will of religion, but draw applicable conclusions and comparisons to reach a consensus.Religion = Reli = Prefix to Relic, or an ancient item. In days of old, items were novel, and they inspired devotion to the divine, and in the divine. Now, items are hypnotizing the masses into submission.Take Christ for example. When he broke bread in the Bible, people actually ate, it was useful to their bodies.Compare that to the politics, governments and corrupt, bumbling bureacrats and lobbyists in the economic recession of today. When they "broke bread", the economy nearly collapsed, and the benefactors thereof were only a select, decadent few. There was no bread to be had, so they asked the people for more!Breaking bread went from meaning sharing food and knowledge and wealth of mind and character, to meaning break the system, being libelous, being unaccountable, and robbing the earth.So they married people's paychecks to the land for high ransoms, rents and mortgages, effectively making any renter or landowner either a slave or a slave master once more. We have higher class toys to play with, and believe we are free. The difference is, the love of profit has the potential, and has nearly already enslaved all, it isn't restriced by culture anymore.Truth is not religion. Governments are religions. Truth does not encourage you to worship things. Governments are for profit. Truth is for progress. Governments are about process.When profit goes before progress, the latter suffers.The truest measurement of the quality of progress, will be its immediate and effective results without the aid of material profit.Quality is meticulous, it leaves no stone unturned, it is thorough and detail oriented. It takes its time, but the results are always worth the investment.Profit is quick, it is ruthless, it is unforgiving, it seeks to be first, but confuses being first with being the best, it is long scale suicidal, it is illusory, it is temporary, it is vastly unfulfilling. It breaks families, and it turns friends. It is single track minded, and small minded as well.Quality, would never do that, my friends.Ironic how dealing and concerning with money, some of those who make the most money, and break other's monies are the most unaccountable. People open bank accounts, over spend, and then expect to be held "unaccountable" for their actions. They even act innocent and unaccountable. But I tell you, everything can and will be counted, and accounted for.Peace can be had, but people must first annhilate the love of items, over their own kind.
— Justin Kyle McFarlane Beau
When we shift from personal purity to personal happiness, we lose biblical hope because we are not focusing on God's agenda, we are focusing on our own. God's agenda is guaranteed on our agenda is not.
— James MacDonald, Christ-Centered Biblical Counseling: Changing Lives with God's Changeless Truth
All our time spent making lists would be better spent painting, or writing, Or singing, or learning to speak stories. Sometimes I feel as though the Church has a kind of pity for Scripture, Always having to come behind it and explain everything, put everything into actionable steps, acronyms and hidden secrets, as though the original writers, and for that matter the Holy Spirit Who worked in the lives of the original writers, were a bunch of you literate hillbillies. I think the methodology God used to explain His Truth is quite superior. My life is a story, more than a list. I don't feel that a list could ever explain the complexity of all this beauty.
— Donald Miller, Searching for God Knows What
We are the subject of God's blessing, but He is the source. Anything good in your life came from Him.
— Benjamin Lotter
Down on my knees again. Worship isn’t enough.”Peter leaned forward and rubbed his forehead against Charlie’s. “I’m going to like this,” he murmured. “Daily services. Hourly services.
— Gordon Merrick, The Lord Won't Mind
If counseling is to be restored to the church, affection must be restored to reflection. If counseling is to be restored to the church, delight in God must be restored to doctrines about God. Savoring Christ must be restored to seeing Christ. Tender contrition must be restored to tough conviction. Communication with God must be restored to contending for God.
— James MacDonald, Christ-Centered Biblical Counseling: Changing Lives with God's Changeless Truth
Reality is God-centered and all human beings are worshipers, whether or not they are conscious of this reality and its implications.
— James MacDonald, Christ-Centered Biblical Counseling: Changing Lives with God's Changeless Truth
The glory of the New Covenant Temple is the glory of Christ Himself – a spiritual glory that is only obscured by outward, external, typical, ceremonial, and fleshly elements.
— Douglas Comin
Repentance is the highest form of worship that a man can give to God.
— Bidemi Mark-Mordi
On the Sivaratri day after performing the routine, the devotee shall go to the temple of Siva and perform worship.
— Sushil Singh
A sense of Deity is inscribed on every heart. Nay, even idolatry is ample evidence of this fact.
— Augustine of Hippo, Confessions
And morning came… It still comes. Our God is here, Emmanuel, among us, always coming towards us, always standing behind us, always standing up for us, always standing with us in solidarity in communion asking us to come with Him now as disciple, as follower, as believer, as a friend, as intimate beloved child of God, now and forever.
— Megan McKenna, And Morning Came: Scriptures of the Resurrection
God is not looking for incredibly high notes, intricate riffs or award winning ad-libbing. God is looking at the heart.
— Temi Peters, Instruments of Praise & Acts of Worship
Worship is not about having a fantastic voice.
— Temi Peters, Instruments of Praise & Acts of Worship
This philosophy of spiritual formation through the consumption of external experiences creates worship junkies — Christians who leap from one mountaintop to another, one spiritual high to another, in search of a glory that does not fade.
— Skye Jethani
All the ancient churches were churches representative of spiritual things; the rites, and also the statutes, according to which their worship was established, consisted of pure correspondence.
— Emanuel Swedenborg, True Christian Religion, Vol 1
Poetry in the soul ennobles the insignificant. Something in us does yearn for the ideal.
— RT Llizo
We worship the same God and we carry the same sins.
— Kameron Hurley, Rapture
even there a shining is flowing from all the stonesthough the eyes are not yet made that can see it
— W.S. Merwin, The Carrier of Ladders
The priest's work, the priest's service, was understoon as an act of worship. Theis was God"s desire at Sinai - thst everybody would understand their roles as priests. Thst everybody would worship God by serving each other.
— Rob Bell, Jesus Wants to Save Christians: A Manifesto for the Church in Exile
She was worshiping under the blue sky, to the jubilant chanting of the birds.
— Jean Webster, When Patty Went to College
While we must not fall into the gnosticizing trap of seeing the world as only ideal, without any reference to the physical and tangible universe we inhabit, neither should we commit to crass literalism devoid of imagination and poetry.
— RT Llizo
We should know and celebrate God with our whole person. While too many Christians neglect to serve God with the mind, others cultivate only their minds and neglect the emotional aspects of worship.
— Craig S. Keener, Gift & Giver: The Holy Spirit for Today
I believe we were created for ecstasy. And redeemed for it, at considerable cost. Certain vagrant moments are, moreover, clues to the narrative structure and texture of things.
— Daniel Berigan
For, in his opinion, to study nature was a form of worship.
— Iain Pears
Worship isn’t just a concept or idea— it is a real encounter at appointed times with the one true God in Christ through the Holy Spirit. If all the ideas about worship today can’t be translated into real plans for dialoguing with God, what good are they?
— Constance Cherry
The flow of the anointing oil provokes intense worship
— Thea Harris, Pour the Oil
we become like that which we worship.
— G.K. Beale
If you do not worship God seven days a week, you do not worship Him on one day a week. There is no such thing known in heaven as Sunday worship unless it is accompanied by Monday worship and Tuesday worship and so on.
— A.W. Tozer
मय्यावेश्य मनो ये मां नित्ययुक्ता उपासते।श्रद्धया परयोपेतास्ते मे युक्ततमा मताः॥॥१२- २॥Best but all are those that be,Absorved in My full faith truly,Devote themselves but absolutely,To My worship - ever diligently.12. 2
— Munindra Misra, Bhagwat Gita - Its Essence
Of what did Job repent? His wonder was too small.
— Leighton Ogg
You'll never grab the wonderful with your feet on the ground.
— The Afters
God is beautiful. His beauty demands a response that is shaped that beauty, and that is art.
— Michael Card
The kids (in the Jesus Movement) weren't singing for themselves. It seemed like they were singing TO Someone.
— Greg Laurie, Lost Boy: My Story
(Pastor Chuck) Smith told his elders in no uncertain terms that if the church had to turn away young people because of bare feet and clothes that they would be better off ripping up the carpet and replacing the pews with steel folding chairs.
— Larry Eskridge, God's Forever Family: The Jesus People Movement in America
I find that when people haven't found God and do not know the new birth and the Spirit is not on them, yet they have the ancient impulse to worship something. If they're not educated they kill a chicken and put a funny thing on their head and dance around. If they are educated they write poetry.
— A.W. Tozer
When you or your closed ones face danger, you'd tend to get closer to God and be good.
— Derin J Tom
All normative judgments about worship must be avoided. Attempts to use biblicism as a guideline, as we shall see, tend to be abandoned in the course of time or lead to biblicism of only certain portions of scripture. After all, there is more biblical authority for snake handling (Mark 16:18) than there is for confirmation! Historically, attempts to deduce norms for worship from scripture fail because the Bible was not written for such a purpose.
— James F. White, Protestant Worship
He (Chuck Smith) was leery of music that moved the body more than the soul.
— Larry Eskridge, God's Forever Family: The Jesus People Movement in America
If there is a God, you owe him far more than a morally decent life. He deserves to be at the center of your life.
— Timothy J. Keller, Encounters with Jesus: Unexpected Answers to Life's Biggest Questions
Worship isn't just a concept or idea--it is a real encounter at appointed times with the one true God in Christ through the Holy Spirit. If all the ideas about worship today can't be ran slated into real plans for dialoguing with God, what good are they?
— Constance Cherry
You must worship the Self in Krishna, not Krishna as Krishna.
— Swami Vivekananda
If she had loved him, he would have opened windows, allowed all of that precious light of hers in she wanted! If she could tolerate him, he would have donated to every stinking animal shelter in her name, quit his drinking habits completely, and played music for her anytime she wanted! He would have gone out, faced the cruel public, and embraced their scorn just to be close to her, continued to hide in the shadows of her life until she needed him…If she had loved him, he would have done anything.
— Amanda Lance, Natural Selection
Worship and spiritual hunger make you so attractive to God that your circumstances cease to matter anymore. He will move heaven and earth to find a worshiper. When you begin to worship with all your being and desire, your heart turns Him toward you. You capture His attention and attracts His affection.
— Tommy Tenney, The God Catchers: Experiencing the Manifest Presence of God
Your problems aren't too big -- perhaps your worship is too small.
— Tommy Tenney, The God Catchers: Experiencing the Manifest Presence of God
The ministry of the church is a genuine concern for others. We need to stop talking about it and start doing it. Rise.Rise and shine, friend. Everyone you meet today is on heaven's Most Wanted list.
— Charles R. Swindoll, Rise & Shine: A Wake Up Call
Without the heart it’s not worship, it’s a stage play.
— Stephen Charnock
The idea of waste only comes into our Christianity when we underestimate the worth of our Lord.
— Watchman Nee, The Normal Christian Life
Human" is a kind of midway creature, reflecting God into the world, and reflecting the world back to God.
— N.T. Wright, After You Believe: Why Christian Character Matters
In many (most?) churches there are programs and activities... but so little worship. There are songs and anthems and musicals... but so little worship. There are announcements and readings and prayers... but so little worship.
— Charles R. Swindoll
My recommendation instead, however, is that we do not surrender questions of value, whether absolute matters of truth, goodness, and beauty or relative judgment of more or less truth, goodness, and beauty. With those questions to the fore, in fact, we can interrogate various other traditions and truly learn something that can improve our own. Perhaps the Presbyterians really do know more than we do about due process in church government. Perhaps the Orthodox really do know some things we do not about iconography. Perhaps the Mennonites really can teach us the meaning of 'enough.' Perhaps the Pentecostals can help liberate us from dull and disembodied worship. Baptists who have learned to improve their procedures from Presbyterians, their art from the Orthodox, their finances from the Mennonites, and their worship from the Pentecostals do not therefore become worse Baptists but better ones. And so around the ecumenical circle, no?
— John G. Stackhouse Jr., Making the Best of It: Following Christ in the Real World
Bad deeds are like obesity, to get rid of, one has to go through hard Worship
— Samar Sudha
Saint Augustine defined idolatry as worshiping what should be used or using what should be worshiped
— Colin S. Smith, The 10 Greatest Struggles of Your Life
Rescue the perishing, care for the dying,Snatch them in pity from sin and the grave;Weep o'er the erring one, lift up the fallen,Tell them of Jesus the mighty to save.
— Fanny Crosby
Charles Wesley's hymns are forceful because they contain so many words which are physical: for him the life of a Christian was to be experienced in the body as well as in the soul.
— J.R. Watson, The English Hymn: A Critical and Historical Study
External beauty is certainly cool to admire, but when worshipped - it eclipses internal shine.
— T.F. Hodge, From Within I Rise: Spiritual Triumph Over Death and Conscious Encounters with "The Divine Presence"
The shadow of the passions of the moment transversed this grand and gentle spirit occupied with eternal things.
— Victor Hugo, Les Misérables
Rituals are the kindergarten of religion. They are absolutely necessary for the world as it is now
—  only we shall have to give people newer and fresh rituals. A party of thinkers must undertake to do this. Old rituals must be rejected and new ones substituted.
Examine your heart and put away any distraction so you can worship God freely.
— Jim George
One of Leonardo da Vinci's most famous creations is his painting of The Last Supper. It is said that while Leonardo da Vinci was working on the painting he got into an argument with a fellow painter. Leonardo da Vinci was so mad at this colleague that in anger and out of spite he painted that man's face as the face of Judas in his painting of the upper room Supper.But then, having completed that, Leonardo da Vinci turned to paint the face of Christ and he could not do it. It wouldn't come. He couldn't visualize it. He couldn't paint the face of Christ.He put down his paintbrush and went to find the man from whom he was estranged. He forgave him; they reconciled with one another; they both apologized. They both forgave. That very evening Leonardo da Vinci had a dream and in that dream he saw the face of Christ. He rose quickly from his bed and finished the painting and it became one of his greatest masterpieces.
— Fred Andrea
Man is most free when he is most guided.
— Elton Trueblood, Abraham Lincoln: Lessons in Spiritual Leadership
The God you worship will shape the values you hold, and the values you hold will shape the lifestyle that you choose.
— Colin S. Smith, The 10 Greatest Struggles of Your Life
Twilight of the idols, it cursed from the worship of the extinguished candles.
— Kristian Goldmund Aumann
The requirement to obey and acknowledge God and Jesus Christ has caused the teachings of the Christian tradition to stray from morality to idol worship,creating a world in which a murderer can be forgiven and sent to heaven, whereas a loving and caring skeptic would be cast into damnation.
— David G. McAfee, Disproving Christianity and Other Secular Writings
That One Who is greater than us is near - nearer than we could measure.
— Amy Layne Litzelman
Worship is forgetting about what's wrong with you and remembering what's right with God.
— Mark Batterson, In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day: How to Survive and Thrive When Opportunity Roars
We show hospitality to strangers not merely because they need it, but because we need it, too. The stranger at the door is the living symbol and memory that we are all strangers here. This is not our house, our table, our food, our lodging; this is God's house and table and food and lodging. We were pilgrims and wanderers, aliens and strangers, even enemies of God, but we, too, were welcomed into this place. To show hospitality to the stranger is, as Gordon Lathrop has observed, to say, "We are beggars here together. Grace will surprise us both.
— Thomas G. Long, Beyond the Worship Wars: Building Vital and Faithful Worship
Christian spirituality combines a sense of the awe and majesty of God with a sense of His intimate presence.
— N.T. Wright, Simply Christian: Why Christianity Makes Sense
Thousands of years before Christianity, secret cults arose which worshipped the sacred mushroom—the Amanita Muscaria—which, for various reasons (including its shape and power as a drug) came to be regarded as a symbol of God on earth.When the secrets of the cult had to be written down, it was done in the form of codes hidden in folk tales.This is the basic origin of the stories in the New Testament. They are a literary device to spread the rites and rules of mushroom worship to the faithful.
— John Marco Allegro
A life of hospitality begins in worship, with a recognition of God's grace and generosity. Hospitality is not first a duty and responsibility; it is first a response of love and gratitude for God's love and welcome to us.
— Christine Pohl
You say we worship the sun
—  so do you.
We worship Him not because He is the best of our gods, but because He is, or was, the greatest killer among them.
— N.K. Jemisin, The Broken Kingdoms