c2p-cmd/Good-Quotes-Authors huggingface dataset:
I'd be willing to bet that the notion of the end of time is more common today in the secular world than in the Christian. The Christian world makes it the object of meditation, but acts as if it may be projected into a dimension not measured by calendars. The secular world pretends to ignore the end of time, but is fundamentally obsessed by it. This is not a paradox, but a repetition of what transpired in the first thousand years of history.... I will remind readers that the idea of the end of time comes out of one of the most ambiguous passages of John's text, chapter 20...This approach, which isn't only Augustine's but also the Church Fathers' as a whole, casts History as a journey forward—a notion alien to the pagan world. Even Hegel and Marx are indebted to this fundamental idea, which Pierre Teilhard de Chardin pursued.Christianity invented History, and it is in fact a modern incarnation of the Antichrist that denounces History as a disease. It's possible that secular historicism has understood history as infinitely perfectible—so that tomorrow we improve upon today, always and without reservation... But the entire secular world is not of the ideological view that through history we understand how to look at the regression and folly of history itself. There is, nonetheless, an originally Christian view of history whenever the signpost of Hope on this road is followed. The simple knowledge of how to judge history and its horrors is fundamentally Christian, whether the speaker is Emmanuel Mounier on tragic optimism or Gramsci on pessimism of reason and optimism of will.
— Umberto Eco, Belief or Nonbelief?
If you really know how great a competition it is to enter into the Kingdom of God is, you would have increased your competitive power greatly in your pursuit for the Kingdom of God
— Ernest Agyemang Yeboah
How can the creation challenge and control the Creator? Oh mortal man, know that there is an immortal God with an immortal power!
— Ernest Agyemang Yeboah
Preach Christ ! Preach the gospelPreach Christ
—  preach His message!A soul is dying
Feelings trap us in the self, Tony dear. Doing a thing because you feel wonderful about it—even a work of charity—is in the end a selfish act. We perform the work not to feel wonderful but to know and love the other. It's the same with your romance. You may not feel your love, but God is still your loved one, your other.
— Tony Hendra, Father Joe: The Man Who Saved My Soul
True Christianity is NOT a religion, to be a christian, you don't have to be a christian
— Fabulous Godwin
Frederick Buechner writes, “Intellectually we all know that we will die but we do not really know it in the sense that the knowledge becomes a part of us. We do not really know it in the sense of living as thought it were true. On the contrary, we tend to live as though our lives would go on forever.
— Francis Chan, Crazy Love: Overwhelmed by a Relentless God
When God laughs at the soul and the soul laughs back at God, the persons of the Trinity are begotten. When the Father laughs at the Son and the Son laughs back at the Father, that laughter gives pleasure, that pleasure gives joy, that joy gives love, and that love is the Holy Spirit.
— Meister Eckhart
At the heart of racism stands Satan, not man. No one is more pleased by the racial tension in the world than God's ultimate enemy. I'm sure he marvels at how shallow we humans tend to be, by hating one another simply because of skin color! If you are a child of the Most High God and you are fighting in this war of division and hatred (even if only in thought), you are fighting for the enemy.If this is you, you need to repent of this sin and start seeing others the way God sees them, as made in His image. If not, Satan will keep stirring your mind with thoughts that will not only further stoke the burning hatred of racism deep within you, it will put even more distance between you and the One who saw your unformed body before the foundations of the world, and knit you together in your mother's womb.
— Patrick  Higgins
Which should be an excellent reminder that when God tells you to do something, you’d better do it; He always has a reason.
— Charles R. Swindoll
Like the rest of Holy Week, Easter is also a terrific story. It starts as tragedy: the hero broken and bloody, against all expectation dead, his followers' joyful hope in him entombed with his corpse, the rock rolled into place, sealing their despair.But the curtain doesn't fall there. The next morning at dawn they discover the rock has been rolled back. The tomb is empty, the body's gone! A missing corpse? Great stuff. A whisper of comedy. Now a touch of farce as Mary Magdalen and the guys chase frantically around looking for help, or the corpse, when suddenly, out of nowhere, up it pops—alive!Of course it's Jesus, who's done the impossible and beaten death.And they're so amazed they think he's the gardener! It's a payoff way beyond the Hollywood ending: all the flooding emotion and uplift of a tragedy followed by all the bubbling joy and optimism of a comedy.Is that possible? Not just to live happily ever after but to die—and still live happily ever after? It's the most audacious claim of Christianity, the one element that marks the brand indelibly, that trumps the claims of all other major faiths.
— Tony Hendra, Father Joe: The Man Who Saved My Soul
Grace is all that God is free to do for you, in you, with you and through you only because of the finished work of Jesus Christ.
— Kingsley Opuwari Manuel
We are a pluralist civilisation because we allow mosques to be built in our countries, and we are not going to stop simply because Christian missionaries are thrown into prison in Kabul. If we did so, we, too, would become Taliban.
— Umberto Eco
Was an eternity of absolute ease just another name for hell?
— Octavia E. Butler, Bloodchild and Other Stories
Without a beginning I am pouring the whole of my existence into the building of endings, while the cross and the resurrection declare that God is incessantly building beginnings from the collapse of endings.
— Craig D. Lounsbrough
At the core of the heart of an atheist is a heart that doesn't deny the existence, sovereignty and power of God but it chooses deliberately not to believe it for a long while.
— Kingsley Opuwari Manuel
If Prophets and Messengers are the closest to godliness as any human is capable of being, and yet even they fail, how the fuck can anyone, less than perfect, be so arrogant as to expect they will do better than a Prophet, or Messenger of G-D.
— Alejandro C. Estrada
Man confesses God forgives
— ABC
Behind every successful man,there isn't just a woman but a prayerful and hard working woman.If not every married man would be successful
— ABC
Christian culture has too often offered women a push toward contentment that can numb us to our own desires, without offering the tools to discern whether those desires could be good or Holy-Spirit-inspired.
— Katelyn Beaty, A Woman's Place: A Christian Vision for Your Calling in the Office, the Home, and the World
If mainstream culture thinks gender roles are unimportant, church culture makes them too important.
— Katelyn Beaty, A Woman's Place: A Christian Vision for Your Calling in the Office, the Home, and the World
It was a music of the spirit, seeking peace, not emotional release, expressing the hunger of the soul rather than the heart. A way of sequencing notes so ancient it might be music's mother lode, its Fertile Crescent. It wouldn't have grated, I felt, on the ears of ancient Greeks or Egyptians or Mesopotamians or Sumerians—or even on the august auditory equipment of the Buddha or Lao-tzu.
— Tony Hendra, Father Joe: The Man Who Saved My Soul
The Offices rerooted me in a tradition where, monk or not, I would always be at home. From long ago I knew the power of their repetition, the incantatory force of the Psalms. But they had an added power now. As a kid, the psalmist (or psalmists) had seemed remote to me, the Psalms long prayers which sometimes rose to great poetry but often had simply to be endured. For a middle-aged man, the psalmists' moods and feelings came alive. One of the voices sounded a lot like a modern New Yorker, me or people I knew: a manic-depressive type A personality sometimes up, more often down, sometimes resigned, more often pissed off, railing about his sneaky enemies and feckless friends, always bitching to the Lord about the rotten hand he'd been dealt. That good old changelessness.
— Tony Hendra, Father Joe: The Man Who Saved My Soul
It's through the cross that we reach the resurrection. We should be absolutely sure of this truth, and we should keep this cross hidden and not place it on the shoulders of others. It is our cross we have to carry. It is the one God has given us to go through into His resurrection. This is the one we should keep hidden.But there are crosses and crosses, some of our own making. These we should immediately discard. Some permitted by God for our sanctification. These we can share for they are also for the sanctification of others. True, we can help to carry other people's crosses and they can help to carry our crosses, but the operative word is "hidden."The Lord said, "So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honoured by men," and "When you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that it will not be obvious to men that you are fasting, but only to your Father, who is unseen; and your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you." (Mt 6:16-18)Our very hiddenness becomes a light if we do not complain, if we carry our cross manfully, ready to help in the carrying of other people's crosses. Then we become a light to our neighbour's feet because we become an icon of Christ—shining!
— Catherine de Hueck Doherty, Sobornost: Experiencing Unity of Mind, Heart and Soul
It sounds to me, dear, as if your satirist is a bit like a monk. They both take a rather dim view of the world, and both try to do something abou
— Tony Hendra, Father Joe: The Man Who Saved My Soul
How blind is the delusion that the greatness of a man is measured by his living; rather, it’s always by his giving.
— Christian Hunt, The Dawn of Grace
In a sense, [Christianity] creates, rather than solves, the problem of pain, for pain would be no problem unless, side by side with our daily experience of this painful world, we had received what we think a good assurance that ultimate reality is righteous and loving.
— C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain
Men cannot give a meaning to history that they themselves lack, nor can they honor a past which indicts them for their present failures.
— Rousas John Rushdoony, The Biblical Philosophy of History
No matter how much they want to forbid something, Uranus, the planet of the truth will reveal the whole truth to the world. Uranus represents the truth of the God, therefore the truth comes from the Uranus.Christianity will finally have to announce that homosexuality is something normal, innately. Personally, I have been waiting for Uranus to reaches its peak in the Pisces and I am still waiting for the message of the Priests. Uranus will bring free marriages and anyone will be able to decide how they want to live without fear.
— Branko Zivotin
One subtle arena of attack is in the area of pride. Praying people can become prideful about their praying. Non-participants can become prideful in their resistance. The enemy seeks to divide and conquer every initiative of prayer.
— Daniel Henderson, Old Paths, New Power: Awakening Your Church Through Prayer and the Ministry of the Word
A nation aimlessly drifting away from God is a nation for which prayer is a rudder and praise is a sail. And it is the man or woman on their knees that builds the former and gives wind to the latter.
— Craig D. Lounsbrough
In fact she’s a Baptist, which is almost like being Christian, only louder.
— Orson Scott Card, Red Prophet
Somehow I get puzzled when I see so many Christians living in luxury and singing 'Jesus, I my cross have taken, all to leave and follow Thee,' and remember how my wife died in a tenement in New York City, gasping for air and asking God to take the little girl too. Of course I don't expect you people can prevent every one from dying of starvation, lack of proper nourishment and tenement air, but what does following Jesus mean?
— Charles M. Sheldon, In His Steps
Be still and know that I am God
— Anonymous, Holy Bible: New International Version
If we seek the truth without realizing how far we are from it, we will be dogmatists. If we realize how far we are from the truth but do not seek it, we will be skeptics. If we both seek the truth and realize how far we are from it, we will be wise.
— Peter Kreeft, Christianity for Modern Pagans: Pascal's Pensées - Edited, Outlined & Explained
What is it to be a follower of Jesus? What does it mean to imitate Him? What does it mean to walk in His steps?
— Charles M. Sheldon, In His Steps
Somehow I get puzzled when I see so many Christians living in luxury and singing 'Jesus, I my cross have taken, all to leave and follow Thee,' and remember how my wife died in a tenement in New York City, gasping for air and asking God to take the little girl too. Of course Idon't expect you people can prevent every one from dying of starvation, lack of proper nourishmentand tenement air, but what does following Jesus mean?
— Charles M. Sheldon, In His Steps
When you are not full of the Holy Spirit, you easily cower in fear and lack a stand on truth
— Paul Gitwaza
Every aspect of the way God views and saves sinners is designed to undermine racism and lead to a reconciled and redeemed humanity from every people group in the world.
— John Piper, Bloodlines: Race, Cross, and the Christian
The aim of the gospel is the creation of people who are passionate for doing good rather than settling for the passionless avoidance of evil.
— John Piper, Bloodlines: Race, Cross, and the Christian
We have to do a better job at the work of anthropology if we hope to maintain our role in the public discourse.
— Christopher W. Brooks, Urban Apologetics
Our willingness to embrace the realities of our neighbor's difficulty is what empowers our witness and makes our testimony of Christ effective and hearable.
— Christopher W. Brooks, Urban Apologetics
In Tom's hurried exchange, he had not forgotten to transfer his cherished Bible to his pocket. It was well he did so; for Mr. Legree, having refitted Tom's handcuffs, proceeded deliberately to investigate the contents of his pockets. He drew out a silk handkerchief, and put it into his own pocket. Several little trifles, which Tom had treasured, chiefly because they had amused Eva, he looked upon with a contemptuous grunt, and tossed them over his shoulder into the river. Tom's Methodist hymn-book, which, in his hurry, he had forgotten, he now held up and turned over. "Humph! pious, to be sure. So, what's yer name,—you belong to the church, eh?" "Yes, Mas'r," said Tom, firmly. "Well, I'll soon have that out of you. I have none o' yer bawling, praying, singing niggers on my place; so remember. Now, mind yourself," he said, with a stamp and a fierce glance of his gray eye, directed at Tom, "I'm your church now! You understand,—you've got to be as I say." Something within the silent black man answered No! and, as if repeated by an invisible voice, came the words of an old prophetic scroll, as Eva had often read them to him,—"Fear not! for I have redeemed thee. I have called thee by my name. Thou art MINE!
— Harriet Beecher Stowe
Most professional beliefs, especially Christian religious beliefs, are taught through formal, usually verbal, instruction. Such formal instruction may be devoid of personal experience to match the verbal teaching. . . Just as the instruction is verbal, the learner's profession of the belief is verbal.
— Donovan L. Graham, Teaching Redemptively: Bringing Grace and Truth Into Your Classroom
One of the reasons God did not make a lover for Himself when He made one for Adam is because He knew that fewer people would take Him seriously once He had an ex.
— Mokokoma Mokhonoana
The Catholic Church standing in "solidarity" with members of the LGBT community while condemning their behavior as "sinful" is a little like attempting to stand with two feet in one shoe. "Love the sinner, hate the sin" sounds really high-minded until you realize the only sin committed was being born different.
— Quentin R. Bufogle
It will be sent that, although the writer's love is verily a jealous love, it is a jealousy for and not of his creatures. He will tolerate no interference either with them or between them and himself.
— Dorothy L. Sayers, The Mind of the Maker
We celebrate the differences among us, even that which we cannot reconcile, not in denial of the absolute, but in the gift of humility that those differences require of us. Without denying our differences, we no longer allow them to categorize or divide us. It is in the diversity that the image of God is most fully reflected in and through us.
— Jamie Arpin-Ricci, Living Christ Together: Reflections On The Missional Life
This fits the pattern of how God responds to human suffering: We come looking for answers; God sends a hot meal through a warm body. WE come looking for reasons for our hunger; God sends provision to feed us. We come looking for a sermon that will explain the complexity of the cosmos to us and satiate our desire for understanding; Christ responds with, "This is my body, given for you; this is my blood, shed for you."People try to offer us an explanation; God offers us a Eucharist.
— Jonathan Martin, How to Survive a Shipwreck: Help Is on the Way and Love Is Already Here
IT is only when we are no longer in control--because of sickness, death, or our own bad choices--that we no longer cling. The path to salvation is the path of humiliation.
— Jonathan Martin
My position as a follower of God is not to show you how close I am to God—my job is to show you how close you are to God […]. (Simon)
— Pete Conrad, The Arbiters
No one, on his deathbed, ever regretted having been a Catholic.
— Thomas More
The Serpent, to my interpretation, was pain.
— William Goldman, The Princess Bride
Do not sell your soul for a bucketful of pleasures and temptations. It’s God’s priceless gift to you.
— Christian Hunt, The Dawn of Grace
Artists create things that point us to beauty, to truth, to God.
— Katherine Reay, The Brontë Plot
The reason many fail to joyfully proclaim Jesus Christ is because deep down they fail to joyfully adore Him
— Steve Bainbridge
At every point in the story of the transmission of biblical material from the original text to today we are dealing with the interaction of men and women with God. At every point, human judgment and human fallibility are involved, as they are in every attempt we make today to act faithfully in new situations. The idea that at a certain point in this long story a line was drawn before which everything is divine word and after which everything is human judgment is absurd.
— Lesslie Newbigin
The act of extending forgiveness and asking for forgiveness must come from our heart.
— Sara Dormon, If You're a Christian and Everyone Likes You... Something's Wrong
In order for us to learn to love, first ourselves and the others, we must accept Jesus’ love for us in the deepest parts of our hearts.
— Sara Dormon, If You're a Christian and Everyone Likes You... Something's Wrong
We do not have to believe something is right- to believe a person has a right to choose it. God doesn't force us to serve him. It is a freewill choice we make, so why in the name of all that is holy and right do we think we can force other people to live by our particular brand of religion? We are commanded to Love if we are Christ servers.
— Linda Wells~Harr
Materialism is not having things, it is letting things have you.
— Kingsley Opuwari Manuel
... The dominion of good men is profitable, not so much for themselves as for human affairs. But the dominion of bad men is hurtful chiefly to themselves who rule, for they destroy their own souls by greater licence in wickedness;
— Augustine of Hippo, City of God
Faith - The most precious asset you can build up for all generations.
— Christian Hunt, The Dawn of Grace
Start a revolution. Love thy neighbor.
— Christian Hunt, The Dawn of Grace
Rationale still remains the greatest impediment to encountering God's mysteries.
— Christian Hunt, The Dawn of Grace
...once again I saw that incredulous question, that dawning hope: We are not alone, then? We have brothers in other places? We have friends we never knew?
— Brother Andrew, God's Smuggler
Those years of anger weren’t just directed inward and towards others, I was also angry with God. As a kid, when I sang songs in the children’s choir and memorized verses in bible study, I was told there was a God who loved and protected us. He was a jealous God and could be angered, yes, but He always showed grace and mercy towards His people. I must not have been one of His people. He never protected me. As a matter of fact, I remember crying and pleading to God to make it stop when I was in DC being raped at five years old. I thought he heard my prayers when I moved to New Jersey. But when the abuse became worse and more frequent, it was easy for me to conclude God’s protection didn’t apply to me.
— Elona Washington, From Ivy League To Stripper Life: 10 Lessons Learned
I can think of God as my savior and even my friend, but I must never forget that He is God, and after He saves me, I must put myself in subjection to Him and His will.
— Lori Wick, The Pursuit
When spirits fall, their darkness is revealed, for they are stripped of the garment of your light. By the misery and restlessness which they then suffer you make clear to us how noble a being is your rational creation, for nothing less than yourself suffices to give it rest and happiness. This means that it cannot find them in itself. For you, O God, will shine on the darkness about us. From you proceeds our garment of light, and our dusk shall be noonday.
— Augustine of Hippo
Know your enemy, but don't give him all your energy.
— Jeanette Coron
The sky was overcast with thick, grey clouds drifting in the direction of Idasa. That meant rain. It would come, as long as the clouds drifted in that direction. Lightening flashes momentarily parted the clouds...Shango, the god of lightening and thunder, was registering his anger as this strange talk of a new God is taking hold of simple folk who were once unquestioning votaries of his order. The new malady must be nipped in the bud.
— T.M. Aluko
Extraordinary breakthroughs are only ordinary breaks that were grabbed, explored, improved, maximized and harnessed to a profitable maximum
— Ikechukwu Joseph, Discovering Yourself
My circumstances will sometimes be pleasant and sometimes be difficult, but teach me that the way I react to them is almost more important than the circumstances themselves. Renew my mind, Lord, and enable me to respond with joy and humility to whatever happens, as Jesus did.
— Amy E. Mason, 365 Pocket Prayers for Women: Guidance and Wisdom for Each New Day
Here, the asking of the question who we are is in fact more dangerous than any other opposition found at the same level of certainty about man (the final form of Marxism, which has essentially nothing to do with either Judaism or even with Russia; if somewhere a non-developed spiritualism is still slumbering, it is in the Russian people; Bolshevism is originally Western; it is a European possibility: the emergence of the masses, industry, technology, the extinction of Christianity; but inasmuch as the dominance of reason as an equalizing of everyone is but the consequence of Christianity and as the latter is fundamentally of Jewish origin (cf. Nietzsche's thought on the slave revolt with respect to morality), Bolshevism is in fact Jewish; but then Christianity is also fundamentally Bolshevist! And what are the decisions that become necessary on that basis?). But the danger of the question "Who are we?" is at the same time--if danger can necessitate what is highest--the sole path by which to succeed in coming to ourselves and thus in initiating the original salvation, that is, the justification of the Occident on the basis of its history. The danger of this question is in itself so essential for us that it loses the appearance of opposition to the new German will.
— Martin Heidegger, Contributions to Philosophy
Homes are built on the foundation of wisdomand understanding.
— Ikechukwu Joseph, Knowledge, Understanding, Wisdom: the tripartite force in the pursuit of Divine Access
There is a difference between a church that prays and a praying church. One has prayer programs. The other develops a prayer culture.
— Daniel Henderson, Old Paths, New Power: Awakening Your Church Through Prayer and the Ministry of the Word
When prayer goes viral, people are not excited about “it” (prayer) but are infectious about “Him
— Daniel Henderson, Old Paths, New Power: Awakening Your Church Through Prayer and the Ministry of the Word
I have concluded that the more we seek the Lord, with a passion for His worthiness, the more we are gripped with our neediness. Adoration cultivates desperation.
— Daniel Henderson, Old Paths, New Power: Awakening Your Church Through Prayer and the Ministry of the Word
A prayer culture is fueled by experience not explanation. A passion to seek the Lord in prayer is more caught than taught.
— Daniel Henderson, Old Paths, New Power: Awakening Your Church Through Prayer and the Ministry of the Word
Who but the Christian, among the religions of the world and throughout time, worships a God who loves him so much that he died an agonizing and wretched death to pay for his sins?
— Ron Brackin
He is a Christian, and believes charity begins at home. And often it remains there.
— Paul Kearney, The Wolf in the Attic
Rather than trying to prove our masculinity, we need to accept who we are in the spirit of the gospel. Instead of trying to live up to some cultural standard of manhood, we need to accept God’s grace, which says, “I accept you just as you are.” It is culture, not God, that alienates those who do not live up to the existing, narrow definition of manhood.
— Nate Pyle, Man Enough: How Jesus Redefines Manhood
We need encouragement, not sermonizing, and we need clear-eyed acknowledgement of the situation, not a sanctified gloss that pushes us toward saying, 'I see I must not admit my pain because, after all, I'm a Christian. I'll just have to cover it up.
— David Jeremiah, What Are You Afraid Of?: Facing Down Your Fears with Faith
We are not as some people like to assume nowadays 'just being real' by embracing passively the sinful, fallen versions of ourselves. Quite the opposite really: our true selves were, from the beginning, intended to resemble the example which was then set by Christ Jesus; hence God wants to restore us to how we would have been had original sin never once befell.
— Criss Jami
In life I will fall, I will backslide, but mark my word I will never give up.
— Jonathan Anthony Burkett, Neglected But Undefeated: The Life Of A Boy Who Never Knew A Mother's Love
Sin, on the contrary, is the pursuit of legitimate self-regarding interests at the expense of the neighbor, by spending our time and talents figuring out ways of exploiting them.
— Frederick Nymeyer
Prayer is like breathing....how long can you hold your breath?
— Kingsley Opuwari Manuel
She didn't think she could be a Christian if perfection was required.
— Kellyn Roth, The Dressmaker's Secret
To summarize, then, it appears that Christian holiness is a number of things together. It has both outward and inward aspects. Holiness is a matter of both action and motivation, conduct and character, divine grace and human effort, obedience and creativity, submission and initiative, consecration to God and commitment to people, self-discipline and self-giving, righteousness and love. It is a matter of Spirit-led law-keeping, a walk, or course of life, in the Spirit that displays the fruit of the Spirit (Christlikeness of attitude and disposition). It is a matter of seeking to imitate Jesus' way of behaving, through depending on Jesus for deliverance from carnal self-absorption and for discernment of spiritual needs and possibilities.
— J.I. Packer, Rediscovering Holiness
The Joseph in you must rise to the challenges of life and turn them into gold.
— Ikechukwu Joseph, Divine Separations
The strongest Christian is unsafe among occasions to sin (519).
— Richard Baxter, The Saints' Everlasting Rest
Why dost thou not see that on earth they desires fly from thee? Art thou a not as a child that thinketh to travel to the sun, when he seeth it rising or setting, as it were close to the heart ; but as he traveleth toward it, it seems to go from him ; and when he hath long wearied himself, it is as far off as ever, for the thing he seeketh is in another world? Even such hath been thy labour in seeking for so holy, so pure, so peaceable as society, as might afford thee a contented settlement here. Those that have gone as far as America for satisfaction, have confessed themselves unsatisfied still (643).
— Richard Baxter, The Saints' Everlasting Rest
After that I went home and Sally put what was left of me to bed; next day, being a Christian family, we saluted the happy morn with the Hell and Hades of a row because I wouldn't get up and go to early service, my sister being quite determined that even if I didn't get up. I shouldn't sleep.
— Dion Fortune
The problem Christians have isn’t our belief in what God could do, but on what God should do.
— Todd Stocker
When the world is worth nothing, then heaven is worth something. I leave every Christian to judge by his own experience, whether we do not overlove the world more in prosperity than in adversity (374) [.]
— Richard Baxter, The Saints' Everlasting Rest
Either paganish unbelief of the truth of that eternal blessedness, and of the truth of the Scripture which doth promise it to us; or, at least, a doubting of our own interest; or most usually most sensible of the latter, and therefore complain most against it, yet I am apt to suspect the former to be the main, radical master-sin, and of greatest force in this business. Oh! If we did but verily believe that the promise of the glory is the word of God, and that God doth truly mean as he speaks, and is fully resolved to make it good; if we did verily believe that there is, indeed, such blessedness prepared for believers as the scripture mentioneth ; sure we should be as impatient of living as we are now fearful of dying, and should think every day a year till our last day should come. We should as hardly refrain from laying violent hands on ourselves, or from the neglecting of the means of our health and life, as we do now from over-much carefulness and seeking of life by unlawful means. . . . Is it possible that we can truly believe that death will remove us fro misery to such glory, and yet be loth to die(465-6)?It appears we are little weary of sinning, when we are so unwilling to be freed by dying(467).
— Richard Baxter, The Saints' Everlasting Rest
Seriousness is the very thing wherein consisteth our sincerity. If thou art not serious, thou art not a Christian (279).
— Richard Baxter, The Saints' Everlasting Rest
Religion is the world's label for following God. But, it is a one-on-one, daily and personal relationship that God seeks from all of us.
— Elizabeth Salamanca-Brosig
Christianity and communism cannot be reconciled
— they are opposing systems.
Stop concentrating on the leaves concentrate on d root cause where they came from.Curse or bless d cause
— Ikechukwu Joseph, Who are you?
God has awesome plans for your life. So get excited!
— Anna M. Aquino
Without the sun, there is no shadow; without the Son, there is only shadow.
— Anthony Liccione
Even at the very dawn of Christianity, there was a commonly-accepted theory known as the Blood Libel, which stated matter-of-factly that Jewish people regularly sacrificed non-Jewish babies and used the blood of those babies in Judaic rituals. Later, in medieval times, plagues and other diseases were commonly blamed on Jews, resulting in the enforcement of Apartheid-like conditions, separating Jewish communities from the rest of the population throughout Europe. For example, in the Papal States – territories in the Italian Peninsula that existed throughout the middle ages and medieval times that were governed directly by the Pope – Jews were only allowed to reside in neighborhoods called ghettos. They were regularly forced to convert to Christianity in various barbaric ways such as involuntary baptisms. The stealing of Jewish babies from their parents by Church officials was also not uncommon and the children would often then be brought up as Catholic orphans never knowing of their Jewish heritage.
— James Morcan, Debunking Holocaust Denial Theories
When listeners become leaders, the world changes.
— Rev. Kellen Roggenbuck
Evangelism is more about being than being perfect.
— Rev. Kellen Roggenbuck
But I was immobilized—less by another’s static imposition than by my own static will. For the enemy had in thrall my power to choose, which he had used to make a chain for binding me. From bad choices an urge arises; and the urge, yielded to, becomes a compulsion; and the compulsion, unresisted, becomes a slavery—each link in this process connected with the others, which is why I call it a chain—and that chain had a tyrannical grip around me. The new will I felt stirring in me, a will to 'give you free worship' and enjoy what I yearned for, my God, my only reliable happiness, could not break away from the will made strong by long dominance. Two wills were mine, old and new, of the flesh, of the spirit, each warring on the other, and between their dissonances was my soul disintegrating.
— Augustine of Hippo, Confessions
For every Gospel action, there is an opposite and devious demonic reaction. We see this in the book of Acts. It appears in church history. We experience it in our personal journeys.
— Daniel Henderson
We are weak Christians simply because we have refused to be bondservants of Christ
— Paul Gitwaza
The world loves the Saint, and Christ loves the sinner.
— Oscar Wilde, De Profundis
If you aren't willing to fight for what you believe in, then you don't really believe in it. Faith is a verb.
— Kellen Roggenbuck
We can't understand the solutions other people arrive at until we understand the problems they are trying to solve.
— Brandon J Brown
It's time to demand that the faithful keep their personal choices, preferences and beliefs in irrational and sometimes dangerous things strictly private. Everyone is absolutely free to believe what they want, provided they do not harass others (or force, or kill them) .. But nobody has the right to insist on privileges simply because they are supporters of one or other of the world's many religions."From: "Gesels van een imaginaire god"('Scourges of an imaginary god')
— A.J. Beirens, Gesels van een imaginaire god
Whenever I feel as if my faith is being tested, give me the grace to see you moving in my life to strengthen my relationship with you.
— Amy E. Mason, 365 Pocket Prayers for Women: Guidance and Wisdom for Each New Day
Every time I go look for God amidst sorrow, I always find Jesus at the cross, in death and resurrection. This is our God.
— Nadia Bolz-Weber
The bullshit detector is the biggest enemyof every religion."From: "Gesels van een imaginaire god"('Scourges of an imaginary god')
— A.J. Beirens
As I worship, my perspective shifts. I focus on His attributes: His goodness, His power, His name, and His mercy. Crises that once overwhelmed me become insignificant in comparison to God’s vast power and all-encompassing love for me as His child.
— Katherine J. Walden, Dare to Call Him Friend
I am no more than a child, but my Father lives for ever and I have a Protector great enough to save me.
— Augustine of Hippo
unlock untie yourself from people who rope u into redundancy
— Ikechukwu Joseph, What Do You See? (Maximum Vision Impact): Maximum Vision Impact
Be good to the people on your way up the ladder cause you'll ,meet them on your way down.
— Robert Junior
In the beginning," Scripture taught, "there was the Word," and Danny would come to believe that the two great gifts his God had given to the species He loved were time, which divides experience, and language, which binds the past to the future.
— Mary Doria Russell, Children of God
That the majority of people do not embrace salvation in this life does not mean that their experiences now do not lay a foundation for a later acceptance of it.
— Gregory MacDonald, The Evangelical Universalist: Second Edition
I cannot tell you that the sacrifice will be light: it is a serious thing to stand against the whole current of an age; it is a serious thing to be despised and hated by the generality of one's fellow men. Yet that is increasingly the lot of the true Christian today. He will not, indeed, be inclined to complain; for he has something with which all that he has lost is not worthy to be compared; and he knows that despite temporary opposition the ultimate future belongs to him and to His Lord. But for the present he is called upon to endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. It can hardly be said that unworthy motives of self-interest can lead a man to enter into a calling in which he will win nothing but reproach.
— J. Gresham Machen
The moment that all these myths were brought together in so-called 'holy books'has -without any doubt- to be seenas the most disastrous point in timein the history of mankind.From: "Gesels van een imaginaire god"(Scourges of an imaginary god)
— A.J. Beirens
The Bible is a book that every Christian should read, listen to, or have read to him or her throughout his or her lifetime; however, in the event that God has gifted a person with the characteristic for the utter joy that envelopes some during times of, what they would describe as, “pleasure reading” (an often times rare characteristic), it is only acceptable that he or she (particularly) reads His Holy Word at least once during his or her lifetime. At least, that’s what I think.
— Becky Watson
Where once I prayed for forgiveness from a father God who held up huge palms and said “Thou shalt not,” now I find peace with a sister god who takes my open hands in hers and says, “You will.
— Betsy Cornwell
Religion is not the place where the problem of man's egotism is automatically solved. Rather, it is there that the ultimate battle between human pride and God's grace takes place. Human pride may win the battle, and then religion can and does become one more instrument of human sin. But if there the self does meet God and His grace, and so surrenders to something beyond its self-interest, then Christian faith can prove to be the needed and rare release from human self-concern.
— Langdon Brown Gilkey
Eventually everyone dies, but death, in various forms and ways, still comes as a shock. Then they throw dirt in your face. Then the worms eat you. Or they consign you to flames. The flesh sizzles and the bones crackle. be grateful it happens in that order.
— Mahendra Jakhar
The gate is narrow but not the life. The gate opens out into largeness of life.
— Elisabeth Elliot, Let Me be a Woman
All too many others have been more cautious than courageous and have remained silent behind the anesthetizing security of stained-glass windows
— Martin Luther King Jr., Letter from the Birmingham Jail
To those Romans December twenty-fifth was the birthday of the sun. They wrote that in gold letters in their calendar. Every year about that time, the middle of winter, the sun was born once more and it was going to put an end to the darkness and misery of winter. So they had a great feast, with presents and dolls for everybody, and the best day of all was December twenty-fifth. That feast, they would tell you, was thousands of years old- before Christ was ever heard of.
— John G. Jackson, Pagan Origins of the Christ Myth
Closed mouths, only lead to closed gates. Share your salvation!
— Anthony Liccione
A seer is a sacred prophet
— Lailah Gifty Akita
If He is God, He is still in charge.
— Elisabeth Elliot, Passion and Purity: Learning to Bring Your Love Life Under Christ's Control
I cannot tell you that the sacrifice will be light: it is a serious thing to stand against the whole current of an age; it is a serious thing to be despised and hated by the generality of one's fellow men. Yet that is increasingly the lot of the truth Christian today. He will not, indeed, be inclined to complain; for he has something with which all that he has lost is not worthy to be compared; and he knows that despite temporary opposition the ultimate future belongs to him and to His Lord. But for the present he is called upon to endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. It can hardly be said that unworthy motives of self-interest can lead a man to enter into a calling in which he will win nothing but reproach.
— J. Gresham Machen
There is no imagination wherewith man is besotted, more foolish, none so pernicious as this,- that persons not purified, not sanctified, not made holy in their life, should afterwards be taken into that state of blessedness which consists in the enjoyment of God. Neither can such persons enjoy God, nor would God be a reward to them. Holiness is perfected in heaven: but the beginning of it is invariably confined to this world.
— John Owen
It takes courage to share your gifting, but when you do, you have authority and a life changing attitude
— Logan Baker
Hell, hell fire, the damnation of hell, eternal damnation, the resurrection of the damnation, everlasting fire, the place of torment, destruction, outer darkness, the worm that never dies, the fire that is not quenched, the place of weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth, everlasting punishment... these are the words which the Lord Jesus Christ Himself employs. Away with the miserable nonsense which people talk in this day who tell us that the ministers of the gospel should never speak of hell.
— J.C. Ryle
The Bible does not deny that we were various things—addicts, homosexuals, hateful, prideful, pornographic masturbators—but that is what we were (past tense) (1 Cor. 6:9-11; Titus 3:3-5). The emphasis in Scripture is on what we are and what we are called to be. The Christian does not say, Hello, my name is _____ and I am an X Y or Z.” The Christian says I was dead, but now I am alive. The Christian says I am a struggling sinner, yet I am a saint. The Christians says I am a new creation; I am transformed.
— Paul O'Brien
The Holy Spirit gives power for the fulfillment of the Great Commission.
— Lailah Gifty Akita
When God intends a mercy for his people, he stirs up the spirit of prayer in them. Fervency unites the soul and directs the thoughts to the work at hand. It will not allow diversions and denies all foreign thoughts seeking to intrude. Pray fervently or you do nothing. Cold praying is no more prayer than a painting of fire is fire. How can prayers that do not even warm your own heart move God’s? A fervent prayer will never find a cold reception with God. Elijah’s prayer called fire down from heaven because it carried fire up to heaven.
— William Gurnall
May God give us much more grace eagerly devote ourselves for the Great Commission.
— Lailah Gifty Akita
With grace, we can obey God’s commands.
— Lailah Gifty Akita
Trust in Him with everything I have even if I have nothing, and right now, that's about all I've got.
— K. Weikel, The Blood Room
The Saviour is seeking to save.
— Lailah Gifty Akita
I am willing to walk with God
— Lailah Gifty Akita
Wonders and signs shall never cease.
— Lailah Gifty Akita
Why does humankind love to seek the glory of one another instead of the glory of God?
— Lailah Gifty Akita
Throw out of your head the idea that you can, through a comfortable life, become what you must be in Christ.
— Феофан Затворник, Письма о духовной жизни
God is constant. Always forgiving. Always loving. Never changing.
— Jefferson Bethke, It's Not What You Think: Why Christianity is About So Much More Than Going to Heaven When You Die
But God has set no traps for us. Quite the contrary. He has summoned us to the only true and full freedom.
— Elisabeth Elliot
Now the soul says, ‘Lord, where shall I go? You have the words of eternal life.’ [John 6: 68] Here he centers, here he settles. It is the entrance of heaven to him; he sees his interest in God.
— Joseph Alleine, An Alarm to the Unconverted
Pain is soul of re-birth.
— Lailah Gifty Akita
God calls us to have the strength to trust Him over our hopelessness and to let Him give us the strength to overcome what it is that we feel hopeless to.
— Jeff Andras, Re-Formation: A Courageous Journey
The most wonderful thing of all about the cross is that it reveals the love of God to us. It is not surprising that Paul should say to the Romans, "God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." How do we see the love of God in the cross? Ah, says the modern man, I see it in this way, that though man rejected and murdered the Son of God, God in His love still says, "All right, I still forgive you. Though you have done that to My Son, I still forgive you." Yes, that is part of it, but it is the smallest part of it. That is not the real love of God. God was not a passive spectator of the death of His Son. That is how the moderns put it - that God in heaven looked down upon it all, saw men killing His own Son, and said, "All right, I will still forgive you." But it was not we who brought God's Son to the cross. It was God. It was the predeterminate counsel and foreknowledge of God.If you really want to know what the love of God means, read what Paul wrote to the Romans: "For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh." God condemned sin in the flesh of His own Son. This is the love of God. Read again Isaiah 53, that wonderful prophecy of what happened on Calvary's hill. You notice how he goes on repeating it: "Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows... it pleased the Lord to bruise him; he hath put him to grief." These are the terms. And they are nothing but a plain, factual description of what happened on the cross.
— D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones
Nothing doth worse become a man (I will not say a Christian man) than war.
— Erasmus, Against War
Moreover God hath ordained man in this world, as it were, the very image of himself, to the intent, that he, as it were a god on earth, should provide for the wealth of all creatures.
— Erasmus, Against War
Love of loves!
— Lailah Gifty Akita
The lamp of divine, written revelation reveals the will of God for the believer. Whether it is expressed by biblical command or precept, by scriptural example or principle, the Word illumines the path every believer must take. This divine light in Scripture is not a mere option, but an absolute necessity for every follower of Christ.
— Steven J. Lawson
Man has only wisdumb to gain knowledge but God alone has wisdom, for he possesses all knowledge past, present and future and there is not one iota of knowledge that he does not possess or will not possess.
— C.R. Lord
We ought to know the Creator.
— Lailah Gifty Akita
An atheist's response to a creationist asking 'what if' there was a God,That would be quite an unsettling thought.
— Anonymous
Would you prefer to believe in a world created by mere chance that is utterly meaningless or would you prefer to believe in a world created with a purpose by an intelligent designer who loves you personally?Complete nothingness and lack of hope vs a life lived incredibly joyfully...The answer is oh so clear to myself.
— Anonymous
The holy country is occupied by holy citizens.
— Lailah Gifty Akita
Families who lovingly accept the difficult trial of a child with special needs are greatly to be admired. They render the Church and society an invaluable witness of faithfulness to the gift of life. In these situations, the family can discover, together with the Christian community, new approaches, new ways of acting, a different way of understanding and identifying with others, by welcoming and caring for the mystery of the frailty of human life. People with disabilities are a gift for the family and an opportunity to grow in love, mutual aid and unity… If the family, in the light of the faith, accepts the presence of persons with special needs, they will be able to recognize and ensure the quality and value of every human life, with its proper needs, rights and opportunities.
— Pope Francis