c2p-cmd/Good-Quotes-Authors huggingface dataset:
Stop comparing or boast at your victories. He was referring to enormous vitality and strength of God of Jesus seeking union with us. The living acts of a Christian become somehow the acts of Christ.
— Brennan Manning, The Furious Longing of God
Jesus Christ is not just 'my personal Savior'. He is Lord.
— John F. MacArthur Jr.
Fellow-Christians, do let us study the Bible portrait of the humble man. And let us ask our brethren, and ask the world, whether they recognize in us the likeness to the original.
— Andrew Murray, Humility
You are the son of the Lord God! She said. That’s why you can kill and bring back to life, that’s why you can heal a blind man as Joseph saw you do, that’s why you can pray for snow and there will be snow, that’s why you can dispute with your uncle Cleopas when he forgets you’re a boy, that’s why you make sparrows from clay and bring them to life. Keep your power inside you. Guard it until your Father in Heaven shows you the time to use it. If he’s made you a child, then he’s made you a child to grow in wisdom as well as in everything else.
— Anne Rice, Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt
all believers should “submit to each other out of reverence for Christ.” In many ways, wives should submit to their husbands in the same way any believer should submit to other believers, specifically by living according to the lifestyle the apostle Paul lays out earlier in the chapter. This mutual submission is an accountability to be held to God’s standards, an accountability in which both husband and wife are called to participate.
— Janet Boynes
I glimpsed the man's face with the shine of death on it. They laid him down there in the open. They had brought him there to be close to his death, I understood this also at the same moment. For who would wish to see a companion gasp his last on a jolting cart? We desire to keep the dying and the newly dead close before our eyes so as to give them full meed of pity. Our Lord was brought down to be pitied, on the Cross He was too far away.
— Barry Unsworth, Morality Play
Divinity is great enough to be divine; it is great enough to call itself divine. But as humanity grows greater, it grows less and less likely to do so. God is God, as the Moslems say; but a great man knows he is not God, and the greater he is the better he knows it. That is the paradox; everything that is merely approaching to that point is merely receding from it.
— G.K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man
A shining star will never lose it's luster, because Christ causes it to shine!
— Anita R. Sneed-Carter
Lo, thou, my Love, art fair;Myself have made thee so;Yea, thou art fair indeed,Wherefore thou shalt not needIn beauty to despair;For I accept thee so,For fair.[excerpt from "Christ to His Spouse"]
— William Baldwin
What I need first of all is not exhortation, but a gospel, not directions for saving myself but knowledge of how God has saved me. Have you any good news? That is the question that I ask of you. I know your exhortations will not help me. But if anything has been done to save me, will you not tell me the facts?
— J. Gresham Machen, The Christian Faith in the Modern World
He gains the farthest reaches where the ache of our most ancient absence lay.
— Scott Cairns, Compass of Affection: Poems New and Selected
The exponentially increasing formula (that leads to the resurrection) is that the more Christ overcame temptations and purified His human, the higher His quality of love became, which in turn led the hells to attack with increased force at the higher level. When He then overcame that temptation, His quality of love increased again, and so on and so on to the point of infinity.
— Steve Sanchez, Rethinking Redemption
What is a great spiritual practitioner? A person who lives always in the presence of his or her own true self, someone who has found and who uses continually the springs and sources of profound inspiration. As the modern English writer Lewis Thompson wrote: 'Christ, supreme poet, lived truth so passionately that every gesture of his, at once pure Act and perfect Symbol, embodies the transcendent.'To embody the transcendent is why we are here.
— Sogyal Rinpoche, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying
The Roman Catholic portrait at the reception of the Indian YMCA displayed the generic Christ, the timorous, blonde-haired, blue-eyed face upturned to the heavens, a lost middle-class student searching for guidance in an inhospitable world.
— Amit Chaudhuri, Odysseus Abroad
To allow Christ to live in you is to lose your ego-centric motivation
— Sunday Adelaja
Wherever you are remember that you represent Christ
— Sunday Adelaja
Wherever you are remember you represent Christ
— Sunday Adelaja
If you know that you are born of Christ, you don’t need to worry, you are already guaranteed the victory
— Sunday Adelaja
We use to think that we’ll go to Heaven if we avoid sins or have our pastor remove them. To labor ourselves into paradise is a new and somewhat discouraging perspective.
— Stefan Emunds
We are peacemakers but we are also army of Christ
— Sunday Adelaja
Those who are called Christ’s have a priceless advantage
— Sunday Adelaja
To be restored to Christ is to know a fulfilled life
— Sunday Adelaja
For Thousands To Come To Christ, We Must Employ Kingdom Principles
— Sunday Adelaja
God’s plan is for every believer to be married to Christ
— Sunday Adelaja
To be married to Christ is to be meshed with him
— Sunday Adelaja
To be meshed with Christ is to be immersed in his love
— Sunday Adelaja
Christ slackens off all my chains.
— Lailah Gifty Akita
Christ is not alive now because he rose from the dead two thousand years ago. He rose from the dead two thousand years ago because he is alive right now.
— Christian Wiman, My Bright Abyss: Meditation of a Modern Believer
Maybe God left it up to people to develop the ability to bring back Christ into their lives. Maybe God wanted us to invent our own savior when we were ready. When we need it most. Denny says maybe it's up to us to create our own messiah. To save ourselves.
— Chuck Palahniuk, Choke
TRUE Hebrew Israelites DO NOT hate white people.TRUE Hebrew Israelites DO NOT have more than one wife.TRUE Hebrew Israelites DO NOT smoke marijuana or do any other types of drugsTRUE Hebrew Israelites DO NOT have to stand on corners Intimidating people into believing the way.
— Alex Hartley Jr.
We become weirder parents when we fall more and more in love with Christ.
— Craig Groeschel, Weird: Because Normal Isn't Working
Into this world, this demented innin which there is absolutely no room for him at all,Christ comes uninvited.
— Thomas Merton
The temptation of Christ was harder, unspeakably harder, than the temptation of Adam; for Adam carried nothing in himself which could have given the tempter a claim and power over him. But Christ bore in himself the whole burden of the flesh, under the curse, under condemnation; and yet his temptation was henceforth to bring help and salvation to all flesh.
— Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Creation and Fall Temptation: Two Biblical Studies
Christ asked people who follow him to be the voice for the voiceless - not to wire their mouths shut.
— Christina Engela, Autumn Burning: Dreadtime Stories for the Wicked Soul
Voting for a political party with a cross stuck on it doesn't mean it reflects true Christianity (at least not how Christ intended it) nor does 'biblical governance' guarantee Christian governance.
— Christina Engela, The Time Saving Agency
You will never know love's depth, until it is gone.
— Shannon L. Alder
Thou has heard the words of Christ. . . . Dost thou weep, when I have thee, Poor soul, what aileth thee? Dost thou weep, when I have wept so much? Be of good cheer ; thy wounds are saving, and not deadly. It is I that have made them, who mean thee no hurt : though I let out thy blood, I will not let out thy life (628).
— Richard Baxter, The Saints' Everlasting Rest
And we talk of Christ, we rejoice in Christ, we preach of Christ, we prophesy of Christ, and we write according to our prophecies, that our children may know to what source they may look for a remission of their sins.
— Book of Mormon
I have a great need for Christ: I have a great Christ for my need.
— Corey M.K. Hughes
If you cannot undo what you have done, you are trapped. It is easy to understand how helpless and hopeless you then feel and why you might want to give up. . . . Restoring what you cannot restore, healing the wound you cannot heal, fixing that which you broke and you cannot fix is the very purpose of the atonement of Christ.
— Robert L. Millet, Coming to Know Christ
Close to the Cross was the only Apostle present, John, whose face was like a cast moulded out of love; Magdalen was there too, like a broken flower, a wounded thing. But foremost among all-God pity her!-was His own mother. Mary, Magdalen, John; innocence, penitence, and priesthood; the three types of souls forever to be found beneath the Cross of Christ.
— Fulton J. Sheen, Life of Christ
Accepting Christ" is only the beginning, not the ultimate goal. Likewise, evangelism is vital, but so is discipleship. To go no deeper is to risk being like the seed that fell not on good soil but on rocky ground, sprouting up but bearing little or no fruit. Focusing solely on God's gift of free salvation is focusing on the minimum.
— Ann  Spangler
The gospel messages you share will be accepted more readily if your Christlike example is evident in the ongoing pattern of your posts.
— David A. Bednar
It is not the spirit of wealth, of learning, or of culture that can make the church of value, or a power for good in the world, but the spirit of Christ only.
— Harold Bell Wright, The Calling of Dan Matthews
Jesus is the culmination of the greatness and the goodness of God.
— Matt      Chandler, Creature of the Word: The Jesus-Centered Church
We never feel Christ to be a reality, until we feel Him to be a necessity.
— Austin Phelps, The Still Hour or Communion With God
I believe the time has come for us as disciples of Christ to use these inspired tools appropriately and more effectively to testify of God the Eternal Father, His plan of happiness for His children, and His Son, Jesus Christ, as the Savior of the world; to proclaim the reality of the Restoration of the gospel in the latter days; and to accomplish the Lord’s work.
— David A. Bednar
[2 Corinthians 1:21-22] says that God has anointed us, has sealed us, and has given us the pledge, the foretaste, of the Spirit. If we are going to minister something of Christ to others, we have to experience Christ by the working of the cross, and the working of the cross is for the anointing, the sealing, and the pledge of the Spirit.
— Witness Lee, An Autobiography Of A Person In Spirit
In the Gospel story we find five great points of special importance; the birth, the life on earth, the death, the resurrection, and the ascension. In these we have what an old writer has called "the process of Jesus Christ;" the process by which He became what He is to-day--our glorified King, and our life. In all this life process we must be made like unto Him.
— Andrew Murray, The Master's Indwelling
Lord, speak not what I am wanting to hear, but speak what you want to say. For what you say, is truly what I need to hear.
— Elias Tan JS
Even though the Bible is an ancient document, every person in every situation in every society that’s ever existed can find in this book things that endure forever. Here’s a book that never needs another edition. It never needs to be edited, never has to be updated, is never out of date or obsolete. It speaks to us as pointedly and directly as it ever has to anyone in any century since it was written. It’s so pure that it lasts forever.
— John F. MacArthur Jr.
God the Father wants us to know Him. We can only know Him through Christ, and our relationship with Christ brings forth eternal life! You see Christ is our salvation. Salvation is notsomething outside of Him, He is our salvation Himself.
— Billy Witt, Miasma: Warnings to Christ Bride
In my opinion, Nigeria matters! The body of Christ matters
— Sunday Adelaja
God is changing the guard indeed in the body of Christ worldwide. This I cannot be quiet about!
— Sunday Adelaja
People and nations cannot be happy, if they do not acknowledge the Lordship of Jesus Christ
— Sunday Adelaja
Don’t be a shallow person. Do everything with zealous devotion, as you would do it for Christ
— Sunday Adelaja
We owe all to Jesus crucified. What is your life, my brethren, but the cross? Whence comes the bread of your soul but from the cross? What is your joy but the cross? What is your delight, what is your heaven, but the Blessed One, once crucified for you, who ever liveth to make intercession for you? Cling to the cross, then, put both arms around it! Hold to the Crucified, and never let Him go. Come afresh to the cross at this moment, and rest there now and for ever! Then, with the power of God resting upon you, go forth and preach the cross! Tell out the story of the bleeding Lamb. Repeat the wondrous tale, and nothing else. Never mind how you do it, only proclaim that Jesus died for sinner.The cross held up by a babe’s hands is just as powerful as if a giant held it up. The power lies in the word itself, or rather in the Holy Spirit who works by it and with it. O glorious Christ, when I have had a vision of Thy cross, I have seen it at first like a common gibbet, and Thou wast hanging on it like a felon; but, as I have looked, I have seen it begin to rise, and tower aloft till it has reached the highest heaven, and by its mighty power has lifted up myriads to the throne of God. I have seen its arms extend and expand until they have embraced all the earth. I have seen the foot of it go down deep as our helpless miseries are; and what a vision I have had of Thy magnificence, O Thou crucified One! Brethren, believe in the power of the cross for the conversion of those around you. Do not say of any man that he cannot be saved. The blood of Jesus is omnipotent. Do not say of any district that it is too sunken, or of any class of men that they are too far gone: the word of the cross reclaims the lost. Believe it to be the power of God, and you shall find it so.Believe in Christ crucified, and preach boldly in His name, and you shall see great and gladsome things. Do not doubt the ultimate triumph of Christianity. Do not let a mistrust flit across your soul. The cross must conquer; it must blossom with a crown, a crown commensurate with the person of the Crucified, and the bitterness of His agony. His reward shall parallel His sorrows. Trust in God, and lift your banner high, and now with psalms and songs advance to battle, for the Lord of hosts is with us, the Son of the Highest leads our van. Onward, with blast of silver trumpet and shout of those that seize the spoil. Let no man’s heart fail him! Christ hath died! Atonement is complete! God is satisfied! Peace is proclaimed! Heaven glitters with proofs of mercy already bestowed upon ten thousand times ten thousand! Hell is trembling, heaven adoring, earth waiting. Advance, ye saints, to certain victory! You shall overcome through the blood of the Lamb.
— Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Let this change you. Let this take hold in the very center of your soul. Write it on the walls of your heart. Let this emanate through every part of you, and trickle into every aspect of your life. 	You were not designed to be merely a good person, but that through the experience of mortality you could embrace the divinity you were created with. I do not merely want you to get along with others, but for everyone to be one, and one in me. Not for my glory, but that the glory of godliness will exalt you to a higher plane of existence, beyond anything you've ever imagined. 	Throw out weakness and fear; rid yourself of those spoiled garments. Adorn yourself with new garments, spotless and pure. Be reborn. Set your hand to the plow and look not back. Take that first step onto the water; do not fear the wind or the waves, for it is I your Lord and Savior who beckon you. Listen o listen to my voice, which is the voice of the Good Sheppard who calls you; for why should ye parish for naught?’	Parker, the bar has been set, for you and for I, and all the rest of humanity should we chose to accept the invitation,” Flavius concluded powerfully.
— Michael Brent Jones, Dinner Party
When we appear to be “more a loser than a victor” on the Path it is easy to lose sight of the fact that we are growing spiritually.
— Tom Payne, A Guide to God's Perplexing Path
The high ground of Christ & Him crucified must be claimed in our preaching. Any other footing is a slippery slope that inevitably descends downward into vain rhetoric and mere words. To the contrary, every pulpit must present a towering vision of the unique person and saving work of Jesus Christ. All preaching must point to His sin-bearing, substitutionary death for sinners. All exposition must lift up this Sacrificial Lamb who became a sin-bearing Substitute for all who believe. Every message must exalt this Christ, who was raised from the dead, exalted to the right hand of God the Father, and entrusted with all authority in heaven and earth.
— Steven J. Lawson
We owe all to Jesus crucified. What is your life, my brethren, but the cross? Whence comes the bread of your soul but from the cross? What is your joy but the cross? What is your delight, what is your heaven, but the Blessed One, once crucified for you, who ever liveth to make intercession for you? Cling to the cross, then, Put both arms around it! Hold to the Crucified, and never let Him go. Come afresh to the cross at this moment, and rest there now and for ever! Then, with the power of God resting upon you, go forth and preach the cross! Tell out the story of the bleeding Lamb. Repeat the wondrous tale, and nothing else. Never mind how you do it, only proclaim that Jesus died for sinner.The cross held up by a babe’s hands is just as powerful as if a giant held it up. The power lies in the word itself, or rather in the Holy Spirit who works by it and with it. O glorious Christ, when I have had a vision of Thy cross, I have seen it at first like a common gibbet, and Thou wast hanging on it like a felon; but, as I have looked, I have seen it begin to rise, and tower aloft till it has reached the highest heaven, and by its mighty power has lifted up myriads to the throne of God. I have seen its arms extend and expand until they have embraced all the earth. I have seen the foot of it go down deep as our helpless miseries are; and what a vision I have had of Thy magnificence, O Thou crucified One! Brethren, believe in the power of the cross for the conversion of those around you. Do not say of any man that he cannot be saved. The blood of Jesus is omnipotent. Do not say of any district that it is too sunken, or of any class of men that they are too far gone: the word of the cross reclaims the lost. Believe it to be the power of God, and you shall find it so.Believe in Christ crucified, and preach boldly in His name, and you shall see great and gladsome things. Do not doubt the ultimate triumph of Christianity. Do not let a mistrust flit across your soul. The cross must conquer; it must blossom with a crown, a crown commensurate with the person of the Crucified, and the bitterness of His agony. His reward shall parallel His sorrows. Trust in God, and lift you banner high, and now with psalms and songs advance to battle, for the Lord of hosts is with us, the Son of the Highest leads our van. Onward, with blast of silver trumpet and shout of those that seize the spoil. Let no man’s heart fail him! Christ hath died! Atonement is complete! God is satisfied! Peace is proclaimed! Heaven glitters with proofs of mercy already bestowed upon ten thousand times ten thousand! Hell is trembling, heaven adoring, earth waiting. Advance, ye saints, to certain victory! You shall overcome through the blood of the Lamb.
— Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Love has no contingencies, no expectations, no ideals. Love is a gift to thyself, the experience of divinity in full expression.
— Erin Fall Haskell
As we face the cross, then, we can say to ourselves both, “I did it, my sins sent him there,” and “He did it, his love took him there.
— John R.W. Stott
Joseph lost his son and Christ. (Joseph a perdu - Son fils et Jésus.)
— Charles de Leusse
In the 300 years of the crucifixion of Christ to the conversion of Emperor Constantine, polytheistic Roman emperors initiated no more than four general persecutions of Christians. Local administrators and governors incited some anti-Christian violence of their own. Still, if we combine all the victims of all these persecutions, it turns out that in these three centuries the polytheistic Romans killed no more than a few thousand Christians. In contrast, over the course, of the next 1,500 years, Christians slaughtered Christians by the millions, to defend slightly different interpretations of the religion of love and compassion.
— Yuval Noah Harari, קיצור תולדות האנושות
He embraces all things that are lovely: he seals up the sum of all loveliness. Things that shine as single stars with a particular glory, all meet in Christ as a glorious constellation. Col. 1:19, "It pleased the Father that in him should all fullness dwell." Cast your eyes among all created beings, survey the universe: you will observe strength in one, beauty in a second, faithfulness in a third, wisdom in a fourth; but you shall find none excelling in them all as Christ does. Bread has one quality, water another, raiment another, medicine another; but none has them all in itself as Christ does. He is bread to the hungry, water to the thirsty, a garment to the naked, healing to the wounded; and whatever a soul can desire is found in him, 1 Cor. 1:30
— John Flavel
In this sublime hour, therefore, He calls all His children to the pulpit of the Cross, and every word He says to them is set down for the purpose of an eternal publication and an undying consolation.
— Fulton J. Sheen
Our Lord took on a body like ours and lived as a man in order that those who had refused to recognize Him in His superintendence and capacity of the whole universe might come to recognize from the works He did here below in the body that what dwelled in this body was the Word of God.
— Athanasius of Alexandria
All ministries, therefore, must be subjected to this test—if they do not glorify Christ, they are not of the Holy Spirit.
— Charles Haddon Spurgeon
There is tremendous relief in knowing His love to me is utterly realistic, based at every point on prior knowledge of the worst about me , so that no discovery can disillusion him about me , in the way I am so often disillusioned about myself, and quench his determination to bless me.
— J.I. Packer, Knowing God
Politicians compete for the highest offices. Business tycoons scramble for a bigger and bigger piece of the pie. Armies march and scientists study and philosophers philosophise and preachers preach and labourers sweat. But in that silent baby, lying in that humble manger, there pulses more potential power and wisdom and grace and aliveness than all the rest of us can imagine.
— Brian D. McLaren
Live today as if eternity with Christ will begin today.
— Jim George
The promised return of Christ should motivate you toward daily holy living.
— Jim George
Becoming like Christ means aiming to serve, not be served.
— Jim George
My reason for believing in Christ is not that I feel my need of Him, but that I have a need of him… When I come to Jesus, I know I cannot come unless I am awakened, but nevertheless, I do not come as an awakened sinner. I do not stand at the foot of his cross to be washed because I have repented. I bring nothing when I come but sin. A sense of need is a good feeling, but when I stand at the foot of the cross, I do not believe in Christ because I have good feelings, but I believe in him whether I have good feelings or not. The basis on which a sinner comes to Christ is that he is black, not that he knows he is black; that he is dead, not that he knows he is dead; that he is lost, not that he knows he is lost… Generally, the people who repent the most think they are impenitent. People feel their need most when they think they do not feel at all, for we are no judges of our feelings. Hence the gospel invitation is not put upon the ground of anything of which we can be a judge. It is put on the basis of our being sinners, and nothing but sinners.
— Charles Haddon Spurgeon
The spirit of Christmas is found when we lift the load of others.
— Toni Sorenson
Want to create the best Christmas ever? Forgive someone who doesn’t deserve your forgiveness. Hug a stranger. Pass on something that you want to keep for yourself. Spend time with the ones you love. Spend time on your knees. Decorate your life with light and laughter. Love yourself while you’re loving others. Christmas is about Christ and Christ is all about your joy and happiness.
— Toni Sorenson
If you want to feel the truest spirit of Christmas, go out and find someone sadder than you, lonelier than you, poorer than you … and give what you can in a smile, in time, in compassion. The best Christmases always require the gift of self.
— Toni Sorenson
Christmas is about Christ. When we forget that, we lose the true magic of Christmas.
— Toni Sorenson
The crucial distinction can be discerned by differentiating between deification, an ontological sharing in the Godhead in which the human literally becomes divine, and theosis, a participation in the life of God the Father through union with Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit which the human becomes truly human.
— Marcus Peter Johnson, One with Christ: An Evangelical Theology of Salvation
The reason for the season is Christ. Let’s not forget that.
— Toni Sorenson
When you’re planning the perfect Christmas … the gifts, the lights, the decorations, the paries, the cards, don’t forget the most important item on the list—Christ.
— Toni Sorenson
Ingredients for a terrific Christmas: Christ. Love for one another. Forgiveness. Generosity. Time. Music. Children’s laughter. Reminising with loved ones. Remembering those who are alone. The making of new memories.
— Toni Sorenson
Christmas has a dark side. It’s painful for those of us who lost loved ones during the holidays. What puts it back into sparkling perspective is knowing that Christ was born so that we might all be reunited again. That’s the real sparkle in Christmas.
— Toni Sorenson
We are to point saints to look to Christ, and then to deny themselves and follow Christ, obeying Christ above all else. Not pointing them to ourselves, nor following us, nor obeying us. Our ministry has got to be about them following our Lord Jesus Christ.
— brother Billy
The risen Christ! Once morefaith is upon us, a jubilant brief keeningwith respite:Obedience, bitter joy,the elements, clouds,winds, louvres where the bellmakes its wild mouths:Holy Rus – into the rain’shorizons, peacock-dyed tail feathers of storm,so it goes on.
— Geoffrey Hill, Canaan
Christ alone makes possible everything you are and can be as a Christian.
— Jim George
Have you ever come out of a dramatic, chaotic situation and said, “I did everything I could, and it wasn’t enough?”That’s because “everything we can” isn’t enough. It’s only enough when our everything joins with Christ’s everything.
— Toni Sorenson
Realize that God uses the fires of life to purify your faith, to shape you into Christ’s image, and to cause you to love Him…even more!
— Elizabeth George, Loving God with All Your Mind
We shall do even greater things because the love that lived in the radical Christ now lives within millions of ordinary radicals all over the planet.
— Shane Claiborne, The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical
You can seek out good fortune, authority (power), and even a righteous life-partner...and find them all. But when all of this is gone...which it will be eventually, I wish you Peace, which is only found through Christ our Lord.
— Joe Campos
We need to remember how what Christ has already done transforms who we are right now -- not later, once we get it together but right now in all the messes we've made.
— Elyse M. Fitzpatrick, Comforts from Romans: Celebrating the Gospel One Day at a Time
No demon can withstand the power of Christ,” said my father, repeating the words he had used long ago, and what he meant was that no dissociated mind can withstand the integrating power of the Living God whose spark lies deep in the core of the unconscious mind and who can not only heal the shattered ego but unify the entire personality.
— Susan Howatch, Mystical Paths
No matter our sins or our sufferings, we are not isolated or abandoned. Christ is there for us, in good times and bad, and if we know how to follow Him, how to walk in His footsteps, then the road home doesn’t seem quite so treacherous or impossible to scale.
— Toni Sorenson
Always, God’s timing is the right time. Things happen when they have to happen and you only realise it later.” – Ernesto.
— Paul Alkazraji, Love Changes Everything: Seven Remarkable Real Life Stories
I’ve tried everything else, I’ll try God.“- Cherie.
— Paul Alkazraji, Love Changes Everything: Seven Remarkable Real Life Stories
...whether God come to his children with a rod or a crown, if he come himself with it, it is well. Welcome, welcome Jesus, what way soever thou come, if we can get a sight of thee. And sure I am, it is better to be sick, providing Christ come to the bed-side, and draw aside the curtains, and say 'Courage, I am thy salvation,' than to enjoy health, being lusty and strong, and never to be visited of God.
— Samuel Rutherford
When your eyes are fixed on the horizon of eternity, it affects your vision for motherhood.
— Gloria Furman, Treasuring Christ When Your Hands are Full: Gospel Meditations for Busy Moms
In the cross of Christ God is taking man dead-seriously so that he may open up for him the happy freedom of Easter. God takes upon himself the pain of negation and the God forsakenness of judgement to reconcile himself with his enemies and to give the godless fellowship with himself.~ Theology of Play, p.33
— Jürgen Moltmann
Church History is the record of God's gracious, wonderful and mighty deeds, showing how by his Spirit and Word he rules his Church and conquers the world.
— Nils Forsander, Life Pictures from Swedish Church History
Material blessings fade and deteriorate, but your riches in Christ are everlasting.
— Elizabeth George
I believe the best way the Enemy gets to you is when you don't have a full understanding of how amazing, beautiful and valuable you are in Christ!
— Alisa Hope Wagner
You fellas don' know what you're doin. You're helpin to starve kids...You don' know what you're a' doin'.
— John Steinbeck, Los Arrabales de Cannery Row
Christ is, then, the perfect art work in the sense of that reality in whom is realised those goals that all artistic making has as its explicit or implicit ends. Because he is infinite meaning, life and being perfectly synthesised with finite form, the cave painters at Lascaux, or Hesiod penning his hymns, or Beethoven working on his last quartets, were all gesturing towards him though they realised it not.
— Aidan Nichols O.P., Redeeming Beauty: Soundings in Sacral Aesthetics
I am slowly coming to understand with all my heart as well as my head that love is not a feeling. It is a person.
— Madeleine L'Engle, A Circle of Quiet
It’s Christmas, and no matter what historical usage you choose to assign to “mass” be it mission or Lord’s Supper, Christ’s Mass refers to WHY he came, not THAT he came. Christ’s mission was to be a sacrifice.
— William Branks
It is understandable you would want to come back as yourself into a wonderland with the sharpness of colour of the Queen of Hearts in a newly opened pack of cards. But coming back as yourself is resurrection. It is uncommon.
— J.M. Ledgard, Submergence
The most exemplary nature is that of the topsoil. It is very Christ-like in its passivity and beneficence, and in the penetrating energy that issues out of its peaceableness. It increases by experience, by the passage of seasons over it, growth rising out of it and returning to it, not by ambition or aggressiveness. It is enriched by all things that die and enter into it. It keeps the past, not as history or as memory, but as richness, new possibility. Its fertility is always building up out of death into promise. Death is the bridge or the tunnel by which its past enters its future.
— Wendell Berry, The Long-Legged House
Blessing come to you when you are obedient to God’s commands.
— Jim George
Keeping Christ in Christmas" is like showing up at someone's house every year, insisting on a party they never planned and never agreed to.
— Rebecca McKinsey
With Christ as your partner, there is no such thing as failure, only results.
— Toni Sorenson
Christ who is your life,' (Col 3:4): This identification reflects the relentless Christological focus of Colossians.
— Douglas J. Moo, The Letters to the Colossians and to Philemon
Christ in a Pinata` how have I over complicated the plot?
— Scott Parker, My Favorite Letter Is H
Coming to Christ is not an event. It is a process where we keep trying and trying and never give up.
— Toni Sorenson
Taking "Christ" out of "Christmas" just reads "Mas" which is Spanish for "More." Seems Americans just want "mas," "mas," "mas." But when is more ever enough without Christ in it? More Christ?
— Kilburn Hall
Feeling sick, sad? Call on the Great Physician. You don't need an appointment; He will see you right away!
— Evinda Lepins
If life is a song, and God is the divine conductor, I must consider these trials and troubles as the harmony of my song, for every song needs more than a melody!
— Evinda Lepins
It is not the fact that we are united in common goals or purposes that makes us a community. Rather, it is the fact that we share a common life in Christ.
— Jerry Bridges, True Community: The Biblical Practice of Koinonia
Fear will paralyze you and prohibit growth
— Michelle Cook-Hall, This Journey Is a Process
Christ wasn’t only a yogi; he was an activist, carrying his message to those who most needed it.
— Jonathan Talat Phillips, The Electric Jesus: The Healing Journey of a Contemporary Gnostic
The cross of Christ only triumphs in the breast of believers over the devil and the flesh, sin and sinners, when their eyes are directed to the power of His Resurrection.
— John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 2 Vols
[Christ] is the Mediator, not only between God and man, but between man and man, between man and reality.
— Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship
The East is unfamiliar with those confessions, memoirs, and autobiographies so beloved in the West. There is a clear difference in tonality. One's gaze never lingers on the suffering humanity of Christ, but penetrates behind the kenotic veil. To the West's mysticism of the Cross and its veneration of the Sacred Heart corresponds the eastern mysticism of the sealed tomb, from which eternal life eternal wells up.
— Paul Evdokimov, Orthodoxy
So we see that God has made provision for our holiness. Through Christ He has delivered us from sin's reign so that we now can resist sin. But the responsibility for resisting is ours. God does not do that for us. To confuse the potential for resisting (which God provided) with the responsibility for resisting (which is ours) is to court disaster in our pursuit of holiness.
— Jerry Bridges, The Pursuit of Holiness
For Abelard, the death of Christ on the Cross did not, strictly speaking, redeem man: it only offered him an example of supreme humility, charity, and self-sacrifice. Bernard asserts, against Abelard, that Christ became man precisely in order to redeem mankind from sin, deliver man from the power of the devil, and to become, instead of fallen Adam, the new head of a redeemed and sanctified human race. Jesus, says Saint Bernard, not only taught us justice but gave us justice. He not only showed us His love by dying for us on the Cross, but by the effects of His death He really and objectively causes His charity to exist and act in our hearts. In, doing so, He actually destroys sin in our souls and communicates to us a new life which is totally supernatural and divine. The effect of our redemption is therefore a complete and literal regeneration of those souls to whom its fruits are applied. Without this dogmatic basis the whole mystical theology of Saint Bernard would be incomprehensible. The purpose of all his mystical and ascetic teaching is to show us how to co-operate with the action of divine grace so that our redemption and regeneration may not remain a dead letter but may actually influence all our conduct and find expression in every part of our lives
— Thomas Merton, Thomas Merton on St. Bernard.
It's Saturday; a day off, or it's not; maybe it's a day off connected to countless days off. Some are secure, some not, some wonder. But there's a common thread; each of us having purpose; some living after learning it, some learning while living it, some looking. We are all connected in purpose, all of us loved equally by a race and gender-blind Christ walking with us in that purpose.
— Lee  Goff
It is now time for us to ask the personal question put to Jesus Christ by Saul of Tarsus on the Damascus road, ‘What shall I do Lord?’ or the similar question asked by the Philippian jailer, ’What must I do to be saved?’ Clearly we must do something. Christianity is no mere passive acquiescence in a series of propositions, however true. We may believe in the deity and the salvation of Christ, and acknowledge ourselves to be sinners in need of his salvation, but this does not make us Christians. We have to make a personal response to Jesus Christ, committing ourselves unreservedly to him as our Savior and Lord … At its simplest Christ’s call was “Follow me.” He asked men and women for their personal allegiance. He invited them to learn from him, to obey his words and to identify themselves with his cause … Now there can be no following without a previous forsaking. To follow Christ is to renounce all lesser loyalties … let me be more explicit about the forsaking which cannot be separated from the following of Jesus Christ. First, there must be a renunciation of sin. This, in a word, is repentance. It is the first part of Christian conversion. It can in no circumstances be bypassed. Repentance and faith belong together. We cannot follow Christ without forsaking sin … Repentance is a definite turn from every thought, word, deed, and habit which is known to be wrong … There can be no compromise here. There may be sins in our lives which we do not think we could ever renounce, but we must be willing to let them go as we cry to God for deliverance from them. If you are in doubt regarding what is right and what is wrong, do not be too greatly influenced by the customs and conventions of Christians you may know. Go by the clear teaching of the Bible and by the prompting of your conscience, and Christ will gradually lead you further along the path of righteousness. When he puts his finger on anything, give it up. It may be some association or recreation, some literature we read, or some attitude of pride, jealousy or resentment, or an unforgiving spirit. Jesus told his followers to pluck out their eye and cut off their hand or foot if it caused them to sin. We are not to obey this with dead literalism, of course, and mutilate our bodies. It is a figure of speech for dealing ruthlessly with the avenues along which temptation comes to us.
— John R.W. Stott, Basic Christianity
The Christian message has a moral challenge. If the message is true, the moral challenge has to be accepted. So God is not a fit object for man’s detached scrutiny. You cannot fix God at the end of a telescope or a microscope and say “How interesting!” God is not interesting. He is deeply upsetting. The same is true of Jesus Christ … We know that to find God and to accept Jesus Christ would be a very inconvenient experience. It would involve the rethinking of our whole outlook on life and the readjustment of our whole manner of life. And it is a combination of intellectual and moral cowardice which makes us hesitate. We do not find because we do not seek. We do not seek because we do not want to find, and we know that the way to be certain of not finding is not to seek … Christ’s promise is plain: "Seek and you will find.
— John R.W. Stott, Basic Christianity
We may understand again, therefore, from this picture, that God's purpose in the cross of Jesus Christ was two-fold: first that we might be forgiven, being saved from sin's penalty because Christ died for us, and secondly, that we might be delivered from sin's power, because this old sinful nature, called the flesh, died with Him.
— W. Ian Thomas
If your self-worth is based on anything other than your relationship with Christ, you are in big trouble.
— Hyrum W. Smith
We do not have to look about us very far or for very long to realize the disastrous effects produced on the inner life of man by this age of noise. Spun about in the whirl of business, enslaved to countless technical inventions, man is severed from God and from the world of the spirit. Non in commotione Deus: God does not dwell in turbulence. To find him, there must be calm within; certain senses must be hushed. Tossed around as we are, if God wishes to speak to us, his voice, small and still, will be lost in the hubbub of our daily lives; the rackets and noise drowning our minds will prevent his penetration into that seclusion we call “heart”–the living witness of that life in us which is most sacred and most true: the life we call “inner” or “spiritual.
— Jean Déchanet, Christian Yoga
Nowadays, to be sure, we are more “comprehensive.” In particular, we pay more attention to the body. It may even be that we go too far. On the other hand, are there not too many intellectuals about who, without knowing it, have put a muzzle on their hearts, and whose “spiritual life” misses those deep intuitions that are of the world of the spirit?All these people–the “brains,” the spiritualists, as well as those who are embarrassed or engrossed by the body–may be taught Yoga (I saw “may,” because they have to give themselves to it) that they cannot become truly themselves unless they accept their nature as men and aim at establishing balance between the parts of man in is; this nature of ours which is at one and the same time an animal body (corpus-anima), thinking soul (animus-mens) and spirit (spiritus-cor). It is a harmony among these “three” that is sought in each of us by the grace of redemption. Christ came in the first place so that this “creature of God” within us, concealed under a human complex, bruised and torn by original sin, should flower and open out in its full beauty and wealth of talent. Any ascetic discipline that works towards this works, in fact, hand in hand with grace, and that is why I have roundly stated that a Yoga that calms the senses, pacifies the soul, and frees certain intuitive or affective powers in us can be of inestimable service to the West. It can make people into true Christians, dynamic and open, by helping them to be men.
— Jean Déchanet, Christian Yoga
...Love Christ and put nothing before His Love. He is joy, He is life, He is light. Christ is Everything. He is the ultimate desire, He is everything. Everything beautiful is in Christ.
— Elder Porphyrios
Christ manifests his divine leadership in your sincere followership. Christ's followers become true leaders because Christ is the model of true leadership.
— Israelmore Ayivor
...This is the way we should see Christ. He is our friend, our brother; He is whatever is good and beautiful. He is everything. Yet, He is still a friend and He shouts it out, "You're my friends, don't you understand that? We're brothers. I'm not...I don't hold hell in my hands. I am not threatening you. I love you. I want you to enjoy life together with me.
— Elder Porphyrios
Christ’s fourth indirect claim was to judge the world. This is perhaps the most fantastic of all his statements. Several of his parables imply that he will come back at the end of the world, and that the final day of reckoning will be postponed until his return. He will himself arouse the dead, and all the nations will be gathered before him. He will sit on the throne of his glory, and the judgment will be committed to him by the Father. He will then separate men from one another as a shepherd separates his sheep from his goats. Some will be invited to come and inherit the kingdom prepared for them from the foundation of the world. Others will hear the dreadful words, 'Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.' Not only will Jesus be the judge, but the criterion of judgment will be men’s attitude to him as shown in their treatment of his 'brethren' or their response to his word. Those who have acknowledged him before men he will acknowledge before his Father: those who have denied him, he will deny. Indeed, for a man to be excluded from heaven on the last day, it will be enough for Jesus to say, "I never knew you.
— John R.W. Stott, Basic Christianity
God forbid that I should boast of being poor, gentle, and meek. But I am striving to attain these virtues. Every day the exercises, and indeed the whole ascetic discipline of my Yoga, make it easier for the grace of Christ to flow in me. I feel my hunger for God growing, and my thirst for righteousness, and my desire to be a Christian in the full strength of the word- to be for Christ, to be of Christ, without any half-measures of reservations.
— Jean Déchanet, Christian Yoga
To get rid of a few problems in general health, to increase one's capacity for work, to make one's character gentler and stronger, to free oneself of various complexes, to create in oneself a whole atmosphere of calm and silence, and to do this by exercises in a gymnastic of repose and by a simple but careful method of breath-control - such aims may appear humble enough, rather down to earth, and a far cry form the goal of even the most modest of yogis. Yet I am certain that they will be able to work real miracles here in the West; to change lives and temperaments completely, making them healthier, more open; to increase their degree of engagement; and to render them more receptive to impulses and promptings from heaven.
— Jean Déchanet, Christian Yoga
It is important to view current events through Christ-like eyes.
— Todd Stocker, Refined: Turning Pain Into Purpose
Most people in the world are Christ lovers. And then there are Christ haters. But all of them are fixated on Christ, and he perpetuates for ever.
— Marilyn Monroe
Christ did not descend from the cross except into the grave. And why not otherwise? Wouldn’t it have put fine comical expressions on the faces of the scribes and chief priests and the soldiers if at that moment He had come down in power and glory? Why didn’t He do it? Why hasn’t He done it at any one of a thousand good times between then and now?I knew the answer. I knew it a long time before I could admit it, for all the suffering of the world is in it. He didn’t, He hasn’t, because from the moment He did, He would be the absolute tyrant of the world and we would be His slaves. Even those who hated Him and hated one another and hated their own souls would have to believe in Him then. From that moment the possibility that we might be bound to Him and He to us and us to one another by love forever would be ended.And so, I thought, He must forebear to reveal His power and glory by presenting Himself as Himself, and must be present only in the ordinary miracle of the existence of His creatures. Those who wish to see Him must see Him in the poor, the hungry, the hurt, the wordless creatures, the groaning and travailing beautiful world.
— Wendell Berry, Jayber Crow
The primary purpose of a home is to reflect and to distribute the love of Christ. Anything that usurps that is idolatrous.
— Ravi Zacharias, Jesus Among Other Gods: The Absolute Claims of the Christian Message
Love well, laugh often and live well for Christ.
— Karen Kingsbury
The language of poetry is a language of deep intimacy that is meant to touch the human spirit and awaken it to the mystery of life, all life.
— Ron Starbuck, When Angels Are Born