Awesome Facebook status:
Lecrae - "Fellas enrich your lady's life. She should see more, learn more, BE more because of you. #manup"
The alternative to facing the truth is always some form of self-destruction.--Brennan Manning
A woman's heart should be so hidden in God that a man has to seek Him just to find her. -- Maya Angelou
My spirit has become dry because it forgets to feed on You.-- John of the Cross
"Too many of us have a Christian vocabulary rather than a Christian experience. We think we are doing our duty when we're only talking about it." -- Charles F. Banning
"The church preserved Scripture, treasured it, and held it to be authoritative for what it teaches about God, his saving actions on our behalf, and the response he wants from us. The church did not canonize Scripture because of what it says about chemistry, physics, botany, geology, biology, ancient geography, or secular history. Scripture touches on these subjects only incidentally; it does not teach anything about them. . . . Calling a news conference with great fanfare to charge Scripture with error because it does not teach modern science is like a romantic throwing the phonebook into the trash because it contains no poetry or the logician's criticism of the verse of Keats and Shelley for its lack of precision. Such fanfare is as boring as it is irrelevant." -- Ron Highfield, Great Is the Lord: Theology for the Praise of God (Eerdmans, 2008, pages 26-27).
We should never attempt to bear more than one kind of trouble at once. Some people bear three kinds - all they have had, all they have now, and all they expect to have.-- Edward Everett Hale
We must accept finite disappointment, but we must never lose infinite hope.-- Martin Luther King, Jr.
God, who foresaw your tribulation, has specially formed you to go through it, not without pain but without stain.-- C. S. Lewis
I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just.-- Thomas Jefferson
Those who will not be governed by God, will be ruled by tyrants.-- William Penn
"God's holy opposition to us is not our destruction but our salvation, because it is the opposition of love. This Opponent is 'for us' and not against us (Rom. 8:31). In his love, God opposes whatever contests his good will for us. He wills that we be holy as he is holy; therefore, he opposes all unrighteousness within us. He wills that we be free; therefore, he opposes whatever enslaves us. He wants us to know the joy of receiving and returning his love; therefore, he condemns our ungratefulness and selfishness. He is the only source of our good and hence he will not have us worshiping other gods. He wills to give us eternal life; he would have us let go of this mortal life that death may be 'swallowed up in victory' (1 Cor. 15:54; cf. Isa.25:8)." -Ron Highfield, Theology for the Praise of God, (Eerdmans, 2008), p. 180.
"As we gaze into the face of Jesus, we are able to face the truth about ourselves. Do we trust God? Do we really trust him –- absolutely? In the stable, we witness vulnerability and learn humility. The manger reminds us that church is a lot less about us -– and a lot more about him. The vulnerability of Christ revealed in the manger confronts our hypocrisies and exposes our false securities. The humility exhibited in Bethlehem reminds us that church is not about institutional rigidity, corporate bureaucracy, and the franchising of the Christian religion. The kingdom of heaven is not about who can be the most relevant church shop, offering needs-based programs to a consumer-driven market. No. The business of the kingdom involves so much more than this. The kingdom is all about doing justly, loving mercy, and walking humbly with God (Mic 6:8)." – Dr. Wyatt E. Fenno, Living Waters
We are not necessarily doubting that God will do the best for us; we are wondering how painful the best will turn out to be.-- C. S. Lewis
"The desire to pray is evidence not only of our seeking God; it is also a sign of having found him -- or rather of having been found by him. The urge to pray is grace already at work; thus prayer is not only seeking but communing as well. A prayer is not a monologue but a conversation. God is always present, and he is never silent, for the triune God is an 'eternal conversation.' When God invites us to pray to him, he bids us join a conversation already in progress. This living conversation is the source of life and all good things. We live because God speaks our name; we become persons when we learn to speak God's name. If it is amazing that God speaks to us, it is much more amazing that God invites us to speak to him! 'Seek and you shall find,' says our Lord. How true this is, for seeking is the beginning of finding!" -- Ron Highfield, Great Is the Lord: Theology for the Praise of God (Eerdmans, 2008), 415-416.
When God turns away from us because of selfishness, it is not rejection. Rather, it is an invitation to follow Him to a place we would rather not go.-- Brennan Manning
There is no situation so chaotic that God cannot from that situation, create something that is surpassingly good. He did it at the creation. He did it at the cross. He is doing it today.-- Handley C. G. Moule
"Cut off from the sense of wholeness that comes from God's unconditional love," people "are constantly driven to ... define themselves by their achievements, driven to show that they are better than those around them, driven to redeem their mistakes, driven not to make the mistakes they do not think they can redeem, driven to convince others that their achievements make them lovable, driven to convince themselves that they really do love the person they have become." -- Dr. Ashley Null, "The Canon's Corner," The Anglican Digest, Pentecost, p. 21.
"The least and lowest of believers will find that he is counted among Christ’s servants, and that his labor has not been in vain in the Lord. He will discover to his amazement, that his Master’s eye saw more beauty in his efforts to please Him, than he ever saw himself. He will find that every hour spent in Christ’s service, and every word spoken on Christ’s behalf, has been written in a book of remembrance. Let believers remember these things and take courage. The cross may be heavy now, but the glorious reward shall make amends for all.” - J.C. Ryle, Expository Thoughts on the Gospels: Matthew [Carlisle, Penn.:Banner of Truth, 1986], 338-39.
Our hope in God pulls us into the future. Hope allows us to affirm the reality of the abundant life that is ours in Christ. Hope allows us to stand with those in pain and to hold them until they are able to feel the love of God for themselves again. Hope allows us to work to bring God's reign upon the earth even when we see no results. Our hope begins and ends in God, the source of all hope. -- Mary Lou Redding
It is a poor thing to strike our colours to God when the ship is going down under us; a poor thing to come to Him as a last resort, to offer up "our own" when it is no longer worth keeping. If God were proud, He would hardly have us on such terms.-- C. S. Lewis
God does ten thousand things in every deed. Perhaps we know a dozen. Maybe two. But not enough to judge before He's through. ~John Piper
From time immemorial men have quenched their thirst with water without knowing anything about its chemical constituents. In like manner we do not need to be instructed in all the mysteries of doctrine, but we do need to receive the Living Water which Jesus Christ will give us and which alone can satisfy our souls. -- Sadhu Sundar Singh
Now the great thing is this: we are consecrated and dedicated to God in order that we may thereafter think, speak, meditate, and do, nothing except to his glory. For a sacred thing may not be applied to profane uses without marked injury to him.-- John Calvin
Who is there that ever receives a gift and tries to make bargains about it? Let us, then, return thanks for what He has bestowed on us. Who can tell whether, if we had had a larger share of ability or stronger health, we should not have possessed them to our destruction. -- Alphonsus Liguori
God insists that we ask, not because He needs to know our situation, but because we need the spiritual discipline of asking. --Catherine Marshall
We profess that we know God, but by works we deny Him; for beatitude doth not consist in the knowledge of divine things, but in a divine life, for the devils know them better than man.-- Sir Walter Raleigh
From time immemorial men have quenched their thirst with water without knowing anything about its chemical constituents. In like manner we do not need to be instructed in all the mysteries of doctrine, but we do need to receive the Living Water which Jesus Christ will give us and which alone can satisfy our souls. -- Sadhu Sundar Singh
Now the great thing is this: we are consecrated and dedicated to God in order that we may thereafter think, speak, meditate, and do, nothing except to his glory. For a sacred thing may not be applied to profane uses without marked injury to him.-- John Calvin
Who is there that ever receives a gift and tries to make bargains about it? Let us, then, return thanks for what He has bestowed on us. Who can tell whether, if we had had a larger share of ability or stronger health, we should not have possessed them to our destruction. -- Alphonsus Liguori
God insists that we ask, not because He needs to know our situation, but because we need the spiritual discipline of asking. --Catherine Marshall
We profess that we know God, but by works we deny Him; for beatitude doth not consist in the knowledge of divine things, but in a divine life, for the devils know them better than man.-- Sir Walter Raleigh