“Christianity is not a doctrine, not truth as truth, but the knowledge of a Person; it is knowing the Lord Jesus. You cannot be educated into being a Christian.” -T.A. Sparks-
“Seek to have your life in God, not in things, not in people, not in places, not in circumstances, not in arguments, not in human intelligence, but in God.” -T.A. Sparks-
“We all need to get the balance right between action and reflection. With so many distractions, it is easy to forget to pause and take stock.”-- Queen Elizabeth
The best way to vindicate your sentiments, is to show, in your preaching and life, their intimate connexion with Christian morals, with a high and delicate sense of duty, with candor towards your opposers, with inflexible integrity, and with an habitual reverence for God. If any light can pierce and scatter the clouds of prejudice, it is that of a pure example. My brother, may your life preach more loudly than your lips. Be to this people a pattern of all good works, and may your instructions derive authority from a well-grounded belief in your hearers, that you speak from the heart, that you preach from experience, that the truth which you dispense has wrought powerfully in your own heart, that God, and Jesus, and heaven, are not merely words on your lips, but most affecting realities to your mind, and springs of hope and consolation, and strength, in all your trials. Thus laboring, may you reap abundantly, and have a testimony of your faithfulness, not only in your own conscience, but in the esteem, love, virtues, and improvements of your people.
W.E. Channing
“Arguments about God are like pointing a flashlight toward the sky to see if the sun is shining.” -N. T. Wright-
“Wherever St. Paul went, there was a riot. Wherever I go, they serve tea.” -N. T. Wright-
“Relax and refuse to let worry and stress rule your life. There is always a solution to every problem. Things will work out for you when you take time to relax, refresh, restore and recharge your soul.”
– Lailah Gifty Akita
“In the Christian story God descends to reascend. He comes down;… down to the very roots and sea-bed of the Nature He has created. But He goes down to come up again and bring the whole ruined world up with Him.” -C.S. Lewis-
“The greater the difficulty the more glory in surmounting it.
Skillful pilots gain their reputation from storms and tempests.”
I can’t help wondering how hard the donkey thinks it is.
While I’m texting - I must thank you for all your thoughts FineLinen.
Dear Pilgrim: I never thought of the poor donkey (how slow I am).
I do appreciate your kind remark!
“Jesus’s resurrection is the beginning of God’s new project not to snatch people away from earth to heaven but to colonize earth with the life of heaven. That, after all, is what the Lord’s Prayer is about.” -N.T. Wright-
“Age is not important unless you’re a cheese.”-- Helen Hayes
The problem is we look for perfection before we dip into practice! We want what we want before we are ready and deserving. Practice mindfulness in tiny little things like eating, drinking, walking, talking. Do it all by being awake and aware! When you practice coming to the Moment, those little things will fill you with joy. You won’t any more crave for some heaven when you are old and retired! This Moment is the only heaven and only hell; being aware of the Moment as a gift, you are in heaven, unaware, you miss it! The choice is yours.
~~Bodhi Shuddhaanandaa
“I would rather entertain and hope that people learned something than educate people and hope they were entertained.”
– Walt Disney
It’s the 75th anniversary of D-Day. All those vets may be in their 90’s, but we’re in their debt.
They’re the lucky survivors of the Americans who liberated Europe and in some cases spent their last day on the [beaches of Normandy
As always, we must remind ourselves that the lives we lead are based on the lives of others. If you’re living a prosperous, peaceful life in America, they built that.
That includes our freedom to pursue happiness and especially the God-given right to be stupid and self-obsessed. We owe that to them, too.
The leisure time and carefree existence that enables us to be shallow – that was all made possible by boys who never saw what we have experienced. Boys who never dated and never married because they never even had a first kiss or found a girlfriend.
They were never liked on Facebook or shamed on Twitter. Their life experiences ended so yours could begin.
-Greg Gutfeld
"Some have asked what good does it do to believe that God will save all men . You might as well ask what good it does to believe that God will save some men … Every evangelist believes that it is God’s will to save some men during this present time, or he would not be an evangelist. And if a man does not believe that God will save any men past this present age, what does he expect to be doing in the ages to come? To what end, then, is such a man’s “sonship” ministry? Why strive and labor to be a Son, to set creation free, if what God is accomplishing in redemption during this present age is all there is…If there is no out-working of redemption in the ages to come, no extension, nor expansion of the kingdom of God beyond the formation of the Body of Christ, they why not settle for the fundamentalist’s version of heaven and content ourselves with spending eternity shouting up and down the golden streets, waving palm branches and strumming harps? – J. Preston Eby
“Water is the most essential element of life, because without water, you can’t make coffee.”-- Author Unknown
“Attitude is a choice. Happiness is a choice. Optimism is a choice. Kindness is a choice. Giving is a choice. Respect is a choice. Whatever choice you make makes you. Choose wisely.”
– Roy T. Bennett
Every human being lives according to some principle, and this principle by which he governs his life is his religion.— Leo Tolstoi
