“Grace cannot prevail…until our lifelong certainty that someone is keeping score has run out of steam and collapsed.” -Robert Farrar Capon-
“Tension is who you think you should be. Relaxation is who you are.”-- Chinese Proverb
“The Reformation was a time when men went blind, staggering drunk because they had discovered, in the dusty basement of late medievalism, a whole cellar full of fifteen-hundred-year-old, two-hundred proof Grace–bottle after bottle of pure distilate of Scripture, one sip of which would convince anyone that God saves us single-handedly. The word of the Gospel–after all those centuries of trying to lift yourself into heaven by worrying about the perfection of your bootstraps–suddenly turned out to be a flat announcement that the saved were home before they started…Grace has to be drunk straight: no water, no ice, and certainly no ginger ale; neither goodness, nor badness, not the flowers that bloom in the spring of super spirituality could be allowed to enter into the case.” - Robert Farrar Capon-
" Let us not listen for a moment to a doctrine so irrational as that our present characters do not follow us into a future world. If we are to live again, let us settle it as a sure fact, that we shall carry with us our present minds, such as we now make them ; that we shall reap good or ill according to their improvement or corruption " W.E. Channing
“I recently had my annual physical examination, which I get once every seven years, and when the nurse weighed me, I was shocked to discover how much stronger the Earth’s gravitational pull has become since 1990.”-- Dave Barry
“Our country is not the only thing to which we owe our allegiance. It is also owed to justice and to humanity. Patriotism consists not in waving the flag, but in striving that our country shall be righteous as well as strong.”-- James Bryce
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What is required is not a lot of words, but effectual ones. - Seneca, letter xxxviii.
And
(writing about hurried and copious arguments) I do not approve of this in a philosopher; his speech, like his life, should be composed; and nothing that rushes headlong and is hurried is well ordered. That is why, in Homer, the rapid style, which sweeps down without a break like a snow-squall, is assigned to the younger speaker; from the old man eloquence flows gently, sweeter than honey. Seneca letterXL
(I know what you’re thinking, and you’re right. DaveB2.0 needs to really heed the above words.:-))
“Life expectancy would grow by leaps and bounds if green vegetables smelled as good as bacon.”-- Doug Larson
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“As the marsh-hen secretly builds on the watery sod, behold I will build me a nest on the greatness of God.” -Sidney Lanier_
What I have now said of the kind affections is equally true of the religious ones. These have virtue in them only as far as they are imbued with self-denying strength. I know that multitudes place religion in feeling. Ardent sensibility is (erroneously) the measure of piety… But I know of no religion which has moral worth, or is acceptable to God, but that which grows from and is nourished by our own spiritual, self-denying energy. Emotion towards God, springing up without our own thought or care, grateful feelings at the reception of signal benefits, the swelling of the soul at the sight of nature, tenderness awakened by descriptions of the love and cross of Christ, these, though showing high capacities, though means and materials of piety, are not of themselves acceptable religion. The religious character which has true virtue, and which is built upon a rock, is that which has been deliberately and resolutely adopted and cherished as our highest duty, and as the friend and strengthener of all other duties ; and which we have watched over and confirmed by suppressing inconsistent desires and passions, by warring against selfishness and the love of the world
Channing, William Ellery, 1780-1842. Complete works, including The perfect life and containing a copious index and a table of Scripture references (Kindle Locations 14184-14193). London, christian Life Pub. Co…
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“Pressed by the irresistible weight of these arguments many take refuge in ambiguous and evasive phrases, e.g., ‘Be sure God will do the best He can for every man.’ Ambiguous and evasive words as used by the advocates of endless torment and evil. For if they really mean that the best an Almighty Being can do for countless myriads of His children is to bestow on them, -practically to force on them -whether they will or not, an existence, stained with sin from the womb, knowing that in fact this sin will ripen into endless misery -then such phrases as the above are but so much dust thrown in our eyes, they are as argument beneath refutation. And if they do not mean this, such pleas are worthless as a defense of the ordinary creed. If endless misery is the certain result, known and foreseen, of calling me into existence, then to force on me the gift of life, is to do for me not the best, but the worst possible.” ―Irish Anglican priest Thomas Allin-
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“To be happy, you must let go of all the negative beliefs, emotions and people that are holding you back in life.”-- Robert Tew
“Earth’s crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God,
But only he who sees takes off his shoes;
The rest sit round and pluck blackberries.”
― Elizabeth Barrett Browning
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“I have learned that success is to be measured not so much by the position one has reached in life as by the obstacles which one has overcome while trying to succeed.” -Booker T. Washington-
Letter XLI - You are doing an excellent thing, one which will be wholesome for you, if, as you write me, you are persisting in your effort to attain sound understanding; it is foolish to pray for this when you can acquire it from yourself. We do not need to uplift our hands towards heaven, or to beg the keeper of a temple to let us approach his idol’s ear, as if in this way our prayers were more likely to be heard. God is near you, he is with you, he is within you. This is what I mean, Lucilius: a holy spirit indwells within us, one who marks our good and bad deeds, and is our guardian. As we treat this spirit, so are we treated by it. Indeed, no man can be good without the help of God. Can one rise superior to fortune unless God helps him to rise? He it is that gives noble and upright counsel.
Seneca. Letters From A Stoic: Epistulae Morales AD Lucilium (Illustrated. Newly revised text. Includes Image Gallery + Audio): All Three Volumes (p. 83). Enhanced Media. Kindle Edition.
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“Strength is the capacity to break a Hershey bar into four pieces with your bare hands - and then eat just one of the pieces.”-- Judith Viorst
I would call that a miracle, not just strength. lol
“Coincidences mean you’re on the right path.”-- Simon Van Booy
"God is not only King and Judge, God is Father – he is indeed Father more than anything else. No father could be happy while there were members of his family forever in agony. No father would count it a triumph to obliterate the disobedient members of his family.
The only triumph a father can know is to have all his family back home. The only victory love can enjoy is the day when its offer of love is answered by the return of love. The only possible final triumph is a universe loved by and in love with God." -Dr. Wm. Barclay-
“But God’s free gift immeasurably outweighs the transgression. For if through the transgression of the one individual the mass of mankind have died, infinitely greater is the generosity with which God’s grace, and the gift given in His grace which found expression in the one man Jesus Christ, have been bestowed on the mass of mankind.”
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