Love — and the unity it attests to — is the mark Christ gave Christians to wear before the world. Only with this mark may the world know that Christians are indeed Christians and that Jesus was sent by the Father.
~Francis Schaeffer~
“It must not be tolerated that Christ should be unknown through our silence, and sinners unwarned through our negligence.”
C.H. Spurgin
We are saved because what God uses to drag us to Himself is the overwhelming power of His love, mercy, and grace. We are compelled by His sacrifice on the cross, His patient loving-kindness, and the lengths to which He will go to draw us in.
Ray Bently
Too often a new generation feels it isn't "understood" -- which leads to various forms of rebellion against the status quo. The thing we don't understand is how much we all are alike -- we think our times are different, yet really it's all the same problem: sin.
PR
“Feeling overwhelmed, and scrambling to get a better fix on the problem, they will do the only safe thing: they will pull back and assume the stance of objective analysts,”. “Naturally they will go about this in a very warm and godly way with the best of intentions. Yet, without realizing it, by their clinical theorizing, they are effectively withdrawing their human affections, their very friendship, at a time when intimate friendship is most needed.”
says Mike Mason
“Life isn’t an accumulation of abstractions such as love and truth, sin and salvation, atonement and holiness; life is…names and fingerprints, street numbers and local weather, a lamb for supper, and a flat tire in the rain. God reveals Himself to us not in a metaphysical formulation or a cosmic fireworks display but in the kind of stories we use to tell our children who they are and how to grow up as human beings…Story is the Gospel way. The story isn’t imposed on our lives; it invites us into its life…The Holy Spirit weaves all this storytelling into the vast and holy literary architecture that reveals God to us as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit…to get this revelation right, we enter into the story.”
Eugene Peterson
Our duty is found in the revealed will of God in the Scriptures.
~Jerry Bridges~
There can be no thought of ‘cheap’ forgiveness when we remember that our redemption cost God the life of his beloved Son.
~Geoffrey B. Wilson~
"I now make it my earnest prayer, that God would have you and the State over which you preside, in his holy protection that he would incline the hearts of the Citizens to cultivate a spirit of subordination and obedience to Government, to entertain a brotherly affection and love for one another, for their fellow citizens of the United States at large..." -
George Washington
“We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven; we have been preserved these many years in peace and prosperity; we have grown in numbers, wealth, and power as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us, and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own." -
Abraham Lincoln
Don’t go to the wall to defend your opinions about what’s secondary—save that for the primary. Above all, don’t take others to the wall. Your position on secondary issues is never as important as loving the people you differ from!
Scripture doesn’t limit its reasons against sin to “just because it’s wrong.” It also includes “because it’s stupid” since sin’s consequences are so severe.
Prayer is the open admission that without Christ we can do nothing. And prayer is the turning away from ourselves to God in the confidence that He will provide the help we need. Prayer humbles us as needy and exalts God as wealthy.
~John Piper~
Satan “scouts us out” and knows only too well the chinks in the armor of every Christian. His aim is deadly, he excels at tailor-made temptations, and it is at our points of greatest vulnerability that he will attack.
Randy Alcorn
Would anyone in their right mind choose the punishment for what they deserve? God has offered His own Son as payment for our sin --
PR
To Him [Jesus] the assemblies of the saints pay all regal honor, and at his throne the entire church boweth itself, saluting him as Master and Lord.
~C.H. Spurgeon~
Sin is the great negative equalizer and is why we all need a savior (Romans 3:23 "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God").
PR
Throughout the centuries of church history debates have regularly occurred over the interpretation of Scripture. The furor and passion of these disputes have sometimes led to denominational or congregational splits. However, the one positive thing that comes out of most types of Biblical discussion is a lot more people open, read, and study their Bibles with greater interest and passion to find out what God has said about a subject. And when God's people read the Word -- revival almost always follows.
PR
Sometimes Christians get caught up in their differences with other denominations rather than what we all have in common: One God = Same Faith. If our focus is placed on our similarities, the disagreements seem a lot less significant
PR
Comments