The Privilege Of Giving Your Riches Away

"Do you find comfort in the fact that perhaps the Lord does not require of you what he required of the rich Jewish youth? Then I am sorry for you. Your relief is to know that the Lord does not require you to part with your money and possessions, but he also does not offer you himself instead! You did not sell him for thirty pieces of silver, but you are glad not to buy him with all that you have?"

- George MacDonald

Source: MacDonald George. Knowing the Heart of God. Edited by Michael R. Phillips. Bethany House Publishers, 1990: p. 58.

Burning the Destructible

"That which is immortal in God shall remain in man. The death that is in them shall be consumed. It is the law of Nature--that is, the law of God--that all that is destructible shall be destroyed. When that which is immortal buries itself in the destructible--when it receives all the messages from without, through the surrounding region of decadence, and none from within, from the eternal doors--it cannot, though immortal still, know its own immortality. The destructible must be burned out of it, or begin to be burned out of it, before it can _partake_ of eternal life."

- George MacDonald

Source: MacDonald, George. Unspoken Sermon Series I., II., and III. Johannesen, 1997. Digital.

God's Impartation Of Life

"life is nothing else than God Himself. It should be evident that there can be no true Christian sharing unless there is first an impartation of life. . . One hundred religious persons knit into a unity by careful organization do not constitute a church any more than eleven dead men make a football team. The first requisite is life, always."

- A. W. Tozer

Source: Tozer, A. W. (1966). Man: the dwelling place of god. Harrisburg, PA: Christian Publications, Inc.

Pursuing Knowledge vs. Pursuing Life

"It may be my reader will desire me to say how the Lord will save him from his sin. That is like the lawyer's question, 'Who is my neighbor?' . . . Such questions spring from the passion for the fruit of the tree of knowledge, not the fruit of the tree of life."

- George MacDonald

Source: MacDonald, George. Knowing the Heart of God. Edited by Michael R. Phillips. Bethany House Publishers, 1990: p. 213.

Worship

"Whatever you worship, you become obsessed with. Whatever you become obsessed with, you imitate. And whatever you imitate, you become. In other words, whatever you value most will ultimately determine who you are."

- Louie Giglio

Source: Giglio, Louie. The Air I Breathe. Colorado Springs: Multnomah Books, Inc. 2003. p. 37.

False Explanations About God

"I hardly know which error is worse--the untruth of Christians who have erected a false system of doctrines to explain a God whose heart they have not sought to know, or the untruth of non-Christians who foolishly do not look beyond such flimsy fabrications. Neither side, it seems, is hungry to find the real truth, but only to build up or tear down something that is not even there!"

- George MacDonald

Source: MacDonald, George. Knowing The Heart Of God. Compiled, arranged, and edited by Michael R. Phillips. Bethany House Publishers, 1990: p. 19.

Faith

"Faith is the foot of the soul by which it can march along the road of the commandments. Love can make your feet move swiftly, but faith is the foot which carries the soul. Faith is the oil enabling the wheels of holy devotion and of earnest piety to move well, and without faith the wheels are taken from the chariot and we drag heavily."

- Charles Spurgeon 

 Source: Morning Devotion. 16 Mar 2011. Blue Letter Bible. 6 Mar 2011. <http://www.blueletterbible.org/devotionals/me/view.cfm?Date=03/16&Time=pm>

War

"Let's check back in with Paul. Remember his message to the men of Athens? Remember his audience? The council Paul addressed that day was called the Aeropagus, named after Ares, the Greek god of war. Isn't it interesting that this is the setting God chose for Paul to give this address on the real meaning of life? On this day God's words of truth landed in the very arena where opinions battled. Where war was waged daily to shape the philosophical foundation of man's existence."

- Louie Giglio

Source: Giglio, Louie. The Air I Breathe. Colorado Springs: Multnomah Books, Inc. 2003. p. 34.

The Obedience Watershed

"It makes little difference in the end if Scripture is compromised by theological infiltration or by infiltration from the surrounding culture. It is the obeying of Scripture which is the watershed--obeying the Bible equally in doctrine and in the way we live in the full spectrum of life."

- Francis A. Schaeffer

Source: Schaeffer, Francis A. The Great Evangelical Disaster. Crossway Books, 1995: p. 64.

Purpose

" Well you know you and I, we were all obviously born into a world that’s very far from God. And when somebody is very far from God, obviously we don’t even know who our creator is anymore, even if we believe think we’re created. Many think they were just evolved. But here when you get far from who created you, you now have lost an identity as to even why you were created and therefore when you don’t even know why you were created, you don’t even know what success is, or what fulfillment is. And when you don’t even know what was planned in making you for and what the ultimate design and fulfillment of man was in the mind of God now you are just left to yourself to define your own objective. “I will be fulfilled when this has happened or that has happened…I will have succeeded when this thing happens.” And so we all have re-written our own personal success pictures and images of what we believe it is."

-Don McClure

Source: McClure, Don. Sermon on Faith. Calvary Chapel La Habra. 6 March 2011.

Strength in Christ

"Leave every anxiety at the foot of the cross. I have not exhausted My resources in helping you. Your faith is flagging. Go back to the Word and strengthen your soul with heavenly manna. I will keep you and bless you, and you shall bear My words to comfort others."

- Frances J. Roberts

Source: Roberts, Frances J. Progress of Another Pilgrim. Uhrichsville, Ohio: Barbour Publishing, Inc., 1970. p. 17.

Be Guarded, Guided and Governed

"If the Scripture teaches that truly knowing God - knowing Christ - guards and guides and governs our sexuality in purity and love, then we may be sure that a pastor, or anyone else, whose sexuality is not governed and guarded and guided in purity and love does not know God - at least not as he ought."

- John Piper

Source: Piper, John, and Justin Taylor. Sex and the Supremacy of Christ. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2005. 32. Print.

How You Shape Your Life

"Life is built on character, but character is built on decisions. The decisions you make, small and great, do to your life what the sculptor's chisel does to the block of marble. You are shaping your life by your thoughts, attitudes, and actions and becoming either more or less like Jesus."

- Warren W. Wiersbe

Source: Wiersbe, Warren W. On Being a Servant of God. Revised Edition. Baker Books, 2007: p. 47.

Move

"Be not hindered. You are being held by nothing more than the usual—the familiar, the humdrum schedule. Break out of it as I direct. Let it not imprison you, for I have much work for you to do in other pastures. MOVE, and I will order your steps as you go and I will give you rich ministry."

- Frances J. Roberts

Source: Roberts, Frances J. Progress of Another Pilgrim. Uhrichsville, Ohio: Barbour Publishing, Inc., 1970. p. 16.