Most persons would "listen on their knees" to anyone who would make God absolutely real to them, so that they could say as John did, "We have beheld His glory." The world is weary of traditional religion, of formalism and hollow words, but most hearts are hungry for that true thing by which life is actually renewed.
—Rufus Jones in Rufus Jones
Speaks to Our Times
No Melody
One frequently meets passersby with music emanating from transistor radios on their persons. Lacking music in our hearts, we carry it in our pockets!
—Vance Havner in The Vance Havner
Quote Book
Be Patient
Jesus went to Jerusalem one Passover holiday and met a man who had waited thirty-eight years at the Bethesda pool for a healing. Tradition had it that every so often an angel of the Lord would stir the waters and whoever stepped in first would be cured. For thirty-eight years, this man had reached out for a healing only to be muscled aside by someone bigger and faster.
Some folks say this man didn't want to be healed, or else he would have pushed other folks aside and hustled into that pool himself. I say true patience is so scarce, we're apt to confuse it with apathy. There's a load of difference between the two. Apathy curls up into self-pity when times get hard. Patience quietly waits its turn, trusting that God will get around to making things right in his perfect time.
—Philip Gulley in Home Town Tales
Vain Search
Those who seek happiness too intensely will have little of it.
—Calvin Miller in The Taste of Joy
The Sin of Self
Christians do not see themselves as wicked; they do not see their righteousness as filthy rags; they do not see themselves as needing to be in a state of ongoing confession and repentance. The result is that the body of Christ is, in large part, suffering from the power-draining effect of a universally unconfessed sin … the vanity of self-righteousness!
—Jim Russell in Awakening the Giant
It Starts with One
But where was I to start? The world is so vast, I shall start with the country I know best, my own. But my country is so very large. I had better start with my town. But my town, too, is large. I had best start with my street. No: my home. No: my family. Never mind,
I shall start with myself.
—Elie Wiesel in Souls on Fire
Forget the Past
It is a mistake to be always turning back to recover the past. The law for Christian living is not backward, but forward; not for experiences that lie behind, but for doing the will of God, which is always ahead and beckoning us to follow. Leave the things that are behind, and reach forward to those that are before, for on each new height to which we attain, there are the appropriate joys that befit the new experience. Don't fret because life's joys are fled. There are more in front. Look up, press forward, the best is yet to be!
While we pray for peace, we need moral clarity about this war.
As my doubts about his teachings grew, so did a secret fascination with Jesus.
Leader explains why the movement is seeing its biggest membership bump in 30 years and its mission for the years ahead.
