Spiritual Life

*“The man who is intimate with God is never intimidated by man.”

— Leonard Ravenhill (1907-1994), American church leader

“When man works, man works. When man prays, God works.”

— Pat Johnson

*“He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.”

— Jim Elliot (1927-1956), Christian missionary martyr

*“If you lose your soul, there is a danger of its being destroyed. Therefore, you may not love it, since you do not want it to be destroyed. But in not wanting it to be destroyed, you love it.”

— St. Augustine (354-430), North African theologian and philosopher

“Unless there is an element of risk in our exploits for God, there is no need for faith.”

— Hudson Taylor (1832-1905), British missionary to China

“Belief is when your whole being is set to act as if something is so.”

— Dallas Willard, USC philosophy professor, Renovation of the Heart, p. 248

*“Our wrestling with the enemy can never hope for victory unless this Man [Jesus] has first wrestled with us, has dealt with all that hinders His control, and has reduced us to complete surrender.”

— 1930 report of China Inland Mission

“God is looking for a few good men in whose hands his glory is safe.”

— A. W. Tozer (1897-1963), American pastor and writer

“You can impress someone from a distance, but you can only impact them up close.”

— Howard Hendricks, Dallas Seminary professor

“Spiritual influence never coincided with material affluence.”

— F. F. Bruce (1910-1990), Scottish scholar and theologian

*“That is why faith, wherever it develops into hope, causes not rest but unrest, not patience but impatience…. Those who hope in Christ can no longer put up with reality as it is.”

— Jürgen Moltmann, German theologian, in Theology of Hope

*“When man ceases to believe in God, he does not believe in nothing. He believes in anything.”

— G. K. Chesterton (1874-1936), British philosopher and Christian thinker

*“God creates out of nothing. Until man becomes nothing, God will make nothing of him.”

— Martin Luther (1483-1536), Reformation leader

*“Remember, the grace of God works with what it brings, not what it finds.”

— Anonymous college professor

“One thing that sticks out about [former Miami Heat forward] Wayne [Simien] is his desire to see his life influence the world…. Wayne’s desire is to reflect a God who has had an impact on his life in a tangible, practical way, not just in religious rhetoric….”

— Erik Fish, Assoc. Pastor, Morning Star Church, Lawrence, KS (Sun-Sentinel, 10/14/05, p. C14)

“Does Christ commend the famous ‘apathy’ of the Stoic or the Buddhist elimination of desire? Far from it. The issue is not just feeling or desire, but right feeling or desire, or being controlled by feeling or desire.”

— Dallas Willard, USC philosophy professor, Renovation of the Heart, p. 72

*“Never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God.”

— Corrie Ten Boom (1892-1983), Dutch Holocaust survivor

“You do not need a great faith, but faith in a great God.”

— Hudson Taylor (1832-1905), British missionary to China

“The surest source of destruction to men is to obey themselves.”

— John Calvin (1509-64), Reformation theologian

“A man’s conception of God creates his attitude toward the hour in which he lives.”

— G. Campbell Morgan (1863-1945), British theologian

“You can no more trust Jesus and not intend to obey him than you could trust your doctor and your auto mechanic and not intend to follow their advice. If you don’t intend to follow their advice, you simply don’t trust them. Period.”

— Dallas Willard, USC philosophy professor, Renovation of the Heart, p. 88

“Who would lead must follow truth.”

— Bumper sticker

“A Christian is not ruined by living in the world, but by the world living in him.”

— Anonymous

“Discipline yourself so others won’t. Outward discipline leads to inward direction.”

— Anonymous

“The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.”

— Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948), Indian political and spiritual leader

*“Until you know that life is war, you cannot know what prayer is for. Prayer is primarily a wartime walkie-talkie for the mission of the church as it advances against the powers of darkness and unbelief . . . (But) we tried to rig it up as an intercom in our houses and cabins and boats and cars – not to call in fire power for conflict with a mortal enemy, but to ask for more comforts in the den.”

— John Piper, pastor, author and theologian

“Poverty-stricken as the Church is today in many things, she is most stricken here, in the place of prayer. We have many organizers, but few agonizers; many players and payers, but few pray-ers; many singers, few clingers; lots of pastors, few wrestlers; many fears, few tears; much fashion, little passion; many inteferers, few intercessors; many writers, but few fighters. Failing here, we fail everywhere.”

— Leonard Ravenhill (1907-1994), American church leader

“The glory of God is a person fully alive!”

— Iraneus (125-202 AD), Church father

*“Destiny is not a matter of chance; it is a matter of choice. It is not something to be waited for; it is a thing to be achieved.”

— William Jennings Bryan (1860-1925), American lawyer and politician

“Feelings too must be renovated: old ones removed in many cases, or at least thoroughly modified, and new ones installed or at least heightened into a new prominence.”

— Dallas Willard, USC philosophy professor, Renovation of the Heart, p. 117

“The Church is looking for better methods, God is looking for better men?”

— E. M. Bounds (1835-1913), Christian pastor and writer

*“A word spoken by you when your conscience is clear and your heart full of God’s Spirit is worth ten thousand words spoken in unbelief and sin. ”

— Robert Murray McCheyne (1813-1843), Scottish clergyman

*“Example has more followers than reason. We unconsciously imitate what pleases us, and approximate to the characters we most admire.”

— Christian Nestell Bovee (1820-1904), American lawyer and author

“I cannot breathe without the Bible. Every morning I must read a passage because I feel hungry for God’s Word.”

— Maja, a 17-year-old Macedonian high school student

“The effect of standing before God by welcoming him before us will be the transformation of our entire life.”

— Dallas Willard, USC philosophy professor, Renovation of the Heart, p. 109

*“He has the most need of righteousness who least wants it.”

— Old Puritan saying

*“Only the disciplined are free.”

— J. C. Penney (1875-1971), American businessman and entrepreneur

“Prayer is not a preparation for work, it IS work. Prayer is not a preparation for the battle, it IS the battle. Prayer is two-fold: definite asking and definite waiting to receive.”

— Oswald Chambers (1874-1917), British Christian writer

“I had to e-mail you because your message rings so true. I burn for influence from older, stronger Christian men–just to spend time with them…I’m desperate for another man or men to draw on. And I’m not the only one who sees it, either. The students around me are starved for influence outside the world of 18-22 year olds.”

— Email from a male college student to a Christian leader

“The crowd says, ‘Follow us and fit in.’ Christ says, ‘Follow me and stand out.’

— Richard Altork, missionary

“Mature people are made not out of good times but out of bad times. Man’s extremity is God’s opportunity. It is in the crisis that the best in us comes to the fore.”

— Hyman Judah Schachtel (1907-1990), rabbi and author

“People who don’t care about religion don’t have a clue about the degree to which faith motivates human behavior.”

— Dr. Mark Regnerus, University of Texas Sociology professor, member of the Center for the Scientific Study of Religion

*“One does not miss heaven by a hair, but by constant effort to avoid and escape God.“

— Dallas Willard, USC philosophy professor, Renovation of the Heart, p. 59

“I never liked the middle ground – the most boring place in the world.”

— Louise Nevelson (1900-1988) Russian-American artist

*“I can plod. I can persevere in any definite pursuit. To this I owe everything.”

— William Carey (1761-1834), British missionary to India

“People who do not know the Lord ask why in the world we waste our lives as missionaries. They forget that they too are expending their lives…and when the bubble has burst, they will have nothing of eternal significance to show for the years they have wasted.”

— Nate Saint (1923-56), American missionary martyr

*“In the evening I was unexpectedly visited by a considerable number of people, with whom I was enabled to converse profitably of divine things. Took pains to describe the difference between a regular and irregular self love; the one consisting with a supreme love to God, but the other not; the former uniting God’s glory and the souls happiness that they become one common interest, but the latter disjoining and separating God’s glory and man’s happiness, seeking the larger with the neglect of the former.”

— David Brainerd (1718-1747), American missionary

*“For my own part, I have never ceased to rejoice that God has appointed me to such an office [as missionary]. People talk of the sacrifice of spending so much of my life in Africa. Can that be called a sacrifice? … Is that a sacrifice which brings its own blest reward in healthful activity, the consciousness of doing good, peace of mind, and a bright hope of a glorious destiny hereafter? Away with the word in such a view, and with such a thought! It is emphatically no sacrifice. Say rather it is a privilege. Anxiety, sickness, suffering, or danger, now and then, with a foregoing of the common conveniences and charities of this life, may make us pause, and cause the spirit to waver, and the souls to sink; but let this only be for a moment. All these are nothing when compared with the glory which shall be revealed in and for us. I never made a sacrifice.”

— David Livingstone (1813-1873), British missionary to Africa

“Pray as though everything depended on God. Work as though everything depended on you.”

— St. Augustine (354-430), North African theologian and philosopher

“I have discovered that all the unhappiness of men arises from one single fact, that they cannot stay quietly in their own chamber.”

— Blaise Pascal (1623-1662 ), French mathematician and scientist, in Pensées

“The devil is but a whetstone to sharpen the faith and patience of the saints.”

— Samuel Rutherford (1600?-1661), Scottish theologian

“And Satan trembles when he sees, the weakest saint upon his knees.

— William Cowper (1731-1800) English poet and hymn writer

“For God to do a miracle, impossibility is needed. For God to work powerfully through someone, utter human weakness is needed.”

— Bennie Mostert

“Before we can pray, ‘Thy Kingdom come,’ we must be willing to pray, ‘My Kingdom go.’”

— Alan Redpath (1907-1989), British pastor, evangelist and author

“[W]e have become people who focus on managing and minimizing risk everywhere we see it. We love the illusion of danger but not the real thing… “We want Jesus to be the same way: all reward, no risk. We don’t give ourselves fully to him because we are afraid he will send us to China or ask us to become poor. We want the illusion of faith, as long as we are safe. But walking with God is not a no-risk proposition. It is one of the most dangerous things you can do… “We have a part to play in this life of risk and faith. Jesus calls us beyond our comfort level to step into obedience and watch God do great and mighty things. We say to God, ‘Show me and I’ll believe’. Instead, God says to us, ‘Believe, and I’ll show you’. This is the life of following Jesus Christ.”

— Mike Erre in “The Jesus of Suburbia”

“The only way your powers can become great is by exerting them outside the circle of your own narrow, special, selfish interests. And that is the reason of Christianity. Christ came into the world to save others, not to save himself; and no man is a true Christian who does not think constantly of how he can lift his brother, how he can assist his friend, how he can enlighten mankind, how he can make virtue the rule of conduct in the circle in which he lives.”

— President Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924), on October 24, 1914

“Physical strength can never permanently withstand the impact of spiritual force.”

— US President Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945)

“Fame is a vapor, popularity an accident, riches take wings. Only one thing endures: that is character.”

— Horace Greeley (181-1872), American newspaper editor, politician and reformer

“You can do one of two things: You can humble yourself or life will humble you. I think it’s a lot easier to find a way to humble yourself.”

— Billy Donovan, University of Florida basketball coach, 2008