Quotes from Scotty Smith

Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. (1 Pet. 5:7 NIV)

Forbearing Father, thank you for documenting the relational failures, foibles, and foolishness of your people. It helps me repent of idolizing the perfect community. It also keeps me from giving up and running away from other Christians. The fact that you've chronicled just how poorly we love one another is a witness to the steadfastness of your love and the depth of our brokenness. We need the gospel every day—every hour.

When I get lulled and dulled into that place, it's usually because I haven't been spending unrushed time with you—gazing upon your beauty and bounty, reflecting upon your glory and grace, listening for your singing and rejoicing over me in the gospel.

Only your love is better than life, Jesus. Only your love meets the deepest needs of my whole being and satisfies my most intense longings. Only your love is unwavering, Jesus, for all other loves are filled with conditions and contingencies. Only your love is unfailing, Jesus, for all other loves are fickle and finite.

On the cross you secured God's peace with me and my peace with God. The enmity and hostility between us have been obliterated and eradicated. Peace with God is now a legal right of mine, a done deal, a settled issue. How can I not overflow with gratitude as this day begins and as it continues?

Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to your name give glory, for the sake of your steadfast love and your faithfulness! Why should the nations say, "Where is their God?" Our God is in the heavens; he does all that he pleases. Their idols are silver and gold, the work of human hands. (Ps. 115:1–4)

So I commend the enjoyment of life, because there is nothing better for a person under the sun than to eat and drink and be glad. Then joy will accompany them in their toil all the days of the life God has given them under the sun. (Eccles. 8:15 NIV)

Bring me out of prison, that I may give thanks to your name! (Ps. 142:7)

Have mercy on me, Father, and free my foolish heart from giving anything or anyone the attention, allegiance, affection, and adoration you alone deserve.

He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away." He who was seated on the throne said, "I am making everything new!" Then he said, "Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true." (Rev. 21:4–5 NIV)

I don't want to ever get used to feeling disconnected from the gospel.

May our zeal against abortion be matched by our zeal for adoption.

In this crisis we praise you for Jesus, the high and safe Rock, the ultimate trustworthy foundation for any and every storm of life (Matt. 7:24–27). Thank you for rescuing us from building our lives on all kinds of shifting sands.

I want to know you, Lord Jesus, more intimately than ever. This is the one thing I want more than anything else. And I want to experience more of the power of your resurrection, for I have no power in myself to love others as you love me.

The scary becomes the sacred when we're wearing the lens of the gospel.

I want to enter more fully into the fellowship of sharing in your sufferings, living out the birth pangs of new-creation life in this broken world, which groans for its release from the bondage to decay—a release that is sure to come (Rom. 8:18–25). Our labors in you are not in vain, Jesus (Phil. 3:10–11).

Give us redemptive discontent until our hearts rest again in you.

Because the gospel is true, I don't respond to Joshua's bold charge with a list of New Year's resolutions—promises of what I'm going to do for you. Rather, I begin this year resolving to abandon myself to everything Jesus has done for us. Jesus is the promise keeper, not us. He's the one who has promised to make all things new, including me.

Those the Lord has rescued will return. They will enter Zion with singing; everlasting joy will crown their heads. Gladness and joy will overtake them, and sorrow and sighing will flee away. "I, even I, am he who comforts you." (Isa. 51:11–12 NIV)

When God blesses our hearts with boredom, discontent, anxiety, emptiness, or restlessness, he loves us well. For his goal is to wean our wayward hearts away from things that hold no ultimate satisfaction.

We give thanks to God always for all of you, constantly mentioning you in our prayers, remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ. For we know, brothers loved by God, that he has chosen you, because our gospel came to you not only in word, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction. (1 Thess. 1:2–5)

People were also bringing babies to Jesus for him to place his hands on them. When the disciples saw this, they rebuked them. But Jesus called the children to him and said, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it." (Luke 18:15–17 NIV)

I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleanness, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. (Ezek. 36:25–27)

Dear friends, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that has come on you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice inasmuch as you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed. (1 Pet. 4:12–13 NIV)