Quotes from Randy Alcorn

The kingdom of God . . . does not mean merely the salvation of certain individuals nor even the salvation of a chosen group of people. It means nothing less than the complete renewal of the entire cosmos, culminating in the new heaven and the new earth. Anthony Hoekema

God uses suffering and impending death to unfasten us from this earth and to set our minds on what lies beyond.

The world as it was, and the world as it will be, is exceedingly good. The world as it is now, inhabited by humanity as we are now, is twisted. But this is a temporary condition, with an eternal remedy: Christ's redemptive work.

SCRIVEN (1820–1886) wrote "What a Friend We Have in Jesus" after his fiancée drowned. George Matheson (1842–1906) wrote "O Love That Wilt Not Let Me Go" after his fiancée rejected him because he was going blind.

Though the rest of the earth fell under human sin, Eden was for some reason treated differently. Perhaps it had come from Heaven, God's dwelling place, and was transplanted to Earth. We don't know. But we do know this: God came to Eden to visit with Adam and Eve (Genesis 3:8), which he would no longer do after Adam and Eve were banished from the Garden after the Fall.

any faith that leaves us unprepared for suffering is a false faith that deserves to be abandoned. Genuine

The forbidden Book says when there's no authority "every man does what is right in his own eyes.

God's ownership and sovereignty offer a life-changing and freeing perspective when the house is robbed (or burns to the ground), the car is totaled, the laptop computer is stolen . . . or the diagnosis is terminal cancer.

Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as you ever can." —John Wesley

Our society holds to youthfulness with a white-knuckled grip. Ultimately it's all in vain. But the gospel promises us eternal youthfulness in God's presence.

We've been conditioned to associate governing with self-promoting arrogance, corruption, inequality, and inefficiency. But

He says to use it "to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings" (Luke 16:9, NIV).

Many come short, being satisfied with the works of God rather than hungering for and reaching on to God Himself." —A. W. Tozer

God provides not only in what he gives us, but at times in what he keeps from us. Have you ever noticed that excess money just seems to dissipate in a multitude of directions?

Though I live in a world that sells false happiness at newsstands, websites, and big-box stores, I thank God for authentic happiness in Jesus.

Sinclair Ferguson writes, "Christian contentment is the direct fruit of having no higher ambition than to belong to the Lord and to be totally at His disposal in the place He appoints, at the time He chooses, with the provision He is pleased to make.

Andrew Carnegie said, "The almighty dollar bequeathed to a child is an almighty curse. No man has the right to handicap his son with such a burden as great wealth.

You will be enriched in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion" (2 Corinthians 9:11).

In the Bible, Jesus says more than anyone else about Hell. He refers to it as a literal place and describes it in graphic terms. Jesus taught that in Hell the wicked suffer terribly, are fully conscious, retain their desires and memories and reasoning, long for relief, cannot be comforted, cannot leave their torment, and are bereft of hope. The Savior could not have painted a bleaker picture.

The Day America Told the Truth, James Patterson and Peter Kim

We want something else which can hardly be put into words—to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it.

Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted" (Matthew 23:12).

In the truest sense, Christian pilgrims have the best of both worlds. We have joy whenever this world reminds us of the next, and we take solace whenever it does not.

Jim Elliot put it, "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose." Why work for what has no lasting value? Why rejoice over what in the end will not matter?