Quotes About Belief

So often the providences of God seem to run completely counter to His promises, but only that He may test our faith, only that He may ultimately accomplish His purpose for our lives in a way that He could never do if the path were always smooth.

But to doubt God and to question His motives causes our faith to shrink until literally we cease to be believers—we are believers in name, but not in practice or in action.

So often multitudes of people gather around some broken cistern of this world, trying to satisfy their thirst for they know not what. They grumble about their troubles and complain about their lot, but how few of them run to the One who said, "If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink. He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water" (John 7:37–38).

All of the Lord Jesus Christ is mine at the moment of conversion, but I possess only as much of Him as by faith I claim.

Many seem to think that, first of all, the Bible has to be explained, but that is not true. It has to be believed and obeyed! We fail to see the tremendous difference between knowing the Word of God and knowing the God of the Word. Conferences, rallies, missionary conventions, and church services come and go, and we remain unchanged. We are often just a group of unbelieving believers, perhaps never so well equipped, but never so poorly endued.

Can you imagine getting hit with all that bad news at one time? What's even more amazing is Job's response. He responded by mourning his losses, worshipping and praising God, and not blaming God for his calamities! No wonder God trusted him so much!

God works things out on his timetable to bring the best results for us too.

the most important currency a congregation has to spend is hope.

It was the Cheshire Cat who had said to Alice, "I'm not crazy. My reality is just different than yours.

Man plans and God laughs," said Seth.

William Cummings was right: there are no atheists in foxholes.

I think all of us certainly believed the statistics which said that probably 88% chance of mission success and maybe 96% chance of survival. And we were willing to take those odds.

You have to be there not for the fame and glory and recognition and being a page in a history book, but you have to be there because you believe your talent and ability can be applied effectively to operation of the spacecraft.

Whether you are an astronomer or a life scientist, geophysicist, or a pilot, you've got to be there because you believe you are good in your field, and you can contribute, not because you are going to get a lot of fame or whatever when you get back.

For most of us church folks, the norm has been defined by what we have or haven't experienced up to this point. Another way of saying this is we've allowed our experience to define normal. What we experience determines what is normal; what we consider to be normal is authoritative, and thus our experience becomes our authority. What we have or haven't experienced sets the bar for what we do and don't expect from God.

Life has . taught me not to expect success to be the inevitable result of my endeavors. She taught me to seek sustenance from the endeavor itself, but to leave the result to God.

Science is a differential equation. Religion is a boundary condition.

We like to believe that Man is in some subtle way superior to the rest of creation. It is best if he can be shown to be necessarily superior, for then there is no danger of him losing his commanding position.

A myth is an image in terms of which we try to make sense of the world.

Faith is a state of openness or trust.

In other words, a person who is fanatic in matters of religion, and clings to certain ideas about the nature of God and the universe, becomes a person who has no faith at all.

And the attitude of faith is the very opposite of clinging to belief, of holding on.

But the attitude of faith is to let go, and become open to truth, whatever it might turn out to be.

The difficulty for most of us in the modern world is that the old-fashioned idea of God has become incredible or implausible.