Quotes About Devotion

One cannot imagine St. Francis of Assisi talking about rights.

I was a Talking Heads fan from the very beginning.

Sufi music talks about connecting people. It talks about connecting hearts and connecting man with God. Everything that talks about connection is Sufi.

He's dangerous because when God talks to him Bob will do whatever God asks him to do at great cost, even if no one agrees, if it's contrary to the way the stream is going, if Bob feels God is in it he will do it.

I have an audience of one, and that's the Lord. And we've had plenty of talks, let me tell you. And I know my heart's in the right place. And so I just have to stand firm on that.

It would have surprised Mrs. Thornton very much to have been told that hitherto she had meant practically nothing to her children. She took a keen interest in Psychology (the Art Babblative, Southey calls it). She was full of theories about their upbringing which she had not time to put into effect; but nevertheless she thought she had a deep understanding of their temperaments and was the center of their passionate devotion.

Radical self-denial gives the feel of adventure. If we forsake all, we even have the chance of glorious martyrdom. But in service, we must experience the many little death of going beyond ourselves. Service banishes us to the mundane, the ordinary, the trivial

The truly Christian imagination never lets Jesus Christ out of her sight.

rejoice and make a fool of yourself for God the way lovers have always made fools of themselves for the one they love." —Frederick Buechner, Beyond Words

Real prayer comes not from gritting our teeth but from falling in love.

Just as worship begins in holy expectancy, it ends in holy obedience. If worship does not propel us into greater obedience, it has not been worship.

But the king said to Araunah, "No, but I will buy them from you for a price: I will not offer burnt offerings to the LORD my God that cost me nothing." So David bought the threshing floor and the oxen for fifty shekels of silver.

I want to mention one other reason why we shy away from commitment. It is, very simply, the fear that we will not be able to fulfill our covenant. We may have made commitments in the past that we were not able to fulfill—perhaps a marriage vow or a promise to our children. Or it could have been something far more simple—a pledge to be diligent in devotional reading, for example.

Lord, take as your right, and receive as my gift, all my freedom, my memory, my understanding and my will. Whatever I am and whatever I possess, you have given it to me; I restore it all to you again, to be at your disposal, according to your will. Give me only a love for you, and the gift of your grace; then I am rich enough, and ask for nothing more. —St. Ignatius of Loyola

No servant can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon" (Luke 16:13). He speaks frequently and unambiguously to economic issues. He says, "Blessed are you poor, for yours is the kingdom of God" and "Woe to you that are rich, for you have received your consolation" (Luke 6:20, 24).

My dearest Lord, be thou a bright flame before me, a guiding star above me, a smooth path beneath me, a kindly shepherd behind me, today and for evermore. —St. Columba of Iona

PRAYER IS THE serious business of the Church, the first and best business it renders for the world.

Today, O Lord, I yield myself to you. May your will be my delight today. May your way have perfect sway in me. May your love be the pattern of my living. —Richard J. Foster, Prayers from the Heart12

The offering of ourselves can only be the offering of our lived experience, because this alone is who we are. And who we are—not who we want to be—is the only offering we have to give. We give God therefore not just our strengths but also our weaknesses, not just our giftedness but also our brokenness.

As worship begins in holy expectancy, it ends in holy obedience. Holy obedience saves worship from becoming an opiate, an escape from the pressing needs of modern life.

John Havel, a seventeenth-century English Puritan, noted that the "greatest difficulty in conversion, is to win the heart to God; and the greatest difficulty after conversion, is to keep the heart with God. . .

train[ing] . . . in godliness" (1 Tim 4:7). This is the purpose of the disciplines of the spiritual life.

The Spiritual Disciplines in and of themselves have no merit whatsoever. They possess no righteousness, contain no rectitude. Their purpose—their only purpose—is to place us before God.

To pray is to change. Prayer is the central avenue God uses to transform us. If we are unwilling to change, we will abandon prayer as a noticeable characteristic of our lives.