Quotes About Faith

O how abundant is your goodness that you have laid up for those who fear you, and accomplished for those who take refuge in you, in the sight of everyone! In the shelter of your presence you hide them from human plots; you hold them safe under your shelter from contentious tongues.

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. . .

In the quiet of those brief hours, listen to the thunder of God's silence.

Once we have made generous latitude for individual differences and schedules, we must firmly discipline ourselves to a regular pattern of prayer. We cannot assume that time will somehow magically appear. We will never have time for prayer—we must make time. On this score we have to be ruthless with our rationalizations. We must never, for instance, excuse our prayerlessness under the guise of "always living prayerfully.

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

Lord, your way is perfect: Help us always to trust in your goodness, so that, walking with you and following you in all simplicity, we may possess quiet and contented minds, and may cast all our care on you, for you care for us. Grant this, Lord, for your dear Son's sake, Jesus Christ. Amen. —Christina Rossetti

we are not just saved by grace; we live by grace. And we pray by grace and fast by grace and study by grace and serve by grace and worship by grace.

The opposite of grace is works, but not effort.

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.

Christ be with me, Christ within me, Christ behind me, Christ before me, Christ beside me, Christ to win me, Christ to comfort and restore me. Christ beneath me, Christ above me, Christ in quiet, Christ in danger, Christ in hearts of all that love me, Christ in mouth of friend and stranger. —From the breastplate of St. Patrick

Some have exalted religious fasting beyond all Scripture and reason; and others have utterly disregarded it. —JOHN WESLEY

Teach me patience, Lord, and continue to stretch my understanding of who you are and how you work in the world. Continue to cultivate within me the humility to know that your way is best. Amen. For

Faith often means taking a voluntary step from the known into the unknown in response to God's leading.

Remember, God is working, always working, to form us and conform us and transform us into the image of Christ.

To be effective pray-ers, we need to be effective lovers.

I believe the Bible is the best gift God has ever given to man. All the good from The Savior of the world is communicated to us through this Book." —Abraham Lincoln5

As Foster writes, "We will never have pure enough motives, or be good enough, or know enough in order to pray rightly. We simply must set all these things aside and begin praying. In fact, it is in the very act of prayer itself—the intimate, ongoing interaction with God—that these matters are cared for in due time."1

God first acts in grace and mercy by delivering the people, and then the people respond in gratitude and thanksgiving by obeying the commandments. Put succinctly: the crossing of the Red Sea comes before the giving of the Ten Commandments. How

many things tempt our hearts to put them first and God second. We must root out the desire to worship these things and focus on the true God. The

OUR CHOICE IS either to trust our plans with all our heart or trust our God.

The water was only parted once they had acted in faith and followed God. They could not count on any plans, because God gave them none. He only gave them himself. God was the plan.

Remembering God's work in the past has a sustaining and renewing effect during times of spiritual drought. Memory and worship are thus keys to a long life of spiritual formation. Try

True godliness does not turn men out of the world, but enables them to live better in it and excites their endeavors to mend it.

Nothing must come before the kingdom of God, including the desire for a simple life-style.