Quotes About Faith

We each cope differently with the specter of our deaths. Some people deny it. Some pray. Some numb themselves with tequila. I was tempted to do a little of each of those things. But I think we are supposed to try to face it straightforwardly, armed with nothing but courage.

How do you fight an invisible opponent like suspicion?

Fired by an emotional faith in spontaneity, the common-sense attitude toward change was discarded in favor of a mystical readiness to accept the social consequences of economic improvement

Over many decades technological optimists have been sustained by the belief that whatever happened to be created in the sphere of material/instrumental culture would certainly be compatible with freedom, democracy, and social justice. This amounts to a conviction that all technology—whatever its size, shape, or complexion—is inherently liberating. For reasons noted in the previous chapter, that is a very peculiar faith indeed.

A religious war is like killing someone over who has the better imaginary friend.

The central truth that serves as the platform for Christian marriage — and for all Christian relationships — is that in Christ we are at every moment eternally loved and genuinely significant.

In order to compete with sin's appeal, holy desire, the longing to live a Christlike life that displays the relational beauty of Christ to others, must be rooted in faith. And that faith exists only when it is lodged in the certainty that soon it will give way to an incomparable experience of joy that will forever destroy the appeal of sin.

I once heard worship defined as celebrating the availability of God.

The Christian always has reason to celebrate. When we fail, celebrate His grace. When we are blessed, celebrate His mercy. When others reject us, celebrate His love.

And life (or God) seems to reply, "Get ready! The other shoe is going to drop. When? I want to surprise you.

It is regrettable that many Christian psychologists talk more about such things as unconscious motivation and emotional damage than they do about sin and responsibility.

When you can't figure Me out, you will give up the illusion of predictability and control and discover the joy and freedom of hope.

Debo renunciar a mi fascinación por mí mismo ante el beneficio de una preocupación más compatible con la naturaleza del objetivo de Dios. No estoy yo en el centro. Sino Dios. Existo por él y no existe él por mí.

You're coming to Him not to get Him to enter your world and change things to make you happy and give your life meaning and provide you with the blessings you want. You're now entering His world wanting to bring Him glory, to become a source of joy to your Papa, willing to endure whatever suffering is required to make that happen.

We try to reach the heart of God without listening to the Word of God.

By cutting God off (what a staggering concept of freedom—mere humans can cut God off from their lives), you cut off the only source of true significance and security.

Everything you were designed to experience and enjoy is found in God. Knowing God is your life and your highest joy. You either believe that or you don't. Believe it and you will experience and enjoy life, real life, eventually. Guaranteed. Disbelieve it and, at best, you will experience counterfeit life and enjoy it only for a season.

Like the seminarian relying more on his knowledge of Hebrew than on the Spirit to hear God's voice in the text, we're more prone to carefully maneuvering our way through life than to abandoning ourselves to divine providence.

The choice before us is rather stark: either live to be comfortable (both internally and externally, but especially internally), or live to know God. We can't have it both ways. One choice excludes the other. P91

whatever `call' a man may pretend to have, if he has not been called to holiness, he certainly has not been called to the ministry.10

Religion is such an icky, sticky thing, full of tortuous—well, everything. Why is it so essential for man to be forced, for that is what religion relies on, force, to believe in anything but himself? And this is what John Winthrop should represent for us: the utter disdain he and Puritanism have for the self, for the human, for the human being.

I suppose you set up reading the Good Book all night-spoken by Woodrow Call

He knew what he could certainly do, and what he might do if he was lucky, and what he couldn't do barring a miracle.

perhaps as he grew older he would learn to trust mysteries and not fear them.