Quotes About Spirituality

Prayer is the human response to the perpetual outpouring of love by which God lays siege to every soul. When our reply to God is most direct of all, it is called adoration.

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

Our world is hungry for genuinely changed people. Leo Tolstoy observes, "Everybody thinks of changing humanity and nobody thinks of changing himself."6 Let us be among those who believe that the inner transformation of our lives is a goal worthy of our best effort.

Remember that God's intention is that we each come to a fuller knowledge of him as we deepen our personal fellowship with one another." —Richard J. Foster and others, eds., The Life with God Bible 4

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.

There are two sides to the Prayer of Adoration: thanksgiving and praise. The usual distinction between these two experiences is this: in thanksgiving we give glory to God for what he has done for us; in praise we give glory to God for who he is in himself.

But all authentic prayer is a scraping of the heart whereby the dregs of the soul are offered up to God. Nehemiah's

A Spiritual Discipline is an intentionally directed action by which we do what we can do in order to receive from God the ability (or power) to do what we cannot do by direct effort.

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

However brightly the light may shine, it can be seen only by those who are spiritually prepared to receive it. 'Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.'" —A.W. Tozer, The Knowledge of the Holy 8

One caution: our souls will never grow in God if we read the Bible solely to get ammunition to defend ourselves or to defeat others. No. We read the Bible to be fed. We read it to be converted, to be strengthened, to be taught, to be rebuked, to be counseled, to be comforted. As we sit under the Bible for sustained periods, we will be formed by the experience.

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

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

This form of meditation is best accomplished with the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other!

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.

God is working, always working, to form us and conform us and transform us into the image of Christ. God is intent upon this forming, conforming, transforming process. And God invites us to participate in this process by means of interactive relationship.

Praying with frequency gives us the readiness to pray again as needed from moment to moment. The more we pray, the more we think to pray, and as we see the results of prayer—the responses of our Father to our requests—our confidence in God's power spills over into other areas of our life." —Dallas Willard, The Spirit of the Disciplines4

Prayer catapults us onto the frontier of the spiritual life.

Real prayer is life creating and life changing.

To believe that God can reach us and bless us in the ordinary junctures of daily life is the stuff of prayer.