Quotes About God

Self-love, self-esteem, judging one's neighbors (even though in little things), a lack of charity for them, and not loving them as ourselves" are like little worms gnawing away at our life with God.

Hatred for sin is important. Confidence in the mercy of God is even more important.

As John of the Cross points out with devastating accuracy and precision, the disorders in our heart, unless they are healed and purified by the action of the one true God, will leave us enslaved to our passions and unable to think clearly, decide wisely, and live in a way worthy of our dignity as bearers of the image of God.

the spiritual journey is all about is uniting our will with God's will, wanting what He wants, loving what He loves, living a life that in all its aspects honors Him and gives Him glory.

Union with God of this depth is totally unattainable by our own efforts; it is a gift that only God can give; we are totally dependent on His grace for progress in the spiritual life. Yet

God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our consciences, but shouts in our pain: it is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.474

Here John very helpfully, and very realistically, explains that a genuine purifying dryness may coexist with some elements of emotional problems, such as depression; nevertheless, if the concern to serve and please God persists in the midst of the difficulty, it is a sign of God's purifying work.

As we dispose ourselves for union by turning from sin and from all inordinate attachments as best we can, and as we focus our lives on God, the Lord by degrees gives us graces in prayer such as Teresa has been describing, which help to bring about the transformation.

the goal is not the experience, but the union, manifested in a greater conformity of our will to God's will, in love of God and neighbor.

God is permitting the apparent triumph of evil to reveal the secrets of hearts, just as it was prophesied by Simeon at Jesus' birth.

our patience has to become a universal submission to the will of God, in humility.

If we have not sinned as seriously it is because of God's grace preventing and protecting us, which gives us the right and duty of being as deeply grateful and passionately loving as the greatest of forgiven sinners.

God cannot inspire unrealizable desires.

The purest suffering brings with it the purest and most intimate knowing, and consequently the purest and highest joy, because it is a knowing from further within . . . even to the agony of death in order to see God. . . .

Indeed, one of the most insistent messages of both Testaments is that there are two ways set before the human race: one way leads to life; the other way leads to death. This is not just a theoretical possibility or an empty warning. The witness of the entire Bible—and indeed of all of human history—is to the actual historical realization of choice for and against God.

of God and his Word and sexual sin and disorders. Romans 1 gives a devastating account of the downward descent into sexual confusion and disorder that flows from a rejection of God and a willful suppression of the truth that he has revealed to all mankind. The rejection of God's Word regarding sexuality and its purposes in the name of "fulfillment" not only assaults Christian values but produces a harvest which is miserable in simply human terms.

In essence, contemplative prayer is a communication with God that isn't simply our own mental or affective effort, but has at least some dimension of "givenness" by God, some infusion of light or love or presence that transcends our own efforts.

Francis says we should make reasonable efforts to refute lies that are being told about us, but if our efforts are not effective, we should simply go on with our lives trusting in God to care for us, continuing to humble ourselves. If He permits our reputation to be taken away from us it will either be "to give us a better one or to make us profit by holy humility, of which a single ounce is preferable to a thousand pounds of honor.

He will judge people on the basis of their response — or lack of response — to mercy. Those who presume on the mercy of God without repenting are "storing up wrath" for themselves

In the early stages, this withdrawal helps center the soul properly on God and not on His consolations and gives an opportunity for deeper and truer decisions of commitment to God to be made. Also called the "dark night of the senses," the soul is purified of gross attachments to the delights of the senses and the things of this world, thus increasing its desire for God.

Reproving others is a thankless office and an unwelcome work for the most part; men take reproofs for reproaches, yet since God has laid it on good men as their duty to rebuke and not suffer sin to lie upon their brother, they dare not omit it.

Sin, in being contrary to God, is contrary to man, for what crosses God's glory is opposed to man's happiness.

Oh, learn to pity your own soul, for he who sins offends and wrongs God, but also wrongs and destroys his own soul

Do not contend with God who is stronger than you are, who is able when he will (and he will one day be found both able and willing enough) to turn the wicked into hell, the element of sin and sinners, who shall go into it as into their own place, as Judas did