It is not the importance of the thing, but the majesty of the Lawgiver that is to be the standard of obedience.

Farming is a joint venture between the farmer and God. The farmer cannot do what God must do, and God will not do what the farmer should do.

We cannot tolerate failure in our struggle with sin chiefly because we are success-oriented, not because we know it is offensive to God.

As we grow in holiness, we grow in hatred of sin; and God, being infinitely holy, has an infinite hatred of sin.

on the greatest obstacles to serving God: "the me and the my and the I"

Consequently, the light of God affects that soul the way the light of the sun affects a diseased eye. It causes pain. God's love is too pure. The soul, impure and diseased by its selfishness, is shocked and repelled by the very purity of God. It cannot understand the suffering caused by the light of God. It has formed its own ideas of God: ideas that are based upon its natural knowledge and which unconsciously flatter its own self-love. But God contradicts those ideas.

God is more concerned about my generosity than about the impact of my generosity.

There can be no doubt that every man is exactly as close to God as he wants to be.

"No subject is ever too serious for humour. I think many people have a basic misunderstanding: There's a difference between being serious and being solemn. "We could be talking about things that are extremely serious -- our marriages, the education of our children, politics, even the meaning of life -- and laughing quite a lot and that wouldn't make what we were talking about one bit less serious. "But solemnity, on the other hand; I don't know what it's for. Solemnity serves pomposity, self-importance, and egotism. And the pompous and the self-important always know at some level that their egotism is going to be punctured by humour. That's why they always see humour as negative, as a threat to them personally. And so they dishonestly criticize it as frivolous and light-minded."

Remember putting your face above a headless frame painted to represent a muscleman, a clown, or even a bathing beauty? Many of us have had our pictures taken this way, and the photos are humorous because the head doesn't fit the body. If we could picture Christ as the head of our local body of believers, would the world laugh at the misfit? Or would they stand in awe of a human body so closely related to a divine head?

On a recent trip to Haiti, I heard a Haitian pastor illustrate to his congregation the need for total commitment to Christ. His parable: A certain man wanted to sell his house for $2,000. Another man wanted very badly to buy it, but because he was poor, he couldn't afford the full price. After much bargaining, the owner agreed to sell the house for half the original price with just one stipulation: He would retain ownership of one small nail protruding from just over the door. After several years, the original owner wanted the house back, but the new owner was unwilling to sell. So the first owner went out, found the carcass of a dead dog, and hung it from the single nail he still owned. Soon the house became unlivable, and the family was forced to sell the house to the owner of the nail. The Haitian pastor's conclusion: "If we leave the Devil with even one small peg in our life, he will return to hang his rotting garbage on it, making it unfit for Christ's habitation."

In public worship our habit is to slouch or squat; we do not kneel nowadays, let alone prostrate ourselves in humility before God. It is more characteristic of us to clap our hands with joy than to blush with shame or tears. We saunter up to God to claim his patronage and friendship; it does not occur to us that he might send us away. We need to hear again the apostle Peter's sobering words: "Since you call on a Father who judges each man's work impartially, live your lives in reverent fear." In other words, if we dare to call our Judge our Father, we must beware of presuming on him. It must even be said that our evangelical emphasis on the atonement is dangerous if we come to it too quickly. We learn to appreciate the access to God which Christ has won for us only after we have first seen God's inaccessibility to sinners. We can cry "Hallelujah" with authenticity only after we have first cried "Woe is me, for I am lost." In Dale's words [R. W. Dale in his book ATONEMENT], "it is partly because sin does not provoke our own wrath, that we do not believe that sin provokes the wrath of God."

The early Hebrews learned at the foot of Mount Sinai that in the sight of God there is indeed a difference between the sacred and the profane, but there is no difference between the spiritual and the social.

Never undertake anything for which you wouldn't have the courage to ask the blessing of heaven.

One big advantage to telling a clean joke is that there is a good chance no one has heard it.

God is "easy to please but hard to satisfy"

FIGHTING SIN IS LIKE FIGHTING FOREST FIRE In June 2002, in the worst wildfire in Arizona history, more than 350,000 acres were burned and upwards of 400 homes destroyed. As a 50 mile wall of flames approached the little town of Show Low (150 miles northeast of Phoenix), townspeople braced for the worst and hoped for the best. More than 3,000 inhabitants of Show Low were evacuated while firefighters tried to save the town by carving a fire line around the community. With gas-fueled blow torches, the firefighters actually set fire to the cactus-ridden underbrush on the outskirts of town. According to Jim Paxon, fire crew spokesman, the controlled burn would serve as a preventive measure so the advancing blaze wouldn't have anything to ignite. "It's what you call fighting fire with fire," Paxon said. As a result of the measures taken, Show Low, Arizona, was spared. Jesus recognized the importance of taking drastic action to protect oneself against disaster. He said if your right hand puts you at risk, cut it off to escape the flames of judgment. "It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for you whole body to go into hell" (Matthew 5:30). Citation: Greg Asimakoupoulos, Naperville, IL; source: "NBC Today Show" (6-25-02)

"2 Laws that govern my life: The law of cognition: I am what I think. The law of exposure: My mind will think most about what it is most exposed to."

How God Uses Problems In Our Lives God uses problems to DIRECT you: Proverbs 20.30 God uses problems to INSPECT you: James 1.2-3 God uses problems to CORRECT you: Psalm 119.71-72 God uses problems to PROTECT you: Genesis 50.20 God uses problems to PERFECT you: Romans 5.3-4

When I was in seventh grade, the school tried to scare us to death about using alcohol. We saw a film about a party where students danced and listened to music. One guy invited his friends to the back room for drinks, and another guy passed out. They couldn't revive him, so they called the ambulance. The paramedics rushed to the hospital where someone called the parents. Mom was crying. Dad was crying. The doctors stuck needles in his veins and tubes up his nose. The moral of the movie was "Don't drink alcohol or they'll stick needles in your veins, tubes up your nose, and your parents will cry." We were convinced that none of us would ever drink alcohol if that's what they were going to do to us. We even stayed clear of the water fountain, I think, the rest of that day. Then they brought in another film, whose plot was basically the same, but the moral this time was "Don't take drugs." Another time, we got to look at and touch the lung of some poor soul who had smoked all his life. The object was, "If you smoke, your lung will look like this, and kids will touch it." We were convinced there in the seventh grade that we would never ever smoke cigarettes. Another movie is still shown today in driver-education courses. It makes slasher films look like they are PG or G. Photographers have filmed the scenes of car wrecks before the paramedics get there. From accident after accident, there are shots of crushed cars and mangled bodies. I thought the moral of that movie was, "Don't ever get in a car." We seventh graders were convinced that under no circumstances would we ever drink, smoke, take drugs, or drive recklessly, if at all. Yet, soon after we entered high school, most of my friends were smoking. Just about everybody was drinking, and I lost several of my friends to drug overdoses. How could we be convinced that something was deadly, unhealthy, and unwise, yet not act on our beliefs? Today many of you are involved in things that a year or two ago you never dreamed you would do.... What happened to my friends in the seventh grade also happens to us. We have preferences. Yet we have very few convictions.

Chick-lit authors may be trying to resist, but they don't know what to put in the place of that skeletal fashion-magazine cover model. The cover-model ideal is warped and twisted, but they can't manage to unwarp it. I'm reminded of J. R. R. Tolkien's orcs, who (according to the Silmarillion) were modeled on elves by the dark powers; they were fashioned "by slow arts of cruelty … in envy and mockery," because dark powers can only warp and twist, not create afresh. If you've never seen an elf, and you try to work backwards from an orc to its model, you're darn well not going to end up with Orlando Bloom. [good illustration of how you can't build on negation] http://www.christianitytoday.com/bc/2004/002/2.10.html

The way to grow in holiness is to be around people more holy than ourselves. We hear their stray comments and absorb their judgment of what’s important. We listen to their prayers and find that God is bigger than we’d thought. -- Oswald Chambers

Earth is crammed with heaven And every bush aflame with God But only those who see take off their shoes. -- Elizabeth Barrett Browning

If you want to be holy, be kind. -- Frederick Buechner

In medieval Europe the government learned they were out of silver and could not make any more coins. An order was given to search the land for silver. The only silver to be found was in cathedrals as statutes of saints. The order was given - 'take them, melt them down and put the saints back into circulation.'

You expect a $274 million building to shine and L.A.'s new Walt Disney Concert Hall does. Frank Gehry's landmark creation of shimmering stainless steel is marvelous to behold. People living in a condominium facing the structure agree that the view is glorious, but the glory becomes overpowering when the sun shines at midday. Portions of the gleaming concert hall reflect brilliantly into the windows of the condominium. Soon, the temperature rises as much as 15 degrees, forcing residents to get off their patios, draw the blinds and turn on the air conditioner, until the sunlight shifts. "You couldn't even see and then the furniture would get really hot," said Jacqueline Lagrone, 42, who lives on the fourth floor of the Promenade Residences. "You would have to literally close the drapes, and you'd still feel warmth in the house." As Disney officials look for a way to dull the glare, they placed mesh blankets over the mirror-like steel. While this diminished the problem, everyone agrees it looks terrible, and a more permanent solution is necessary. How often we are tempted to tone down God's demands and reduce the glare of holiness so we can live more comfortably. Citation: Jia-Rui Chong, "Disney Hall Glare Gets to Neighbors," L.A. Times (2-21-04);

Think of the ship; it belongs in the water, but water must not come into the ship - that would be disastrous. Similarly, it is right and fitting that we live in this world, and if we stay above the surface, then we can reach the safe harbor of life - and help others to do so. But it would be our demise if the world entered into our hearts.

God made man to have dominion over the earth. But you can't have dominion over the earth if sin has dominion over you - because then it's sin in charge and not you. {paraphrased}