“Note that there is a monumental difference between well-motivated humans working for God in their own strength, wisdom, and power versus God working through humans.”

“The result: God’s people have never broken free from the liturgical constraints they inherited from Roman Catholicism.[”

“Believe me, you have too many practices already. What is needed is rather a progressive inner simplification. Too many people identify spiritual prowess with being perpetually busy heaping meditation upon meditation, prayer upon prayer, reading upon reading instead of learning from the simple souls the great secret of knowing how, from time to time, to hold yourself back a little in peace and silence, attentive before God.5”

“Some preachers need a travel agent to handle all the guilt trips they put on God’s people. But there is a big difference between putting a guilt trip on Christians and unveiling Christ to them. When Christ is presented in power, the Spirit of God will undoubtedly convict those who are walking in contradiction to their new nature.”

“Philip Yancey was dead-on when he said that some Christians get very angry toward other Christians who sin differently than they do.79”

“The devil ought not to be in our line of vision but in our shadow.”

“baptism.”

“As children bring their broken toys         With tears for us to mend,         I brought my broken dreams to God,         because He was my friend.         But then, instead of leaving Him         In peace, to work alone,         I hung around and tried to help,         with ways that were my own.         At last I snatched them back and cried,         “How can You be so slow?”         “My child,” He said,         “What could I do?         You never did let go.”[2]”

“Eugene Peterson has said, “Trinity is the most comprehensive and integrative framework that we have for understanding and participating in the Christian life.” 4”

“Consider this thought: Adam’s entire existence was based upon what he ate. His diet determined his destiny. It also determined the entire course of human history.”

“According to the first-century use of the word, an ekklesia is a local gathering of Christians who live as a shared-life community and who gather regularly under the Headship of Jesus Christ.”

“The church of Jesus Christ was a classless society. Its members didn’t regard social status, color, or position. For them, there was no Jew or Greek in the body of Christ. There was no slave or free. There was no rich or poor. Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all. (Colossians 3:11 ESV)”

“When Mark records the baptism of Jesus, he says that Jesus saw the heavens “splitting apart” (Mark 1:10 NLT). The Greek term for this word is the same used in Exodus 14:21 in the Greek Old Testament.* Exodus 14:21 is speaking about the “splitting apart” (“dividing”) of the Red Sea at Israel’s exodus.”

“It is what the unimportant do that really counts and determines the course of history. The greatest forces in the universe are never spectacular. Summer showers are more effective than hurricanes, but they get no publicity. The world would soon die but for the fidelity, loyalty and consecration of those whose names are unhonored and unsung.1”

“Jesus and Women As we look at Jesus and how He interacted with women, we see Him dignifying, validating, and championing them—all in contrast to a misogynist culture. In addition, women played a prominent role in Jesus’ earthly ministry. As John Bunyan put it, “They were women that wept when he was going to the cross, and women that followed him from the cross, and that sat by his sepulcher when he was buried. They were women that was [sic] first with him at his resurrection morn, and women that brought tidings first to his disciples that he was risen from the dead.”2 In an ancient world, where many disregarded the testimony of women, Jesus’ high regard for them bordered on the scandalous. The fact that all these accounts are included in the Canon of Scripture actually verify the resurrection accounts of Christ. Remember, God saw fit that the first eyes to behold the risen Jesus were those of a woman—all during an era where a woman’s testimony had no credibility in a court of law. Women, therefore, were the first evangelists. The only way a man can discover how to treat a woman is by looking at how Jesus interacted with them. Your Lord was the defender of women. He stepped in to save a broken, scandalized woman from the murderous plot of a group of self-righteous men. He lifted the weight of her shame, writing a new destiny for her in the dirt. He saw value in an “unclean” Samaritan woman who was disregarded, despised, and viewed as damaged goods. He honored a prostitute in the house of a Pharisee. He healed a pariah woman whose flow of blood excommunicated her. He exalted a woman who anointed Him for burial by commissioning her story to be rehearsed wherever the gospel message was heard. He never talked down to a woman, but made them heroes in His parables. And that for which Jesus came to die was a woman . . . His woman, the very bride of Christ. Put simply, your Lord is in the business of loving, honoring, and defending women.3 And God chose the womb of a woman to enter this world.”

“Consequently, adoption is not a word of relationship but of position. You as a Christian are a child of God by new birth. But adoption is God’s act in which you are placed in the position of an adult son (Gal. 4:1–5). Greek, Roman, and Jewish families adopted their own children. Birth made them children, but discipline and training brought them into adoption and the full stature of sonship.”

“Christians get very angry at those who sin differently than they do.”

“the One who touched lepers and dead bodies wasn’t afraid of getting His holy hands dirty with the problems of this fallen world.”

“Martha, seeking to serve the Lord according to her own thoughts, was distracted and diverted. The”

“When God created the world, He worked for six days and then rested. Adam was created on the sixth day. So God’s seventh day—the Sabbath—was Adam’s first full day.”