Inspirational Quotes by A. Hall

“The person who loves their dream of community will destroy community, but the person who loves those around them will create community. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer”

“Jesus-centered spiritual formation is the process of being transformed into the image of Christ, through a relationship of intimacy with God, by the power of the Spirit, in order to live a good and beautiful life of faith, hope, love, joy, and peace—a life that will be a blessing to oneself and to others and will glorify God now and for all eternity. — James Bryan Smith”

“the church fathers do not provide detailed codes and laws for answering the question of sufficiency and need. Instead, they spend much more time describing the kind of person who can possess and administer goods safely and wisely.”

“If then you are wise, you will show yourself rather as a reservoir than as a canal. A canal spreads abroad water as it receives it, and a reservoir waits until it is filled before overflowing, and thus without loss to itself communicates its superabundant water. In the Church at the present day we have many canals but few reservoirs.”

“A world-class violinist was once asked how she came to master her instrument. “Planned neglect,” she responded. When she began violin, she explained, other necessary work came before practicing violin. It wasn’t until she decided to neglect everything else each day until after violin practice that she started becoming a virtuoso.”

“Second, one must intend and decide to actually do something to bring the vision into reality. A vision without intention is merely a daydream.”

“Relationship with God is personal but not private, intimate but not individualistic. When you choose to follow Jesus, you join a community, the church: a community so connected to Jesus that Scripture calls it his very body, the body of Christ.”

“To release our anger to God, especially when we have been wronged, is to trust that God remains active in his world and will right all wrongs. Thus, anger therapy, at least from a Christian perspective, is eschatological. God will make all things right. This truth does not release us from the responsibility to seek the justice of Christ’s kingdom, but it does diffuse our tendency to take matters into our own hands and to seek revenge when God desires for us to manifest mercy.”

“God creates out of nothing. Wonderful you say. Yes, to be sure, but he does what is still more wonderful: he makes saints out of sinners. — Søren Kierkegaard”

“Jesus Christ is alive and here to teach his people himself. He has not contracted laryngitis. His voice is not hard to hear, his vocabulary is not difficult to understand. — Richard Foster”

“Jesus Christ carries on intercession for us in heaven; the Holy Ghost carries on intercession in us on earth; and we the saints have to carry on intercession for all men. — Oswald Chambers”

“The only trouble is that in the spiritual life there are no tricks and no shortcuts. Those who imagine that they can discover spiritual gimmicks and put them to work for themselves usually ignore God’s will and his grace. — Thomas Merton”

“Our model is the Jesus, not only of Calvary, but of the workshop, the roads, the crowds, the clamorous demands and surly oppositions, the lack of all peace and privacy, the interruptions. Jesus is the divine life operating under human conditions. — C. S. Lewis”

“What is most striking and troubling in the Enlightenment perspective, though, is its naive confidence that reason operates autonomously, largely free from the effects of personal disposition, social context, cultural background and religious community. Not only does postmodern philosophy and hermeneutics challenge this assertion, but classical Christianity doubts its fundamental viability.”

“Any kingdom that defines glory in terms of a bloody cross is obviously peculiar. — Stanley Hauerwas”

“Many conservative Protestant interpreters, though uncomfortable to find themselves slumbering with Enlightenment and postmodernist bedfellows, will fail to discern or acknowledge the necessity of studying the fathers. The deep-seated Protestant suspicion of tradition and its confidence in the ability of renewed reason alone to understand Scripture will lead many to shy away from investing time and energy in exploring patristic thought,”

“God has a name. This points to a key difference between persons and things. God is not a nameless energy or abstract idea. — Thomas Oden”

“Learning to read the Bible through the eyes of Christians from a different time and place will readily reveal the distorting effect of our own cultural, historical, linguistic, philosophical and, yes, even theological lenses. This is not to assert that the fathers did not have their own warped perspectives and blind spots. Itis to argue, however, that we will not arrive at perspective and clarity regarding our own strengths and weaknesses if we refuse to look beyond our own theological and hermeneutical noses.”

“The purpose of God’s gifts is to unite us in a unity which is like the unity of the Father and the Son. — Thomas Aquinas”

“The truth is that we only learn to pray all the time everywhere after we have resolutely set about praying some of the time somewhere. — John Dalrymple”