Category: Quotes

But what I know even more surely is that the greatest joy in God comes from giving his gifts away, not in hoarding them for ourselves. It is good to work and have. It is better to work and have in order to give. God’s glory shines more brightly when he satisfies us in times of loss than when he provides for us in times of plenty. The health, wealth, and prosperity “gospel” swallows up the beauty of Christ in the beauty of his gifts and turns the gifts into idols. The world is not impressed when Christians get rich and say thanks to God. They are impressed when God is so satisfying that we give our riches away for Christ’s sake and count it gain.
–John Piper

Amen.

Jesus did not say, “All men will know you are my disciples…if you just pass laws, suppress immorality, and restore decency to family and government,” but rather “…if you love one another.”
–Philip Yancey

God, may I love others more today than I ever have before.

[sorry, this quote was supposed to go out the morning of Jan. 6th, but I just saw that I scheduled it for 2105 instead of 2015! I didn’t want you to have to wait 90 years to get it! So it got posted at 7pm instead.]

We’ve been praying for God to bring our hearts peace. We’ve been begging Him to open the floodgates of heaven and give us a teaser of the rest to come. We’ve been yearning for the “light” burden He promised, wondering whether we’ve misinterpreted Matthew 11:29-30 because our yokes certainly don’t feel easy or light. Could we be the root of our own stress? Might our ambitions be to blame — at least some of the time? What if our pride — including our fear of being unknown — was keeping us from the rest that Jesus promised?
–Anonymous, from the book Embracing Obscurity

Is your pride getting in the way of you finding the peace and rest that God wants you to have? I know that too often my pride can trip me up in telling me what I deserve, what I should have. When that happens I fall into comparison mode and all of my peace can quickly drain away. May God be all that I desire (because He is certainly all that I need), and may I find full peace and rest through my relationship with Him.

Isn’t there something we can give to God that won’t belittle Him to the status of beneficiary? Yes. Our anxieties…. God will gladly receive anything from us that shows our dependence and His all-sufficiency.
–John Piper

We recently finished Christmas. Sometimes during that season it is hard to remember that God is not Santa, though we often reduce him to some type of cosmic Claus. He is not just a beneficiary that gives us things when we want or need them. He is much more than that. He wants a real relationship with you. And He wants you to depend on Him and find all of your needs fulfilled in your relationship with Him more than you finding fulfillment only in what He can physically “give” to you in wealth or in health.

The importance of being humble:
If there is good in you, see more good in others, so that you may remain humble. It does no harm to esteem yourself less than anyone else, but it is very harmful to think yourself better than even one. The humble live in continuous peace, while in the hearts of the proud are envy and frequent anger.
–Thomas à Kempis

It is so hard for us to place ourselves below others, to esteem them as more important than ourselves. And yet, that is exactly what Jesus did for us. Though immeasurably more worthy than us, He placed Himself lower than us so that He could serve us. Self-sacrifice. Humility. Love.

As a follower of His, it is now time for me to do the same for others.