"In a consumer society, there are inevitably two kinds of slaves: the prisoners of addictions and the prisoners of envy." - Ivan Illich

"We have all had the experience of struggling to break a habit, failing repeatedly, and then at some point meeting with success. What was this success, and how did it happen? We can say it was willpower, but what suddenly empowered our will? We can say it was finding the right strategy, but what enabled that discovery? Did we do it on our own, or did grace break through and deliver us, or was it some mysterious cooperation of will and grace that we could never have engineered?" - Gerald G. May

"I’m afraid the churches are just enabling the addictions of our culture. If we are not free from the cultural addictions in the church, how can we be a healing presence for all those who need to be set free?" - N. Gordon Cosby

"Every form of addiction is bad, no matter whether the narcotic be alcohol or morphine or idealism." - Carl Jung

"Recovery is a process; it is not a quick fix. It involves much more than giving up the addictive agent." - Anne Wilson Schaef and Diane Fassel

"It is not heroin or cocaine that makes one an addict. It is the need to escape from harsh reality. There are more baseball and football addicts, more movie addicts, and certainly more alcoholic addicts in this country than there are narcotics addicts." - Rep. Shirley Chisholm

"My denial of my sin protects, preserves, perpetuates that sin! Ugliness in me, while I live in illusions, can only grow the uglier." - Walter Wangerin Jr.

"We can’t prevent the problem of sexual addiction within the church if we don’t change our message from “how to feel better now” to the unpopular biblical theme that “the sufferings we now experience are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us” (Rom. 8:18). - Dr. Harry W. Schaumburd

Addiction

"May you live all the days of your life." - Johnathan Swift

Life

Every day of his adult life, Ben Franklin set aside the time to examine two questions. The morning question was, "What good shall I do today?" The evening question was, "What good have I done today?"

Accountability

"Let the separation between you and the world be final and irreversible. Say, 'Here I go for Christ and His cross, for the truth of the Bible, for the laws of God, for holiness, for trust in Jesus; and never will I go back, come what may.'" - C. H. Spurgeon

"From beginning to end, the Bible calls for whole-hearted allegiance to Him. There is to be no compromise with other Gods." - D. L. Moody

Following Christ

"You can't tell people for two or three generations, as even some theologians have, that truth is relative and that nothing is absolute and then expect them to produce justice…You can't tell people that truth is relative and expect them to produce good government, worthwhile education, or honest business. So it's not just a little tinkering here and there that is necessary to get our confidence in the court systems back again…No system of any kind works when the people themselves have lost their way." - Joel Belz

Absolutes

"I think it's to the church's poverty that the average worship song now has so few words, so little truth. [It] is so focused on several commercial aspects of God, like the fact that he loves our praises." - Keith Getty

Worship Music

"Weakness, fear and hopelessness died. Strength, power and courage was born." - Malala Yousafzai (Pakistani education activist shot by Taliban in an assassination attempt, speaking to the U.N. on her 16th birthday)

Courage

"Our Lord sent His disciples out as sheep among wolves; now the wolves are being invited into the sheepfold." - Vance Havner

Sheep

"Teachers who teach Western education? We will kill them! We will kill them in front of their students and tell the students to henceforth study the Koran." - Abubakar Shekau (leader of Nigerian Islamist group whose men killed 46 students on July 6, 2013 in an assault on a boarding school)

Islam and the Koran

In the last year, an estimated 100 million Christians faced persecution around the world, with the majority living in Africa, Asia and the Middle East. Remember to pray for and support those Christians in other nations facing daily persecution for their faith in Christ.

Pew Research, January 2013

Persecution

Selection of quotes from Ken Jenkins:

“Drop your reins and trust your horse!”
(Old wrangler to frightened women riders on a steep and narrow mountain trail)

“In fire, these trees strive from having been tested. They are fire dependent.”
(Concerning the Giant Sequoia trees on the Western Slope of the Sierra mountain range in California)

“We are to retain nothing in our lives that could give the devil a foothold to do damage.”

“For the Giant Sequoias, regular fires are necessary to get rid of the deadwood and create valuable minerals to nurture the trees. “

“One of these trees can weigh up to 2200 tons. The roots extend over two or three acres. What cannot be seen sustains (supports) what can be seen.”

Concerning wolves: “The health of the pack is dependent on each wolf functioning as it should.”

Short tailed Weasel: This little animal begins with a mottled coat, but it undergoes a conversion and becomes pure white. It is transformed from a weasel into an ermine. It is fastidiously clean. It will die in captivity because it would rather die than become dirty.

“When you go fishing with Jesus, you won’t worry about the catch; you will just enjoy the company!”

“Dangerous waters can bring about serious consequences.”

“We must protect our catch. An exposed catch becomes bait for the enemy.”

Ken Jenkins

Selection of quotes from Michael Catt:

“We see a crowd; Jesus sees individuals.”

“We need a conversion that gets us out of the world, and we need one that gets us out of the church and into the world.”

“We set and sour while we are called to save.”

“God is not reluctant; man is resistant.”

“The deep things of God are Jesus Christ; there is nothing deeper.”

“We need to be willing to be the answer to our own prayers. Often, the answer is us.”

“Don’t try to mix God’s wisdom with man’s foolishness.”

“Don’t look for the ‘flavor of the month’ preachers.”

“Man is not evolving, he is devolving.”

“Every person who gets saved puts us one person closer to the coming of Christ.”

“The gospel is unbelievable except for the fact that it is true.”

“Without the cross we have a meaningless and powerless Christianity.”

“Today, there is much acknowledging in the head without confession in the heart.”

“There are three ‘musts’ in John 3: You must be born again. The Son of Man must be lifted up. He must increase and I must decrease.”

“Don’t move a fence until you find out why somebody put it there.”

“If you can’t preach it in a Third World country it’s probably not the gospel.”

“Easter is one of the last remaining moments in America when people think about God.”

“On Easter Sunday, be Jesus with skin on.”

“You cannot say, ‘Thy Kingdom come,’ until you say, ‘My kingdom go.’”

“Can you sing, ‘I have decided to follow Jesus, no turning back’?”

“Finish strong!”

Michael Catt