"The core problem is not that we are too passionate about bad things, but that we are not passionate enough about good things." - Larry Crabb in Finding God

"If I could just get to the place in my life where all I wanted for my life was simply all that God wanted for my life, then all of my life, I would have all I wanted, and He would have all of me He wanted." - Dr. Tom Elliff

"Somebody should tell us, right at the start of life, that we are dying. Then we might live life to the limit, every minute... whatever you want to do, do it now! There are only so many tomorrows." - Michael Landon

"Certain it is that the reason there is so much shallow living, much talk, but little obedience, is that so few are prepared to be, like the pine on the hill-top, alone in the wind for God." - Amy Carmichael in Learning of God

"I am His by purchase and I am His be conquest; I am His by donation and I am His by election; I am His by covenant and I am His by marriage; I am wholly His; I am peculiarly His; I am universally His; I am eternally His. Once I was a slave but now I am a son; once I was dead but now I am alive; once I was darkness but now I am light in the Lord; once I was a child of wrath, an heir of hell, but now I am an heir of heaven; once I was Satan's bondman but now I am God's freeman; once I was under the spirit of bondage but now I am under the Spirit of adoption that seals up to me the remission of my sins, the justification of my person and the salvation of my soul." - Thomas Brooks

"When a man says the church seats are too hard and uncomfortable - then goes on Saturday to sit for hours in a drizzle watching 22 men push one another back and forth across a mud lot - who is he kidding?" - Anonymous

"When General Booth was asked what had been the secret of his success, he replied, "…from the day I got the poor of London on my heart and a vision of what Jesus Christ would do for them, I made up my mind that God should have all of William Booth there was; and if anything has been achieved, it is because God has had all the adoration of my heart, all the power of my will, and all the influence of my life."

"This is an intensely religious nation, but people don't want the church saying anything about their wallets or their bedrooms. We want 'God Lite.' Everybody believes in God, in religious experiences, in life after death, and in justice. Nobody believes it has anything to do with the nuts and bolts of our lives." - Terry Mattingly (quoted in Christian Research Journal, Sum 1995)

"Bad decisions can alter your life." - Rick Hughes

"Where are our wounds? Is there nothing to fight for? How complacent are we about the world's causes, both great and small? Have we accepted with weak resignation that nothing can change, and that to try isn't worth the effort? Perhaps the call to comfort rings louder than the call to bear a cross…If the church is the body of Christ, as Paul claims, shouldn't it also have some wounds? Yet too often, churches avoid controversy. A pastor at mid-life wrote, "Wherever the Apostle Paul went, there was a riot. Wherever I go, they serve tea." - Craig V. Anderson in the Christian Century (Jan. 29, 1992)

"We have to give ourselves wholeheartedly to God, and if we fail, we must give ourselves again. We all need daily forgiveness for our sins and failures. But what matters is whether we want to be faithful - faithful to the end of our lives. This means surrendering everything - our self-will, our hopes for personal happiness, our private property, even our weaknesses - and believing in God and in Christ. This is all that is asked of anyone. Jesus does not expect perfection, but he wants us to give ourselves wholeheartedly." - J. Heinrich Arnold in Discipleship: Living for Christ in the Daily Grind

"It is not for us to decide our own destinies. It is not for us to say we shall not be overwhelmed by certain storms. We do not know how hard the trial is yet to be. This, however, we can say. "Sink me if You will, or save me if You will, but whatever happens I will never drift. I will steer straight; I will keep my rudder true." - Anonymous

"A committee is a group of people who meet and decide that no one can do any thing!" - Anonymous

"I would rather be in this chair knowing Him, than on my feet without Him." - Joni

"Most churches are neck deep in talent and ankle deep in commitment." - Anonymous

"Challenging the young people not to become like a tumbleweed, which has been uprooted and becomes "a slave to the wind." Instead, he encouraged them to plant their "roots firmly in the things that matter" - living for Christ." - Grady Nutt

"Struggle is God's gift. Charismatic people are often the most vulnerable, and may collapse from sheer cockiness." - Anonymous

"This hour in history needs a dedicated circle of transformed nonconformists. The saving of our world from pending doom will come not from the action of a conforming majority but from the creative maladjustment of a dedicated minority." - Martin Luther King, Jr.

Commitment