"Obedience is the fruit of faith; patience, the bloom on the fruit." - Christina Rosetti, quoted in Streams in the Desert
"[Thomas More] was a friend of the king… but why did a man so utterly absorbed in his society, at one particular point disastrously part company with it? How indeed was it possible - unless there was some sudden aberration? But that explanation won't do, because he continued to the end to make familiar and confident use of society's weapons, tact, favor, and, above all, the letter of the law. For More.. the answer to this question would be perfectly simple (though again not easy); the English Kingdom, his immediate society, was subservient to the larger society of the Church of Christ, founded by Christ, extending over Past and Future, ruled from Heaven. There are still some for whom that is perfectly simple." - Robert Bolt in his preface to A Man for All Seasons
"It is our business to see that we do right; God will see that we come out right." - Donald Gray Barnhouse
"What I have found is that many of us know the Word of God, but we lack obedience to it. We go to church, hear sermon after sermon, but are educated way above the level of our obedience. We are not only to read God's Word, but we are to hide it in our hearts and become obedient to it." - John Maxwell
"Faith, if we are honest, sometimes seems like a candle in the rain, hissing for air…Right in the middle of our prayers; the baby cries, the thunder claps, the fury breaks…[But] the power of God comes to those who obey." - Bill Hybels in Descending into Greatness
"He did not call Abraham or any of us that we might be His pets, but that we might be His pattern." - Nelson Price, Pastor, Roswell Street Baptist Church, Marietta, Georgia
"When we have the feeling that on some occasion we have disobeyed God, it simply means that for a time we have ceased to desire obedience." - Simone Weil in Waiting for God
"He that hopes to find peace by trusting God must obey him." - Samuel Johnson in Sermons
"A truth not practiced is a truth not believed." - Source Unknown
"True knowledge of God is born out of obedience." - John Calvin
"It is difficult to follow God's guidance, if we are on rigid paths of our own." - Source Unknown
"When the heart's wrong, there can't be peace. Selfishness is a gangrene, eating at the very vitals. Sin is a cancer, poisoning the blood. Peace is the rhythm of our wills with Jesus' love - will. Disobedience breaks the music. Failure to keep in touch makes discord. The notes jar and grate. We have broken off. The peace can't get in. Jesus made peace by his blood. We get it only by keeping in full touch with him." - S. D. Gordon in The Bent-Knee Time
Obedience
"I suspect that the church's greatest contribution to marital stability and growth will come from living a conviction that flies in the face of American individualism. Understood properly, marriage is a creational good that is part of a wider cosmic drama of human fallenness and redemption. By living out hope in a community that breaks down barriers of age, class, sex, and ethnicity, the church can model a love ethic from which families can draw strength. The American idolatry of romantic love has disconnected couples from living communities of discipline and love - communities that marriages need." - Mary Stewart Van Leeuwen (quoted in Context, Nov. 1, 1997, page 6)
"What counts in making a happy marriage is not so much how compatible you are, but how you are, but how you deal with incompatibility." - George Levinger
"Bo Lozoff is the author of the book on marriage called 'This Is Not a Book on Relationships.' He explains his title: 'Marriage is a union, a single entity, while a relationship exists between two separate individuals. The great problem in our culture is that the idea of getting married and maintaining separate identities is considered a healthy view. Yet the only way marriage can really work is if we realize that the act of getting married fundamentally and forever changes us. We are one part of a committed couple. That's the reason we wear a ring, so that everywhere we go people can recognize at a glance that we are not representing only ourselves.'" - Utne Reader, November/December 1996
"Marriage is a union between male and female. If the state of Hawaii wishes to establish some kind of protected and socially favored status for members of the same sex who wish to covenant with one another in life-long unions, it may do so, but it cannot make such a union marriage, any more than it can declare all dogs to be cats or men to be women. Defining homosexual unions as marriage is not 'tolerance,' but delirium. One might plausibly argue that for the sake of social peace in an increasingly degenerate nation, provision can and should be made for those homosexuals who wish to create lifelong union with marriage-like rights and duties do so. What cannot plausibly be argued is that such a union is a marriage, whatever the state legislatures, the Supreme Courts, or anyone else says." - Harold O.J. Brown, in Religion and Society Report, April 1996, page 7
"Black's Law Dictionary (1968) states: 'In marriage a man and a woman mutually engage with each other to live their whole lives together in the state of union which ought to exist between a husband and wife.' - National Review, May 29, 1995
"Marriage is an act of will, divorce an act of won't." - Screenwriter Josh Greenfield (quoted in U.S. News & World Report, Jan. 13, 1997, page 16)
"Today, most people value marriage primarily for what they personally can gain from it…Americans value marriage primarily as a means to individual happiness. Their tendency to value it for any other reason has seen a substantial decline in recent years." - American Demographics, June 1992
"Marriage, as defined by Webster's Dictionary, has taken some interesting shifts over the years: Webster's, 1828: A civil and religious contract, instituted by God, binding a man and woman in marital fidelity until death. It is honorable and the bed undefiled (Hebrews 13). Webster's, 1975: The state of being married; wedlock; the institution whereby men and women are joined in a special kind of social and legal dependence; the wedding ceremony and attendant ceremonies. Webster's, 1991: The following is added: 'An intimate living arrangement without legal sanction; a trial marriage. Any intimate association or union.'" - Eternal Perspectives Newsletter, February/March 1993
The Ten Commandments For Marriage by Dr. D. James Kennedy:
- Thou shalt have no other human being before your husband or wife.
- Thou shalt put nothing before your husband or wife.
- Thou shalt not belittle, criticize, or fault find, but rather encourage your spouse in all ways.
- Thou shalt remember His or Her Day to keep it special.
- Thou shalt give honor not only to your father and mother, but to those who become your father-in-law and mother-in-law.
- Thou shalt not destroy the spirit within your spouse.
- Thou shalt give your passions only to each other, not to another.
- Steal not from your husband or wife that which is their privilege to give and receive what is given with gratitude.
- Thou shalt not bear false witness to each other.
- Thou shalt not seek greener pastures, whether they be those things physical or material.
"A successful marriage is one that can go from crisis to crisis with a growth in commitment." - Phil Passon
"Love is an agreement on the part of two people to overestimate each other." - E. M. Cioran
"The real test of my loving is not that I feel loving, but the other person feels loved by me." - Morton T. Kelsey in Companions on the Inner Way
"Marriage is a lot like mowing the lawn. All too often we work on the easy stretches, avoiding those areas that take more time and require closer attention. The result? Overgrown patches that cause our marriages to lose their beauty." - Dan Seaborn (quoted in Wesleyan Advocate, Nov. 1996, page 17)
"Time magazine reported (1/22/95) that the earthquake in Kobe, Japan, occurred when two plates on a fault line fifteen miles offshore suddenly shifted against each other, violently lurching six to ten feet in opposite directions. The result was the worst Japanese earthquake since 1923. Thousands died. More than 46,000 buildings lay in ruins. One-fifth of the city's population was left instantly homeless. The destruction unleashed by those two tectonic plates depicts what happen when a Christian bonds unequally with a non-Christian. Two people committed to each other but going in different directions can only lead to trouble." - David Farnum, Rochester, N.Y.
"Marriage is no big thing - it is a bunch of little ones." - Anonymous
Marriage
"Advertising has altered humankind. We've gone from caveman and cavewoman to craveman and cravewoman. - Frank Tyger
"Imagine the globe's population reduced to a single village of 1,000. If that village was to accurately reflect the world's nationalities, then only 60 villagers would be American. The Americans would own 15 times more material possessions than any of their neighbors, and would enjoy an average life expectancy of 70 years as opposed to less than 40 years for the other villagers. And those same Americans would have 28 of the village's 53 telephones. "- Zondervan Press Syndicate, July 1995
"Prosperity has not been kind to the American family. It breeds short, shallow roots. Fragile anchors. It's not that prosperity and wealth are inherently evil. They aren't. But their presence constantly tempts us to believe we are secure without God and that money can be an adequate substitute for real family values. Dad's money can make up for Dad's absence. Things can replace time spent together. Cash can replace conviction. Wealth can pay for irresponsibility and buy mistakes. A big house can substitute for a sense of home." - Robert Lewis, Pastor, Fellowship Bible Church, Little Rock, AR
"Any problem that can be solved with money isn't a problem. It's an expense." - Anonymous
"The essence of life today is not having - it is having to have." - David Hansen
"Most of us would be willing to pay as we go if we could just finish paying for where we've been." - Ann Landers
"The main emotion of the adult American who has had all the advantages of wealth, education, and culture is disappointment." - John Cheever
"For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." - Matthew 6:21
Materialism
"All the good maxims have been written. It only remains to put them into practice." - Blaise Pascal. Leadership - Volume 1, #1.
"Be not angry that you cannot make others as you wish them to be, since you cannot make yourself as you wish to be." - Thomas a Kempis. Leadership - Volume 1, #1.
"The porcupine, whom we must handle gloved, may be respected, but is never loved." - Arthur Guiterman. Leadership - Volume 1, #1.
Acceptance
"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?'"
"As a disclaimer to everything I've ever said or everything I ever will say, when it's all said and done we'll only have two things left to say: One is 'Forgive me' and the other is 'Thank you'." - Rich Mullins, CCM 11/97.
"He that would pass the latter part of his life with honor and decency, must, when he is young, consider that he shall one day be old; and remember, when he is old, that he has once been young." - Samuel Johnson in The Rambler.
"It's a myth that accountability can occur outside of community." - Michael Card
"The golden statue of Prometheus says: 'Every right implies a responsibility; every opportunity, an obligation; every possession, a duty.'"
"Everyone wants to be noticed; no one wants to be watched." - Anonymous
Accountability
Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there.'" - Will Rogers
Action
"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, False Intimacy: Understanding the Struggle of Sexual Addiction
"Many Christians are only 'Christaholics' and not disciples at all. Disciples are cross-bearers; they seek Christ. Christaholics seek happiness. Disciples dare to discipline themselves, and the demands they place on themselves leave them enjoying the happiness of their growth. Christaholics are escapists looking for a shortcut to nirvana. Like drug addicts, they are trying to 'bomb out' of their depressing world. There is no automatic joy. Christ is not a happiness capsule; he is the way to the Father. But the way to the Father is not a carnival ride in which we sit and do nothing while we are whisked through various spiritual sensations." - Calvin Miller in The Taste of Joy
"In a consumer society, there are inevitably two kinds of slaves: the prisoners of addictions and the prisoners of envy." - Ivan Illich, Tools for Conviviality
"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, Addiction and Grace
"We admitted we were powerless over alcohol - that our lives had become unmanageable; we came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity; and we made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood him." - Adapted from the first three steps of The Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous
"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, By Grace Transformed
"Every form of addiction is bad, no matter whether the narcotic be alcohol or morphine or idealism." - Carl Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections
"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, The Addictive Organization
"It is not heroin or cocaine that makes one an addict, it is the need to escape from harsh reality, more baseball and football addicts, more movie addicts, and certainly more alcoholic addicts in this country than there are narcotics addicts." - Rep. Shirley Chisholm at a Congressional hearing on crime.
"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., Reliving the Passion
Addiction
"Judge not a man for the heights he has attained but the depths from which he has come." - Martin Luther King, Jr.
Adversity
"When dealing with people it is wise to remember the Triple 'A' Principle. Everyone feels better and does better when you give them Attention, Affirmation, and Appreciation. 'Triple A' stands for good service and that's exactly what you get when you treat people with high esteem." - Saddleback's Core Values: We Are A Value-Driven Church,' Rick Warren, Leadership Lifter #49
Affirmation
"The seven ages of man: spills, drills, thrills, bills, ills, pills, will."
"Man's life means: Tender teens. Teachable twenties. Tireless thirties. Fiery forties. Forceful fifties. Serious sixties. Sacred seventies. Aching eighties. Shortening breath. Death. The sod. God!"
"Retirement can be a catastrophe or a commencement, a rocking chair or a launching pad."
Aging
"We didn't want to support any more adultery scenes. There's enough on television." - 84 year-old Iowa farmer, Aaron Howell, explaining why his family rejected Warner Bros.' lucrative offer to rent their property for the filming of The Bridges of Madison County (Premiere, 2/95)
"One in four adults in your church has been involved in an extramarital affair…"
"Studies of married Americans reveal that approximately one in three men and one in six women enter an affair sometime during their wedded lives…"
"Affairs usually don't just happen, as television and popular romances would lead us to believe. And affairs are not the cause of marriage trouble, but a response to it…"
"When the cupboard is full at home, you don't go someplace else to eat…" -- Anonymous
"Adultery is never a sudden, spontaneous, and totally unexpected act. Therefore, the strongest protection against adultery in a marriage is an attitude of total commitment toward each other. The marriage vow commits one to the satisfaction and happiness of the partner. Sexual satisfaction becomes a gift to the other. In an extramarital friendship, there always comes a point of 'maybe' when there is the realization that the friendship could become something more. By closing the door to anything beyond friendship, each partner should try to see friends through the spouse's eyes. When adultery has occurred, forgiveness is the tool to restore the marriage. There will be feelings of anger, hatred, guilt, pain (physical as well as emotional) humiliation (adultery is a statement that the spouse's lovemaking was of little or no value) and confusion. To begin healing, find a trusted and wise friend, and express your feelings where it will not hurt anyone. Accept no excuses, rationalizations, promises, or defensiveness. Only accept genuine repentance." - Walter Wangerin, Jr. U.S. Catholic, March 1988, pages 27-31.
Adultery
"Adversity introduces a man to himself. - Anonymous
"I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. 'Tis the business of little minds to shrink; but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death." - Thomas Paine, 1776
"God is always testing us, and his testing does not come when we are warned and ready. Anyone can pass a test then…
God's tests catch us unprepared, off-guard. It is when we are confronted with some simple situation no one will know about that the tests of life really come. When you are relaxing at home and the phone rings and suddenly you are confronted with a call for help, or a demand for a response - and you had planned to relax and enjoy yourself all afternoon - what happens then? That's the test." - Ray C. Stedman in Man of Faith"One reason God created time was so there would be a place to bury the failures of the past." - James Long
"If I have learned anything, I owe it neither to precepts nor to books, but to a few opportune misfortunes. Perhaps the school of misfortune is the very best." - Louise Honorine De Choiseul (1734-1801)
"Many people quench the Spirit by being down in the mouth rather than rejoicing, by planning rather than praying, by murmuring rather than giving thanks, and by worrying instead of trusting in him who is faithful." - Cameron Townsend, founder of Wycliff Bible Translators
"Many men owe the grandeur of their lives to their tremendous difficulties." - C. H. Spurgeon, quoted in Streams in the Desert
"The significant problems we face today cannot be solved at the same level of thinking as when we created them." - Albert Einstein
"If you do not wish to be full of regrets when you are forced to lie still, work while you can. If you desire to make a sickbed as soft as it can be, do not stuff it with mournful reflections that you wasted time when you were in health and strength." - Charles Spurgeon (quoted in Pulse, Feb. 21, 1997, page 5)
"While expounding on the value of suffering, a saintly old preacher extended his long finger toward the congregation and thundered, 'Brother, if God sends you tribulation, He expects you to tribulate!'" - Sam Cathey, Amarillo Bible Conference
"[Rabbi Harold] Kushner's book [When Bad Things Happen to Good People] was a best seller not only because it is so well written, but also because it caters to a narcissistic age. For us, any suffering, confusion or tragedy is intently unfair and undeserved because we stopped trusting a God whose presence makes suffering, confusion and tragedy bearable." - William H. Willimon in the 'Christian Century' (Feb. 22, 1989), Christianity Today, Vol. 34, #9.
"God created man something on the order of a rubber band. A rubber band is made to stretch. When it is not being stretched, it is small and relaxed, but as long as it remains iin that shape, it is not doing what it was made to do. When it stretches, it is enlarged; it becomes tense and dynamic, and it does what it was made to do. God created you to stretch." - Charles Paul Conn in 'Making It Happen', Christianity Today, Vol. 35, #1.
"No trouble seems pleasant at the time. Yet in God's economy, it is this pain which brings forth new faith. How often we hear, 'I thank God for that hard time; it was the best thing that every happened to me.' Even when we may not find the grace to thank God for our tribulation, we can thank Him for the good that comes from our fire." - Virginia Law Shell in 'Good News', (Nov.-Dec. 1990), Christianity Today, Vol. 35, #11.
"We grow and mature spiritually through adversity - not when everything is going smoothly…in a time of adversity of trouble, the Christian has the opportunity to know God in a special and personal way." - C. Everett Koop
"When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us." - Helen Keller in The Faith of Helen Keller
"God loves us in good times and bad… but he is even more real in our lives when we are having tough times." - Joe Gibbs, former head coach of the Washington Redskins
Adversity