"Until a man is nothing, God can make nothing out of him." - Martin Luther

"Breakthrough happened around me when breakup happened within me." - Jack Hayford, on being humbled by God

"A sign on a department store dressing room mirror: 'Objects in mirror may appear bigger than they actually are.'" - Hope Health Letter (12/95)

Humility

"Yet we should approach this new century with humility. Remember that the 20th century opened with brimming optimism, too. A New York Times editorial on Dec. 31, 1899, hailed the 19th century for its economic and scientific advances and predicted that the 20th would be even better. The next day, Jan. 1, 1900, a Times headline proclaimed 'The United States the Envy of the World.' But some rude surprises were just ahead. Historian John Keegan has said that the 20th century can be written through the biographies of six men: Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Churchill, and Franklin Roosevelt. The first four were tyrants who dimmed the lamps of freedom and plunged the world into the bloodiest conflicts in all of human history. Those two wars, along with a crushing depression, darkened man's outlook for years thereafter. As Americans we owe an extraordinary debt to those generations who have brought us to the edge of a new promised land. Their sacrifices not only brought us a good life, but through war and hard times, kept those values alive. Our Judeo-Christian values are now the greatest gift we can pass on to the 21st century."

Heritage

"People don't fall into immorality instantly. The road to immorality involves a process. Absolutely anyone can fall, and that person can do it while having a successful ministry." - Lois Mowday Rabey in 'The Snare' (NavPress) quoted in Virtue, Sep/Oct 1997, page 58

"Luther E. Smith is professor of church and community at Emory University's Candler School of Theology. He had this to say in a speech to students about living honestly. 'Faking it for a class session is one thing. But it's so easy to find ourselves making faking it a lifestyle. We fake it with others. We fake it with ourselves. We fake it with God. This summer I saw a bumper sticker that said: 'Jesus is coming. Look busy!''" - Chronicle of Higher Education, Oct. 11, 1996

Hypocrisy

"Someone asked the American historian Charles A. Beard if he could summarize the lessons of history in a brief book. He said he could do it in four sentences: '(1) Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad with power; (2) The mills of God grind slowly, but they grind exceedingly small; (3) the bee fertilizes the flower it robs; (4) When it is dark enough, you can see the stars.'" - Warren W. Wiersbe in On Being a Servant

History

"If you are seeking gradual sanctification, you may know you are wrong because you are seeking it by works. If you have to wait, it is not for God, but for yourself to work. You get all blessings from God, not by work, but by faith alone. Hence you don't have to wait. For God wants to give it to you now." - John Wesley, quoted in Wesleyan Advocate, Feb 1996, page 21

Holiness

"Every time we proclaim our goodness and purity, those who know us see our hypocrisy and those who don't know us think that the Christian faith is only for good and pure people. Frankly, I've never seen anyone come to Christ because of the purity of another Christian. If they did, it was despite that purity. Our witness is always one of beggars pointing to the source of the bread." - Steve Brown

"Always do right, it will gratify some people and astonish the rest." - Mark Twain

"Integrity is keeping my commitment even if the circumstances when I make the commitment have changed." - David Jeremiah

"Integrity is like the weather: everybody talks about it but nobody knows what to do about it... Integrity entails not only a discernment of the right action but a willingness to act on one's conclusions." - Stephen L. Carter in Integrity

"We as a nation too often lack integrity, which might be described, in a loose and colloquial way, as the courage of one's convictions. We, the people of the United States, who a little over 200 years ago ordained and established the Constitution, have a serious problem: too many of us nowadays neither mean what we say nor say what we mean. Moreover, we hardly expect anybody else to mean what they say either." - Stephen L. Carter

Integrity

"Every time we proclaim our goodness and purity, those who know us see our hypocrisy and those who don't know us think that the Christian faith is only for good and pure people. Frankly, I've never seen anyone come to Christ because of the purity of another Christian. If they did, it was despite that purity. Our witness is always one of beggars pointing to the source of the bread." - Steve Brown

"Always do right, it will gratify some people and astonish the rest." - Mark Twain

"Integrity is keeping my commitment even if the circumstances when I make the commitment have changed." - David Jeremiah

"Integrity is like the weather: everybody talks about it but nobody knows what to do about it... Integrity entails not only a discernment of the right action but a willingness to act on one's conclusions." - Stephen L. Carter in Integrity

"We as a nation too often lack integrity, which might be described, in a loose and colloquial way, as the courage of one's convictions. We, the people of the United States, who a little over 200 years ago ordained and established the Constitution, have a serious problem: too many of us nowadays neither mean what we say nor say what we mean. Moreover, we hardly expect anybody else to mean what they say either." - Stephen L. Carter

Integrity

"Are you proving that the Christian life is a joyful, happy thing? Do you look glad that you are a Christian? Does your life radiate joy and enthusiasm? Check yourself carefully on this before you teach it. Make the Christian life contagious." - Henrietta Mears in Dream Big: The Henrietta Mears Story

"The modern world has had far too little understanding of the art of keeping young. Its notion of progress has been to pile one thing on top of another, without caring if each thing was crushed in turn. People forgot that the human soul can enjoy a thing most when there is time to think about it and be thankful for it. And by crowding things together they lost the sense of surprise; and surprise is the secret of joy." - G.K. Chesterton

"The Bible talks plentifully about joy, but it nowhere talks about a 'happy Christian.' Happiness depends on what happens; joy does not. Remember, Jesus Christ had joy, and He prays 'that they might have My joy fulfilled in themselves." - Oswald Chambers in Run Today's Race

"Joy is not the same as pleasure or happiness. A wicked and evil man may have pleasure, while any ordinary mortal is capable of being happy. Pleasure generally comes from things, and always through the senses; happiness comes from humans through fellowship. Joy comes from loving God and neighbor. Pleasure is quick and violent, like a flash of lightning. Joy is steady and abiding, like a fixed star. Pleasure depends on external circumstances, such as money, food, travel, etc. Joy is independent of them, for it comes from a good conscience and love of God." - Fulton J. Sheen in Fulton J. Sheen's Guide to Contentment

"I once shared a platform with the nearly blind theologian Joseph Sittler, a man who really saw, and heard. He was asked, 'If you had to reduce a call for reformation of the church to one sentence, what would it say?' His answer: 'Watch your language.' The rest - including action for justice - follows language, speech, encouragement, judgment, and the like." - Martin Marty in Context, April 15, 1998

Joy