The knowledge of God is a mountain steep indeed, and difficult to climb. – Gregory of Nyssa, The Life of Moses

May God shield you on every steep, May Christ keep you in every path, May Spirit bathe you in every pass. – The Carmina Gadelica, trans. Alexander Carmichael

The mountains are ready to teach us the way of all life if we will clamber into their laps…The mountaintop vision is raw, wild, and life-giving. In no way can I take credit for it. It is the gift of the mountain. The vision is brief. I want to hang on, stay on top forever. Yet I must come down the mountain to continue my journey. I have to let go. – Susan Mangam, “Seeing Things As They Really Are,” in Weavings

After the Ecstacy, the laundry. Book title by Jack Kornfield

The path by which the Lord ascended is winding, twisting this way and that; [but] whoever wishes to climb up to pray can easily make the ascent. – Elisaeus, as quoted in The Journal of Theological Studies

The significance of desert and mountain is not who resides here, but what we ourselves have left behind in coming. – David Douglas, Wilderness Sojourn: Not in the Desert Silence

If my hands were to hover in the sky like powerful eagles and my feet ran across mountains as swiftly as the deer; all that would not be enough to pay you fitting tribute, O Lord my God. – Jewish hymn from the Talmudic period

When you reach the mountaintop, you’re only halfway. – Mountain climber’s proverb

Extraordinary experiences are not to be sought after, stirred up, or in any way “worked for.” Genuine ones are not in the realm of “our work” at all; they are objective and God-sent, not subjective and self-caused. Should a person desire them to the point of deliberately striving after them, he lays himself open to the greatest spiritual suspicion. He is manifestly desiring God’s gifts, God’s comforts, rather than desiring God. He is seeking excitement rather than the basic spiritual virtue of stability. – Gale D. Webbe, The Night and Nothing

The last experience of God is frequently the greatest obstacle to the next experience of God. We make an absolute out of it…All great spirituality is about letting go. – Richard Rohr, Everything Belongs

The mountain journey is about becoming more aligned with God’s presence and purposes in our lives…The goal is not the glamour of iridescent light, but Christ-shaped encounters with others. The journey is not about getting out of this world or out of ourselves into some more glamorous place – but about getting as deeply into this world as God, in Christ, has. – Robert C. Morris, “Riding the Wild Mountain Ox,” in Weavings

Spirituality

Take your life in your own hands and what happens? A terrible thing: no one to blame.” – Erica Jong, quoted in Thestreet.com

The ability to “turn off” responsibility is now in vogue. “Let’s just quit” are household words. – Chuck Swindoll

The price of greatness is responsibility. – source unknown

A responsibility worth shouldering is a commitment worth expressing. – William A. Ward

When the Roll is Called Up Yonder, Who’ll Be There? It may not be Johnny. He was on your roll for a long time but never came, so you dropped him. It may not be Jim. He wasn’t a Christian when he came into your department, and he wasn’t when he promoted out. It may not be Chris. Her family were members here, but she never was. Don’t guess you ever really knew her. Hey, Lord, they weren’t my responsibility, were they?

Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. This is the interrelated structure of reality. – Martin Luther King, Jr., REV Magazine, July/August 2004

Responsibility

Duncan Campbell, a great agent of God, in a revival in Scotland 40 years ago, said, “We do not pray for revival in order that souls may be saved, but souls are saved in their thousands when we have revival. When the thirsty are satisfied, then the floods come on the dry ground.”

Do you need a Christian tune-up?
If so, here are five tune-up specials for you.
1. Adjust your light so others may see your good works.
2. Set your timing so as to be at the meeting house on time.
3. Adjust the brakes on your tongue.
4. Align your direction so that you may stay on the straight and narrow.
5. Anti-freeze your heart and be fervent in spirit, above all things, love the Lord thy God, with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy mind.

Revival is needed when sinners are careless and stupid, and sinking into hell unconcerned. Then it is time for the CHURCH to stir itself. It is as much the duty of the church to awake as it is of the firemen to awake when a fire breaks out in the night in a great city. The CHURCH ought to put out the fires of hell which are laying hold of the wicked. Sleep! Should the firemen sleep and let the whole city burn down? What would be thought of such firemen? And yet their guilt would not compare with the guilt of CHRISTIANS who sleep while sinners around them are sinking stupid into the fires of hell. – Charles G. Finney

When God finds His people willing, when they have been forged into an instrument He can use, He will begin to work in power upon the consciences of sinners. – Anonymous

God is not only the source of revival – but He is also the end of revival. Revival comes from God and leads to God, that He may be ‘all in all’ and that man may learn that of himself he is nothing. – Anonymous

Revival times cause a rebuilding of the altar of prayer and a new commitment to seeking God. – Anonymous

Revival

Repentance is always difficult, and the difficulty grows still greater by delay. – Samuel Johnson in The Quotable Johnson, Christianity Today: October 6, 1997

One thief on the cross was saved, that none should despair; and only one, that none should presume. – J.C. Ryle

If there are a thousand steps between us and God, He will take all but one. He will leave the final one for us. The choice is ours. – Max Lucado

The man who knows his sins is greater than one who raises a dead man by his prayer. – Isaac the Syrian

Repentance may be old-fashioned, but it is not outdated so long as there is sin. – J.C. McCauley

Within the next few hours if we really opened our hearts to repentance and faith for an unscheduled invasion of God, we could meet the demonism of this age with the demonstration of the Holy Spirit and power. – Vance Havner

People who admit they’re wrong get a lot farther than people who prove they’re right. – Beryl Pfizer

Repentance

Just in terms of allocation of time resources, religion is not very efficient. There’s a lot more I could be doing on a Sunday morning. – Bill Gates (quoted in Chicago Tribune, Jan. 13, 1997)

A world of nice people, content in their own niceness, looking no further, turned away from God, would be just as desperately in need of salvation as a miserable world – and might even be more difficult to save. – C.S. Lewis

We have supplanted:
• Prophets with performers, who lack God's power, perseverance and purpose.
• Pastors with promoters, who often confuse an organization with the Kingdom of God, and who promote an organization with church-growth techniques, and neglect the Growth of the Kingdom of God.
• Proclaiming the truth with prattling trivialities, which amuse and entertain, and which sometimes stimulate and excite, but which do not challenge or transform.
• Preaching with propaganda embracing a false eschatology, which looks for Christ's peace to be produced by a political process, rather than by righteous and separated living.
• Piety with pretense, which replaces sanctification and substance with superficiality and success.
- James L. Holly, M.D.

For a society that’s secular by law, America is a very religious place. Virtually all Americans say they believe in God; 90% say religion is important in their lives; 72% pray every day. – April 1, 1996, USA TODAY

I certainly don’t think that the death required that “ye be born again,” is the death of reason…One of the effects of modern liberal Protestantism has been gradually to turn religion into poetry and therapy, to make truth vaguer and vaguer and more and more relative, to banish intellectual distinctions, to depend on feeling instead of thought, and gradually to come to believe that God has no power, that he cannot communicate with us, cannot reveal himself to us, indeed has not done so, and that religion is our own sweet invention. – Flannery O’Connor in Habit of Being

Religion in our time has been captured by the tourist mindset. Religion is understood as a visit to an attractive site to be made when we have adequate leisure. For some it is a weekly jaunt to church. For others, occasional visits to special services. – Eugene Peterson in A Long Obedience in the Same Direction (quoted in Sharing the Practice, Spr 1996, page 1)

Too much of our orthodoxy is correct and sound, but like words without a tune, it does not glow and burn; it does not stir the heart; it has lost its hallelujah. One man with a genuine glowing experience with God is worth a library full of arguments. – Vance Havner

We have found hundreds that have allowed the “system” to overshadow the Savior…This is not Biblical and it is weakening the church wherever we find it…It’s not new…Jesus had to ask Peter three times, “Lovest thou me more than these?”…consider this seriously…when the system overshadows the Savior you have a sickness that demands serious surgery…God is now performing some of this surgery in His church…Some will recover to shine and bless…some will be laid aside never to be heard from again…a host of others will just plain die leaving no fruit behind them. – Rev. Don Miller

Give up your good Christian life and follow Christ. – Garrison Keillor (quoted in Salt of the Earth, Sept/Oct 1996. Pg. 35)

Religion

Teamwork can't come without leadership. Leadership won't work without a team.
- Michael Catt

Teamwork

We must not be issue driven. We must be driven by the text. We should always, in our preaching, point to Jesus and have a passion for Jesus. – Michael Catt

Preaching

On the tallest mountain in the French Alps, there is a Half-way Inn (dry, warm, food, drink, comfortable seating) 90% of those who want to climb this mountain stop at the Inn – never making it to the top of the mountain.
Regret will set in, restless, disappointed, tired.
It hurts to climb!
It is luxurious inside the café/inn!
There is a danger of stopping at the Inn – get comfortable – never make it up the mountain to the peak. You will miss the splendor of being on the tallest peak! – from a lecture by Jay Strack at SLU 101

Mediocrity

Lordship settles all other issues. – Michael Catt

Lordship

Pick a way through the jungle of mediocrity and cut a path. Lead the way from ambiguity to clarity. Lead the way through the maze of post modern thinking back to the safety of absolutes.
– Michael Catt

Leadership

If you don't know, don't go. If God hasn't spoken yet, it's not time. – Michael Catt

There were many times when I thought I heard the Lord speak, but when I did hear the Lord speak, I didn't think...I knew. – Manley Beasley

God’s Will

I don't know all I should know about the end times. I don't know that I can fully explain the different theological views regarding the coming of Christ and the tribulation. I can't tell you what the meaning of 666 is, but I do know that the church is sick, sick, sick and in need of repentance. - Michael Catt

End Times