Throughout the ancient world, naming was a sacred act. It was the word by which a child was called into his calling. It was the voice of destiny, summoning the child into his future with all its glorious promise.
God's love for his people is so great that it turns God against himself, his love against his justice.
And why are we supposed to be serious about God? Did God show up and crack the whip? “You there, Annie in Ohio, I see you laughing a lot and frankly it really pisses Me off . . . “ (50)
Belief compelled through fear is not belief, it is blind and forced obedience.
Prayers are like the powerful sounds of trumpets. When God's people come together and pray, the walls that challenge progress will fall.
Down through the centuries, the Church has carefully preserved, protected, and defended its Marian teachings, because to give them up would be to give up the gospel.
The more faithful preachers are to the Word of God in their preaching, the more liable they are to the charge of hypocrisy. Why? Because the more faithful people are to the Word of God the higher the message is that they will preach. The higher the m...
Through faith in the Lord Jesus alone can we obtain forgiveness of our sins, and be at peace with God; but, believing in Jesus, we become, through this very faith, the children of God; have God as our Father, and may come to Him for all the temporal ...
Man created god upon his thoughts to externalize, to give form to his belief to give a reason for what they could do. The gods stole away the energies, let man believe he was ruled rather than that he rules.
If there is no laughter, Jesus has gone somewhere else. If there is no joy and freedom, it is not a church: it is simply a crowd of melancholy people basking in a religious neurosis. If there is no celebration, there is no real worship.
Love casts out fear, for when we know we are loved, we are not afraid. Whoever has God's perfect love, fear is gone out of the universe for him.
Denial is fear gone delusional. Acceptance is fear given to God. Engaging is fear overruled by God. Victory is fear banished by God.
Whoever God loves, satan hates; whoever God blesses, satan tries to curse. I believe, without a doubt, that the enemy tries to get to God through us — his children and the apples of His eye.
Soaking is also positioning yourself for an encounter with God, to be with Him. You do the positioning, He does the encounter.
It has always seemed absurd to suppose that a god would choose for his companions, during all eternity, the dear souls whose highest and only ambition is to obey.
Creation is not abandoned by God, it is not godless, for apart from God it would not be at all; it is not deprived of grace for it owes its existence to grace. Rather, creation is graced, it is holy; in creation God may be encountered.
If we are cut loose from the anchor of God's Word, we will not be free. We will be slaves of personal passions and popular trends.
Only when it is seen that what decides each individual's destiny is whether or not God decides to save him from his sins, and that this is a decision that God need not make in any individual case, can one begin to grasp the biblical view of grace.
Extreme right-wingers are known for giving God a bad name; extreme left-wingers are known for giving God a weak name. He's not as simple as conservative versus liberal, old versus new. His wings are balanced. God is both and neither.
Where,oh,where are the eternity-conscious believers? Where are the souls white-hot for God because they fear His holy name and presence and so live with eternity's values in view?
Openness to God demands our growing acceptance that we cannot create blueprints for our own lives. Though God’s character is unchanging, the ways of God are unpredictable, and there is a difference between arbitrariness and unpredictability.
