Aquinas on the Will of God
It is clear that he does not pray, who, far from uplifting himself to God, requires that God shall lower Himself to him, and who resorts to prayer not to stir the man in us to will what God wills, but only to persuade God to will what the man in us wills. ... Thomas Aquinas (1225?-1274)

Billy Sunday on Being a Christian
Going to church doesn't make you a Christian, any more than going to a garage makes you an automobile. ... Billy Sunday (1862-1935)

J. B. Phillips on Do You Worship "Jesus"?
I would very earnestly ask you to check your conception of Christ, the image of Him which as a Christian you hold in your mind, with the actual revealed Person who can be seen and studied in action in the pages of the Gospels. It may be of some value to hold in our minds a bundle of assorted ideals to influence and control our conduct. But surely we need to be very careful before we give that "bundle" the name of Jesus Christ the Son of God. ... J. B. Phillips (1906-1982)

Calvin on Disagreeing with the Brethren
We shall benefit very much from the Sacrament if this thought has been impressed and engraved upon our minds that none of the brethren can be injured, despised, rejected, abused, or in any way offended by us, without [our] injuring, despising, and abusing Christ by the wrongs we do; that we cannot disagree with our brethren without at the same time disagreeing with Christ; that we cannot love Christ without loving Him in the brethren; that we ought to take the same care of our brethren's bodies as we take of our own; for they are members of our body; and that, as no part of our body is touched by any feeling of pain which is not spread among all the rest, so we ought not to allow a brother to be affected by any evil, without being touched with compassion for him. ... John Calvin (1509-1564), The Institutes of the Christian Religion

Brunner on the One Thing God Demands of Us
So long as we stand "under the Law", we cannot perceive this hidden unity of all the commandments. It is part of legalism that the will of God must appear to it as a multiplicity of commandments. In actual fact, it is one and indivisible; God wants nothing else except love because He Himself is love. ... Emil Brunner (1889-1966), The Letter to the Romans

W. Law on the Danger of Asceticism
Many people not only lose the benefit, but are even the worse for their mortifications [i.e., sacrifices, abstensions], ... because they mistake the whole nature and worth of them: they practice them for their own sakes, as things good in themselves, they think them to be real parts of holiness, and so rest in them and look no further, but grow full of a self- esteem and self-admiration for their own progress in them. This makes them self-sufficient, morose, severe judges of all those that fall short of their mortifications. And thus their self-denials do only that for them which indulgences do for other people: they withstand and hinder the operation of God upon their souls, and instead of being really self-denials, they strengthen and keep up the kingdom of self. ... William Law (1686-1761), The Spirit of Prayer

F. de Sales on Self-love Magnifying Our Injuries
Complain as little as possible of your wrongs, for, as a general rule, you may be sure that complaining is sin: ... because self-love always magnifies our injuries. ... Francois de Sales (1567-1622)

Hammarskjold on Turning Faith Into Magic
There is a pride of faith, more unforgiveable and dangerous than the pride of the intellect. It reveals a split personality in which faith is "observed" and appraised, thus negating that unity born of a dying-unto-self, which is the definition of faith. To "value" faith is to turn it into a metaphysical magic, the advantages of which ought to be reserved for a spiritual elite. ... Dag Hammarskjold, Markings [post., 1964] Daily Worship Thought - 11 March 1998TITLE: Gazing On God

Williams on the Core of Sin
We cannot understand the depth of the Christian doctrine of sin if we give it only a moral connotation. To break the basic laws of justice and decency is sin indeed. Man's freedom to honor principles is the moral dimension in his nature, and sin often appears as lawlessness. But sin has its root in something which is more than the will to break the law. The core of sin is our making ourselves the center of life, rather than accepting the holy God as the center. Lack of trust, self-love, pride, these are three ways in which Christians have expressed the real meaning of sin. But what sin does is to make the struggle with evil meaningless. When we refuse to hold our freedom in trust and reverence for God's will, there is nothing which can make the risk of life worth the pain of it. ... D. D. Williams, Interpreting Theology 1918-1952

Luccock on Wrapping Love in a Person
A scientist said, making a plea for exchange scholarships between nations, "The very best way to send an idea is to wrap it up in a person." That was what happened at Christmas. The idea of divine love was wrapped up in a Person. ... Halford E. Luccock

Kierkegaard on Thanking God
To stand on one leg and prove God's existence is a very different thing from going on one's knees and thanking Him. ... Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855)

C. S. Lewis on His Pagan Heart
I have often, on my knees, been shocked to find what sort of thoughts I have, for a moment, been addressing to God; what infantile placations I was really offering, what claims I have really made, even what absurd adjustments or compromises I was, half-consciously, proposing. There is a Pagan, savage heart in me somewhere. For unfortunately the folly and idiot-cunning of Paganism seem to have far more power of surviving than its innocent or even beautiful elements. It is easy, once you have power, to silence the pipes, still the dances, disfigure the statues, and forget the stories; but not easy to kill the savage, the greedy, frightened creature now cringing, now blustering in one's soul. ... C. S. Lewis, Reflections on the Psalms

H. Johnson on Having God in Our Pocket
[Christians], at their best, know that often they don't know. They do not have all the answers. They do not have God in their pocket. We cannot answer every question that any bright boy in the back row might ask. We have only light enough to walk by. ... Howard A. Johnson (1915- )

Rauschenbusch on Walking Your Talk
Jesus evidently felt deeply the emptiness and futility of much... religious talk. He was interested only in those emotions and professions which could get themselves translated into character and action. Words have always been the bane of religion as well as its vehicle. Religious emotion has enormous motive force, but it is the easiest thing in the world for it to sizzle away in high professions and wordy prayers. In that case, it is a substitute and counterfeit, and a damage to the Reign of God among men. ... Walter Rauschenbusch (1861-1918), The Social Principles of Jesus

C. S. Lewis on "Working Up" our "Faith"
We must not encourage in ourselves or others any tendency to work up a subjective state which, if we succeeded, we should describe as "faith", with the idea that this will somehow ensure the granting of our prayer. We have probably all done this as children. But the state of mind which desperate desire working on a strong imagination can manufacture is not faith in the Christian sense. It is a feat of psychological gymnastics. ... C. S. Lewis (1898-1963), Letters to Malcolm

Ham on a Secret The Christian Church Wants to Share
The Christian Church has a secret at her heart and she wants to share The Christian Church does not want and does not need members because of a job it has to do. The Christian Church has a secret at her heart and she wants to share it. Whenever one, by repentance and forgiveness, enters this community of grace, he discovers life's end, and he too will be constrained to let this life flow out in appropriate channels. Thrilling and costly projects will come into existence, but not as ends in themselves, and the group will not become a means to [such ends]. The group will never forget that one of its primary functions is to up build the members in love. ... William T Ham, "Candles of the Lord"

C. H. Dodd on The Meaning of Paul For Today
The God of Pharisaism was like the God of the Deists -- He stood aloof from the world He had made, and let law take its course. He did not here and now deal with sinful men. Paul lets us see how new and wonderful was the experience when God "flashed on his heart" in personal dealing with him. He had not suspected that God was like that. His theological studies had told him that God was loving and merciful; but he had thought this love and mercy were expressed once and for all in the arrangements He had made for Israel's blessedness... It was a new thing to be assured by an inward experience admitting of no further question that God loved him, and that the eternal mercy was a Father's free forgiveness of His erring child. This was the experience that Christ had brought him: he had seen the splendour of God's own love in the face of "the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me." ... C. H. Dodd, The Meaning of Paul For Today

Brooks on the Foolishness of Living Without Prayer
If man is man and God is God, to live without prayer is not merely an awful thing: it is an infinitely foolish thing. ... Phillips Brooks (1835-1893)

J. B. Phillips on Imagining God to be Roman or Baptist or What Have You
The 'outsider' who knows nothing of the mixture of tradition, conviction, honest difference, and hidden resentment, that lies behind the divisions of the Christian Church sees clearly the advantage of a united Christian front and cannot see why the Churches cannot 'get together'. The problem is doubtless complicated, for there are many honest differences held with equal sincerity, but it is only made insoluble because the different denominations are (possibly unconsciously) imagining God to be Roman or Anglican or Baptist or Methodist or Presbyterian or what have you. If they could see beyond their little inadequate god, and glimpse the reality of God, they might even laugh a little and perhaps weep a little. The result would be a unity that actually does transcend differences, instead of ignoring them with public politeness and private contempt. ... J. B. Phillips, Your God is Too Small [1953]

Luther on Heaven Not Needing Our Service
What is it to serve God and to do His will? Nothing else than to show mercy to our neighbor. For it is our neighbor who needs our service; God in heaven needs it not. ... Martin Luther (1483-1546)

Kempis on Loving Much
Whoever loves much, does much. ... Thomas a Kempis
 

(This quote's from a great web site at (where else?) the University of Virginia called "Thomas Jefferson on Politics & Government: Quotations from the Writings of Thomas Jefferson" .)

LE FastCounter