“The circumstances surrounding our lives are no accident: they may be the work of evil, but that evil is held firmly within the mighty hand of our sovereign”

“God does something to us as well as for us through the cross. He persuades us that He loves us.” —Sinclair Ferguson”

“The thing that awakens the deepest well of gratitude in a human being is that God has forgiven sin.” —Oswald Chambers”

“Now think, my brother, you will be in Heaven very soon. Since last year a great number have gone home: before next year many more will have ascended to glory. Sitting up in those celestial seats, how shall we wish that we had lived below?” —Charles Spurgeon”

“Oh, God show me more of Your holiness. Show me more of my sinfulness. Help me to hate sin and to love righteousness as You do. Grant me a deeper conviction of sin and a more thorough spirit of repentance. And make me holy as You are holy.”

“Pride is spiritual cancer: it eats up the very possibility of love, or contentment, or even common sense.” —C. S. Lewis”

“The more I study nature, the more I stand amazed at the work of the Creator.” —Louis Pasteur”

“As you go through life, don’t let your feelings—real as they are—invalidate your need to let the truth of God’s words guide your thinking. Remember that the path to your heart travels through your mind. Truth matters.”

“This gift cannot be worked for, earned, or achieved. It’s not dependent on our merit or effort but solely on Christ’s generous sacrifice on our behalf.”

“A Barna poll shows that for every American who believes he or she is going to Hell, there are 120 who believe they’re going to Heaven.[4] Yet Christ said otherwise: “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it” (Matthew 7:13-14).”

“When God provides more money we often think, This is a blessing. Yes, but it would be just as scriptural to say, “This is a test.” Abundance isn’t God’s provision for me to live in luxury. It’s his provision for me to help others live.”

“To procrastinate obedience is to disobey God.”

“Sin and death and suffering and war and poverty are not natural—they are the devastating results of our rebellion against God. We long for a return to Paradise—a perfect world, without the corruption of sin, where God walks with us and talks with us in the cool of the day.”

“The opportunities for using our financial resources to spread the gospel and strengthen the church all over the world are greater than they've ever been. As God raised up Esther for just such a time as hers, I'm convinced he's raise us up, with all our wealth, to help fulfill the great commission. The question is, what are we doing with that money? Our job is to make sure it gets to his intended recipients.”

“Delaying giving as a strategy for future kingdom building is risky. We could hold on to assets out of fear of letting go or unwillingness to surrender control to the Lord. As long as money lies within our grasp, there's not only the danger that we'll lose the assets, but also that we'll change our minds or be seduced by the status, prestige, and recognition of controlling (or having our name attached to the distribution of) what belongs to God.”

“Some of the best portrayals I’ve seen of the eternal Heaven are in children’s books. Why? Because they depict earthly scenes, with animals and people playing, and joyful activities. The books for adults, on the other hand, often try to be philosophical, profound, ethereal, and otherworldly. But that kind of Heaven is precisely what the Bible doesn’t portray as the place where we’ll live forever. John”

“We can't surrender to the culture. We've minimized the role of fathers, so we've created a generation of barbarians, children who become men without growing up. They stay in boyhood through their 20s and 30s, sometimes their whole lives. They think of themselves first, indulge in pornography, do what they feel like, leave their wives, and culture, and churches to raise their children.”

“We should remember Christ's words, 'Let nothing be wasted,' when we look in our refrigerators and garbage cans and garages.”

“So look out a window. Take a walk. Talk with your friend. Use your God-given skills to paint or draw or build a shed or write a book. But imagine it—all of it—in its original condition. The happy dog with the wagging tail, not the snarling beast, beaten and starved. The flowers unwilted, the grass undying, the blue sky without pollution. People smiling and joyful, not angry, depressed, and empty. If you’re not in a particularly beautiful place, close your eyes and envision the most beautiful place you’ve ever been—complete with palm trees, raging rivers, jagged mountains, waterfalls, or snow drifts. Think of friends or family members who loved Jesus and are with him now. Picture them with you, walking together in this place. All of you have powerful bodies, stronger than those of an Olympic decathlete. You are laughing, playing, talking, and reminiscing. You reach up to a tree to pick an apple or orange. You take a bite. It’s so sweet that it’s startling. You’ve never tasted anything so good. Now you see someone coming toward you. It’s Jesus, with a big smile on his face. You fall to your knees in worship. He pulls you up and embraces you. At last, you’re with the person you were made for, in the place you were made to be. Everywhere you go there will be new people and places to enjoy, new things to discover. What’s that you smell? A feast. A party’s ahead. And you’re invited. There’s exploration and work to be done—and you can’t wait to get started.”

“Yanked out of the present, Adam discovered the richness of the past in people's stories.”