Evil communications and good manners
Evil communications inevitably corrupt good manners; but good communications do not so necessarily improve evil manners. We more readily learn evil than good, and we are also more forcible in communicating sin than virtue. Both as to the giving out and the receiving, the aptness lies on the wrong side. What a proof of our natural depravity! - C. H. Spurgeon
If everything is lost, thanks be to God
If I must see it go, watch it go,
Watch it fade away, die
Thanks be to God that He is all I have
And if I have Him not, I have nothing at all
Nothing at all, only a farewell to the wind
Farewell to the gray sky
Goodbye, God be with you evening October skye.
If all is lost, thanks be to God
For He is He, and I, I am only I.
- Dom Julian OSB
"Strength of my heart, I need not fail,
Not mine to fear but to obey,
With such a Leader, who could quail?
Thou art as Thou were yesterday.
Strength of my heart, I rest in Thee,
Fulfill Thy purposes through me."
"From prayer that asks that I may be
Sheltered from winds that beat on Thee,
From fearing when I should aspire,
From faltering when I should climb higher,
From silken self, O Captain, free
Thy soldier who would follow Thee.
From subtle love of softening things,
From easy choices, weakenings,
Not thus are spirits fortified,
Not this way went the Crucified,
From all that dims Thy Calvary,
O Lamb of God, deliver me.
Give me the love that leads the way,
The faith that nothing can dismay,
The hope no disappointments tire,
The passion that will burn like fire,
Let me not sink to be a clod:
Make me Thy fuel, Flame of God."
"Westerners wear gods on their wrists." -a Philippine saying
"Westerners have watches but no time." -a Kenyan saying
"Don't Waste Your Life" by John Piper - Quotes from this good book:
The wasted life is the life without a passion for the supremacy of God in all things for the joy of all peoples.
The people that make a durable difference in the world are not the people who have mastered many things, but who have been mastered by one great thing.
Faith itself must include at its essence a treasuring of Christ above all things.
If we were given everything we wanted, we would settle for this world rather than the next. -Elisabeth Elliot
We will have all of eternity to celebrate our victories but we have only a few hours before sunset to win them. -Amy Carmichael
Lord Jesus, for me crucified,
Let not my footsteps from Thee slide,
For I would tread where Thou hast trod,
My spirit tender of the glory of God.
That glory which meant all to Thee,
Let it mean all, my Lord, to me,
So would I tread where Thou hast trod,
My spirit tender of the glory of God.
-Amy Carmichael-
Let the estates I own be ravaged or given to others. Let me lose my life, and let my body be destroyed, rather that I should speak one word against the Lord, who made me.
-Julitta of Ceasarea before taken away to be burned alive, said this to the judge.
Lord crucified,
O mark Thy holy cross
On motive, preference, all fond desires,
On that which self in any form inspires,
Set thou that sign of loss.
And when the touch of death is here and there,
Laid on a thing most precious in our eyes,
Let us not wonder, let us recognize,
The answer to this prayer.
-Amy Carmichael
For God alone do I step on this dusty land--
My nation is divine, and waiting for me.
In Him alone can I find liberty sweet,
Because of Him alone, I have no condemnation.
The earth, this country, my present home,
Will all give way to crumbling dirt:
No security in country or people will I find,
But Christ alone is freeing, loving, ever kind--
To Him alone myself I bind.
--by Anthony Trendl.
All God's giants have been weak men who did great things for God, because they reckoned on God being with them. - J. Hudson Taylor
Infinitely High...Intimately Nigh
Imagine the One who is so infinitely high being so intimately nigh to each one of us, as miniscule as we are in the universe! -Author Unknown