Quotes by American Authors - Page 3279

The primary purpose of reading the Bible is not to know the Bible but to know God.
James Merritt
Today I wonder why it is God refers to Himself as 'Father' at all. This, to me, in light of the earthly representation of the role, seems a marketing mistake.
Donald Miller
Our God Is Alive and Well. Sorry About Yours.
Carl Sagan
If it is true, if it is beautiful, if it is honorable, if it is right, then claim it. Because it is from God. And you belong to God.
Rob Bell
God doesn't believe in the easy way.
James Agee
God works in mysterious ways but at least he works, he's never on welfare in a mysterious way.
Stephen Colbert
When you suffer, you are being conformed to the image of Jesus. When you pray, you are being made holy in the image of Jesus. When you quietly serve a person in need, you are being shaped into the image of Jesus. When you generously give, your heart is being remade into the image of Jesus, our Lord and Savior.
Allen R. Hunt
If you want to do the work of God, pay attention to people. Notice them. Especially the people nobody else notices.
John Ortberg
The greatest cause in the world is joyfully rescuing people from hell, meeting their earthly needs, making them glad in God, and doing it with a kind, serious pleasure that makes Christ look like the Treasure he is.
John Piper
It seems to me that religion is losing momentum and God is making a comeback.
Steve Maraboli
Dysfunction comes when we intertwine the church and God and view them as one.
Randy Elrod
Again, a conversation with the doctor. We always come back to the same point: "The church may not mix in politics." he says. And I tell him that when you are a Christian and profess that God is almighty, there is no single area of life from which you can eliminate God. -From the diary of Diet Eman
Diet Eman
How does "Let go and let God" measure up against Scripture? Remember, the test isn't what sounds deep, what sounds holy, or even what makes sense to us. For the Christian, the test is Scripture.
Dan Phillips
God gave laws to His people to bless them, not to burden them. Every rule either elevates the quality of human life or restores one's relationship with God after a breach. He makes no extraneous demands and He is never capricious.
Charles R. Swindoll
It takes faith to find personal significance in your relationship with God rather than how much money you earn, how beautiful you look, how many toys you own, how many trophies you collect, or how much territory you conquer and control.
Charles R. Swindoll
Prayer at its highest is a two-way conversation-and for me the most important part is listening to God's replies.
Frank C. Laubach
Fortunately Jesus didn't leave [the disciples]-or any of us-without hope or direction. Where we fail, Jesus succeeded. The only One who as able to recognize and follow His purpose from the beginning was Jesus. He alone was able to obey consistently and please God completely. And His divine mission was to make a way for each of us to do the same.
Charles R. Swindoll
Behavior is the substance of religion. Belief is the substance of relationship.
Charles F. Stanley
Tears are God's way of cleansing the heart.
Rebecca Barlow Jordan
Your call will become clear as as your mind is transformed by the reading of Scripture and the internal work of God's Spirit. The Lord never hides His will from us. In time, as you obey the call first to follow, your destiny will unfold before you. The difficulty will lie in keeping other concerns from diverting your attention.
Charles R. Swindoll
The generality of mankind is lazy. What distinguishes men of genuine achievement from the rest of us is not so much their intellectual powers and aptitudes as their curiosity, their energy, their fullest use of their potentialities. Nobody really knows how smart or talented he is until he finds the incentives to use himself to the fullest. God has given us more than we know what to do with.
Sydney J. Harris
If Christ is God, He cannot sin, and if suffering was a sin in and by itself, He could not have suffered and died for us. However, since He took the most horrific death to redeem us, He showed us in fact that suffering and pain have great power.
E.A. Bucchianeri
Sometimes new opportunity means new opposition. Not everything God asks us to do will be comfortable.
Joyce Meyer
Jesus is God's way of refusing to give up his dream for the world.
Rob Bell
I had no real communication with anyone at the time, so I was totally dependent on God. And he never failed me.
Diet Eman
You can con God and get away with it, Granny said, if you do so with charm and wit. If you live your life with imagination and verve, God will play along just to see what outrageously entertaining thing you'll do next.
Dean Koontz
We have to be ready for the blessings God tosses at us. In order to catch your blessing, you have to let go of your burden.
Raylene Roybal
We must surrender ourselves to God, not our assignments.
E'yen A. Gardner
All I know is that the closer I get to God, the deeper I get into the Bible, and the heavier the burden seems on my shoulders.
Tim LaHaye
We start our lives with blues . . . with music. It's our first language. It's the rhythm of the womb. It's your mama's heartbeat inside your head.
David Mutti Clark
God transforms us one area at a time.
Judah Smith
Grace is God-given power to live differently.
Judah Smith
Man has 2 common problems with God: the one is that there is evil in the world; the other is that free will is limited. The one, he is charging that the world is too evil; the other is that it is not evil enough.
Criss Jami
...there is nothing unforgivable and there are no secrets before an all-knowing merciful God.
J.E.B. Spredemann
My grace is sufficient for thee. The words soothed her soul like a healing balm.
J.E.B. Spredemann
We are often harsher judges than God himself.
Judah Smith
As individuals die every moment, how insensitive and fabricated a love it is to set aside a day from selfish routine in prideful, patriotic commemoration of tragedy. Just as God is provoked by those who tithe simply because they feel that they must tithe, I am provoked by those who commemorate simply because they feel that they must commemorate.
Criss Jami
Rather than remain a sealed jar, she sought only to pour herself out to others. Everything she did mirrored her faith. It was as though every waking hour of the day she was devoted to pleasing her God by serving others. This God that she worshiped consumed her. It didn't ask for a brief visit to a temple, or a small votive offering of food or coin, or a few prayers every now and then. This God wanted all of her.
Francine Rivers
Isn’t that the way God works? She’d thought. He takes the things in our lives that are ugly, disgusting, and downright wicked, and transforms them into something magnificent.
J.E.B. Spredemann
O Heavenly Children, God's messengers are as limitless as the fish in the sea. They come in all colors, regions, languages and creeds. But their message is one and the same, don't you see? He only wishes to unite all His children under one family tree.
Suzy Kassem
Only in the silence of our mind are we One.
Vivian Amis
When you find that a theology has nothing more to offer than what the world already offers, then that theology as a theology is impractical, and therefore, useless.
Criss Jami
Religion, like science, is only noteworthy when it emphasizes a matter of what is true rather than whose belief is greater or lesser or which deity works for whom. Sincere religion and tested science are similar in that their assertions can be argued logically and objectively; otherwise, we get false cults and babble.
Criss Jami
The character of Jesus is the character of God. God would never do something Jesus would find morally reprehensible, so if you can’t find it in Jesus, then you really ought to think twice before you claim you’ve found it in God.
Austin Fischer
THE THREE LAWS OF ALLYou are never to worship a living soul,Except for three entities:Three - YOUR FATHERTwo - YOUR MOTHERAnd one - HE WHO IS ALL.To begin to study All Things,You must start with only three things:Man,Nature,And the universe.All three are a reflection of each other.So simply study one,To understand the other.All of creation started with JUST three things,And no living thing was created without them:Water,Light,And dust.Know these three basic laws.And you will come to knowHe Who Is All.Forever big, yet sometimes small,He is found in the heartOf everything.Suzy Kassem Poetry, Truth is Crying
Suzy Kassem
In our worldly perceptions of Jesus, we tend to embrace the kindness of his love ('be encouraged') but not the discipline of his love ('and sin no more'). But with the whole scope of his love, or maturity in Christ, we begin relying on him for guidance where we would prefer him to walk beside us rather than behind us.
Criss Jami
Those of us who embrace the feminine know its strength.
Betsy Cornwell
You can’t selectively numb your anger, any more than you can turn off all lights in a room, and still expect to see the light.
Shannon L. Alder
People are not being reached in the context of the body of Christ--they're like newborn babies being left on a doorstep somewhere to feed and care for themselves.
Peter E. Gillquist
I think that must be a lot like how God has it--not to sound as if I think I'm anything like God, mind you. But the whole idea--sitting up there behind glass you can't be seen through. The person down below looks up and it's just a reflection of themselves, a mirror is what they see. But behind the glass, somebody who loves you more than anything is watching, and is hoping for the best for you, and cheering you on, and is loving you even when you are doing something you shouldn't be.
Suzanne Strempek Shea
Do you ever feel like we are the universe’s date to a pig party? Love, The Human Race
Christy Leigh Stewart
In Rwanda, one person's God is another person's Satan-Thérèse Nyirabayovu
Karl Maier
God doesn't act like the Church. No, instead, the Church must act like God.
Kim Clement
It was as if we'd only been gone the weekend. Or had we been gone a lifetime. Part of that was because when you've lived in Alaska, living in other places seems easier, less challenging, less threatening. Alaska had enlarged each of us. No one is ever the same after coming back from Alaska.
Peter Jenkins
The place to cure most of the ills of society is in the homes of the people.
Joseph B. Wirthlin
In ridiculing a pathetic human fallacy, which seeks explanation where none need be sought and which multiplies unnecessary assumptions, one should not mimic primitive ontology in order to challenge it. Better to dispose of the needless assumption altogether. This holds true for everything from Noah's flood to the Holocaust.
Christopher Hitchens
It is sad that unless you are born a god, your life,from its very beginning, is a mystery to you.
Jamaica Kincaid
As I accepted my death and dissolution into God's love, the insectoids began feeding on my heart, devouring the feelings of love and surrender. They were interested in emotion. As I was holding on to my last thought - that God is love - they asked, "Even here? Even here?
Rick Strassman
I was insanely jealous of Lucille. More jealous than I'd ever been of anyone in my entire life. Because she truly meant it. All I could think was, why can't I be as stupid as Lucille? Why can't I blame all my successes and all my failures on The Lord Jesus Christ Almighty? I would be so fucking happy if I lived like that.
Tiffanie DeBartolo
A certain wise man once said that God didn't play dice with the universe, but that man was wrong. Sometimes I think He must even try Russian roulette.
Daína Chaviano