Great Throughts Treasury

"May you live in such a way that your death is just the beginning of your life."

"Nature is God?s first missionary. Where there is no Bible there are sparkling stars. Where there are not preachers there are spring times? If a person has nothing but nature, then nature is enough to reveal something about God."

"My first encounters with faith came about the time I was a Boy Scout, at about 14 or 15. I made the logical deduction that they operate the same way; I treated my faith like earning a merit badge, and everything about Christianity was about earning merit badges."

"No occasion justifies hatred; no injustice warrants bitterness. I choose love. Today I will love God and what God loves."

"Next time a sunrise steals your breath or a meadow of flowers leave you speechless, remain that way. Say nothing, and listen as heaven whispers, "Do you like it? I did it just for you.""

"No person [should] walk out into the world to begin the day until he or she has stood beneath the cross to receive God?s love."

"Nothing fosters courage like a clear grasp of grace... and nothing fosters fear like an ignorance of mercy."

"Off to one side sits a group of shepherds. They sit silently on the floor, perhaps perplexed, perhaps in awe, no doubt in amazement. Their night watch had been interrupted by an explosion of light from heaven and a symphony of angels. God goes to those who have time to hear him and so on this cloudless night he went to simple shepherds."

"Nothing is won by force. I choose to be gentle. If I raise my voice may it only be in praise. If I clench my fist, may it only be in prayer. If I make a demand, may it be only of myself."

"Once there was an old man who lived in a tiny village. Although poor, he was envied by all, for he owned a beautiful white horse. Even the king coveted his treasure. A horse like this had never been seen before ? such was its splendor, its majesty, its strength."

"One of the greatest gifts we can give people is the hope that their death is nothing to fear - you know, not that it has no fear in it, but the promise of scripture is that God will lead us through the valley of the shadow of death."

"One of the things I discover a lot in marriage counseling is the husband or wife trying to get their spiritual thirst quenched by their partner; I think that's a real common mistake that we make."

"Our God is abundant in love and steadfast in mercy. He saves us, not because we trust in a symbol, but because we trust in a Savior."

"Our belief in God is not blind faith. Belief is having a firm conviction something is true, not hoping it?s true."

"Our Master has forgiven an insurmountable debt. Does God demand reimbursement? Does he insist on his pound of flesh? When your feet walk the wrong road, does he demand that you cut them off? When your eyes look twice where they should never look once, does he blind you? When you use your tongue for profanity instead of praise, does he cut it out? If he did, we would one maimed civilization. He demands no payment, at least not from us. How can one forgiven not forgive?"

"Philosophers can debate the meaning of life, but you need a Lord who can declare the meaning of life."

"People assume when they come into a church and see a person up there speaking, 'That person must be a good person.' My challenge through the years has been believing that: 'I guess I must be a really good person.' I struggle with it. It just helps me to keep that confessional posture."

"Our prayers may be awkward. Our attempts may be feeble. But since the power of prayer is in the one who hears it and not in the one who says it, our prayers do make a difference."

"Our Savior kneels down and gazes upon the darkest acts of our lives. But rather than recoil in horror, he reaches out in kindness and says, ?I can clean that if you want.? And from the basin of his grace, he scoops a palm full of mercy and washes our sin."

"Sentences are like just caught fish. Spunky today, stinky tomorrow."

"Remember, you are special because I made you. And I don?t make mistakes."

"Sometimes God allows what he hates to accomplish what he loves."

"Sin put you in prison. Sin locked you behind the bars of guilt and shame and deception and fear. Sin did nothing but shackle you to the wall of misery."

"Prayer is the window that God has placed in the walls of our world. Leave it shut and the world is a cold, dark house. But throw back the curtains and see His light. Open the window and hear His voice. Open the window of prayer and invoke the presence of God in your world."

"Prayer lets God do what he does best. Take a pebble and kill a Goliath. Take the common, make it spectacular! Pray and see what He can do."

"Sometimes, the people who make a difference are not the ones with the credentials, but the ones with the concern."

"The apostle Paul never seemed to exhaust the topic of grace - what makes us think we can? He just kept coming at it and coming at it from another angle. That's the thing about grace. It's like springtime. You can't put it in a single sentence definition, and you can't exhaust it."

"The Bible is God's Word given in man's language."

"The best way to cheer yourself up is to cheer someone else up."

"Sustaining grace promises not the absence of struggle but the presence of God."

"The fear-filled cannot love deeply. Love is risky. They cannot give to the poor. Benevolence has no guarantee of return. The fear-filled cannot dream wildly. What if their dreams sputter and fall from the sky? The worship of safety emasculates greatness."

"The idea of a spiritual heart transplant is a vivid image to me; once you have the heart of somebody else inside you, then that heart is there. Jesus' heart is inside me, and my heart is gone. So if God were to place a stethoscope against my chest, he would hear the heart of Jesus Christ beating."

"Take a break from your problems. Face each day determined to dwell on the positives. Think about what you have to look forward to. Write a list and put it where you can see it. Try lending an ear to someone in need. Be especially kind to people with whom you have only one encounter: a waiter, a taxi driver, a store clerk. You may have only one chance to be kind. When you start living for others, it's pretty hard not to get over whatever's bothering you."

"The key is this: Meet today's problems with today's strength. Don't start tackling tomorrow's problems until tomorrow. You do not have tomorrow's strength yet. You simply have enough for today."

"The key to forgiving others is to quit focusing on what they did to you and start focusing on what God did for you."

"The Land of Promise is for those who simply remain to the end."

"The maker of the stars would rather die for you than live without you. And that is a fact. So if you need to brag, brag about that."

"The next time you find yourself alone in a dark alley facing the undeniables of life, don?t cover them with a blanket, or ignore them with a nervous grin. Don?t turn up the TV and pretend they aren?t there. Instead, stand still, whisper his name, and listen. He is nearer than you think."

"The meaning of life. The wasted years of life. The poor choices of life. God answers the mess of life with one word: 'grace.'"

"The only mistake is not to risk making one."

"The same hand that stilled the seas stills your guilt. The same hand that cleansed the Temple cleanses your heart. The hand is the hand of God. The nail is the nail of God."

"The sinless One took on the face of a sinner so that we sinners could take on the face of a saint."

"The purpose of the Bible is simply to proclaim God?s plan to save His children. It asserts that man is lost and needs to be saved. And it communicates the message that Jesus is the God in the flesh sent to save His children."

"There are many unacceptable reasons for war. Imperialism. Financial gain. Religion. Family feuds. Racial arrogance. There are many unacceptable motives for war. But there is one time when war is condoned and used by God: wickedness."

"The wizard [of Oz] says look inside yourself and find self. God says look inside yourself and find [the Holy Spirit]. The first will get you to Kansas."

"There is a canyon of difference between doing your best to glorify God and doing whatever it takes to glorify yourself. The quest for excellence is a mark of maturity. The quest for power is childish."

"The world is full of vibrant color. Don't let it lose an ounce of its luster. Assume this day is going to be good, and it will. God made it so."

"The word? for selfishness shares a root form with the words strife and contentious. It suggests a self-preoccupation that hurts others? Selfishness is an obsession with self that excludes others, hurting everyone."

"There is a time for risky love. There is a time for extravagant gestures. There is a time to pour out your affections on one you love. And when the time comes --seize it, don't miss it."

"There is no way our little minds can comprehend the love of God. But that didn't keep him from coming."