We don’t get stronger in faith by avoiding our fears. What’s true about our physical bodies is also true about our spirits: the only way to get stronger is to work out. And we only overcome the paralysis of fear as we take our next step in faith. We initiate the conversation; we make the contribution; we show up for the meeting; we obey God in the small thing. And the momentum of each step pushes against the force field of fear, weakening its power to control us.
Christian Growth
Jill Monaco
God made us to hear His voice, encounter His presence and walk in intimacy with Him. Your relationship with Him is unique and others may not understand … but that doesn’t mean they get to discount your experience. You may not be as knowledgeable about God’s word but that doesn’t surprise or disappoint God. So if a leader makes you feel that way it’s not of God. Community enhances our relationship with God but it isn’t the foundation. God is. You can hear God. You can read His Word and receive revelation from it. You can make good decisions because you have the Spirit of the living God leading you.
Ann Spangler
While the Gospels record many instances of Jesus instantly healing people’s illnesses, we know of not even one instance in which he simply waved his hand to immediately fix an ugly habit for one of his disciples. Instead, he simply kept teaching and correcting them, giving them time to grow. God seems to work like this much of the time in our own lives. He lets our weaknesses and difficulties drive us to himself, keeping us close. Miracles happen, but the inner transformation we so desperately desire can only be achieved over time. God seems to prefer it this way, perhaps because he knows we can only become like him by maintaining a constant close connection.
Chris Mathis
Your peace in this season will determine your pace in this season.
Thomas Merton
Souls are like athletes, that need opponents worthy of them, if they are to be tried and extended and pushed to the full use of their powers, and rewarded according to their capacity.
Peter Mattis
By not pushing down our emotions but instead allowing them to come up and surface, then giving them to Jesus, He takes our pain, trials and fear and exchanges it with the health, fruit and life. Jesus takes all our ashes and gives us beauty; he takes all our brokenness and gives us wholeness. That’s the nature of the cross. That is the Great Exchange that needs to take place on a daily basis.
Matt McClinnen
Be easy on yourself for what you didn’t know back when you didn’t know it. God isn’t looking for encyclopedias, but children who are willing to learn and mature.
Vance Havner
Sometimes your medicine bottle has on it, “shake well before using.” That is what God has to do with some of His people. He has to shake them well before they are ever usable.
Hannah Whitall Smith
I saw that the kingdom must be interior before it can be exterior, that it is a kingdom of ideas, and not one of brute force; that His rule is over hearts, not over places; that His victories must be inward before they can be outward; that He seeks to control spirits rather than bodies; that no triumph could satisfy Him but a triumph that gains the heart; that in short, where God really reigns, the surrender must be the interior surrender of the convicted free men, and not merely the outward surrender of the conquered slave.
James I (J. I.) Packer
Wisdom is the power to see and the inclination to choose the best and highest goal, together with the surest means of attaining it.