While Western atheists turn from belief in God because a tsunami in another part of the world caused great suffering, many brokenhearted survivors of that same tsunami found faith in God. This is one of the great paradoxes of suffering. Those who don’t suffer much think suffering should keep people from God, while many who suffer a great deal turn to God, not from him.
Faith
Edward McKendree (E. M.) Bounds
God’s Word does not say, “Call unto me, and you will thereby be trained into the happy art of knowing how to be denied. Ask, and you will learn sweet patience by getting nothing.” Far from it. But it is definite, clear and positive: “Ask, and it shall be given unto you.”
Dallas Willard
Faith is a living well-founded confidence in the grace of God so perfectly certain that it would die thousand times rather than surrender its conviction. Such confidence and personal knowledge of divine grace makes its possessor joyful, bold, and full of warm affection towards God and all created things, all of which the Holy Spirit works in faith.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
A chasm is opening between the men who believe their Bibles and the men who are prepared for an advance upon Scripture. Inspiration and speculation cannot long abide in peace. Compromise there can be none. We cannot hold the inspiration of the Word, and yet reject it; we cannot believe in the atonement and deny it; we cannot hold the doctrine of the fall and yet talk of the evolution of spiritual life from human nature; we cannot recognize the punishment of the impenitent and yet indulge the “larger hope.” One way or the other we must go. Decision is the virtue of the hour.
Tom Zawacki
I’ve got bad news and good news. The bad news is that we’re about to be tested. The good news is, I know what questions will be on the test, and I’m willing to share them with you.
Here are the 10 questions:
1. In your current circumstances your best way forward is to:
a. Love.
b. Choose not to love.
2. In your current circumstances your best way forward is to:
a. Forgive.
b. Choose not to forgive.
3. In your current circumstances your best way forward is to:
a. Gossip.
b. Choose not to gossip.
4. In your current circumstances your best way forward is to:
a. Be merciful.
b. Choose not to be merciful.
5. In your current circumstances your best way forward is to:
a. Extend grace.
b. Choose not to extend grace.
6. In your current circumstances your best way forward is to:
a. Embrace change.
b. Resist change.
7. In your current circumstances your best way forward is to:
a. Think the best of others.
b. Think the worst of others.
8. In your current circumstances your best way forward is to:
a. Trust God.
b. Choose not to trust God.
9. In your current circumstances your best way forward is to:
a. Quit.
b. Choose not to quit.
10. In your current circumstances your best way forward is to:
a. Risk.
b. Choose not to Risk.
Vaneetha Risner
I’m still in the middle of my story. And so are you. While none of us know the joys and trials we have yet to encounter, we do know that Jesus will be with us through them.
Ed Stetzer
When we pair our prayers with Scripture, we effectively merge our inputs and outputs. We remind ourselves of God’s truth in the midst of our trials while simultaneously laying God’s own truth before him, asking him to be faithful to his Word.
C S Lewis
You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call Him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.
Nancy Boyd-Sherman
It’s funny how fragile my faith is after so many years of walking with Jesus. You would think I had matured past this point, but the choice to trust is a daily exercise it seems. And He is faithful. Faithful to wait for me to realize I feel distant, faithful to wait until I realize I do not hear a well as I know is possible. When I ask what has come between us, He is faithful to step in with truth – not accusation. Truth. The truth of what lies I’ve partnered with and how I’ve harboured accusation, hurt, offense, and fear in my heart that crowd out His spirit. He reveals his truth about my lack of forgiveness for myself and others. This truth does not just lay me bare, it offers restoration to intimacy. I ask myself how many times will he forgive the weakness of my faith and restore me? He responds “As many times as is needed.”
Samuel Logan Brengle
Consecration and faith are matters of the heart, and the trouble with most people is there; but, no doubt, there are some people whose trouble is with the head. They fail to get the blessing because they are seeking something altogether too small.