Great Throughts Treasury

"The vaster the audience, the more vulnerable the people watching the media."

"The world is larger and more beautiful than my little struggle."

"There can be no reproach to pain unless we assume human dignity, there is no reason for restraints on pleasure unless we assume human worth, there is no legitimacy to monotony unless we assume a greater purpose to life, there is no purpose to life unless we assume design, death has no significance unless we seek what is everlasting."

"Then he said something that was absolutely defining for him: "Write this down and never forget it: Love is as much a question of the will as it is of the emotion. And if you will to love somebody, you can.""

"There are no unique postures and times and limitations that restrict our access to God. My relationship with God is intimate and personal. The Christian does not go to the temple to worship. The Christian takes the temple with him or her. Jesus lifts us beyond the building and pays the human body the highest compliment by making it His dwelling place, the place where He meets with us. Even today He would overturn the tables of those who make it a marketplace for their own lust, greed and wealth."

"These days it?s not just that the line between right and wrong has been made unclear, today Christians are being asked by our culture today to erase the lines and move the fences, and if that were not bad enough, we are being asked to join in the celebration cry by those who have thrown off the restraints religion had imposed upon them. It is not just that they ask we accept, but they now demand of us to celebrate it too."

"Time is the brush of God, as he paints his masterpiece on the heart of humanity."

"Truth by definition excludes."

"To sustain the belief that there is no God, atheism has to demonstrate infinite knowledge, which is tantamount to saying, I have infinite knowledge that there is no being in existence with infinite knowledge"

"Truth has been relegated to subjectivity; beauty has been subjugated to the beholder; and as millions are idiotized night after night, a global commune has been constructed with the arts enjoying a totalitarian rule."

"To be born in India is to arrive into the world swimming in religion."

"Two of the chief defenders of the faith in the Old Testament and in the New - Moses and Paul - were both well-versed in the language, the thinking, and the philosophy of their cultures."

"Truth is not only a matter of offense, in that it makes certain assertions. It is also a matter of defense in that it must be able to make a cogent and sensible response to the counterpoints that are raised."

"We all want Canaan without going through the wilderness."

"Truth that is not undergirded by love makes the truth obnoxious and the possessor of it repulsive."

"We are living in a time when sensitivities are at the surface, often vented with cutting words. Philosophically, you can believe anything so as you do not claim it a better way. Religiously, you can hold to anything, so long as you do not bring Jesus Christ into it. If a spiritual idea is eastern, it is granted critical immunity; if western, it is thoroughly criticized. Thus, a journalist can walk into a church and mock its carryings on, but he or she dare not do the same if the ceremony is from eastern fold. Such is the mood at the end of the twentieth century. A mood can be a dangerous state of mind, because it can crush reason under the weight of feeling. But that is precisely what I believe postmodernism best represents - a mood."

"We do not live so that we can eat, nor do we just eat so that we can live. Life is worth living in and of itself. Life cannot be satisfied when it is lived out as a consuming entity. When it is filled by that which satisfies a hunger that is both physical and spiritual in a mutuality that sustains both without violation of either, only then can life be truly fulfilling."

"We are his temple. We do not turn in a certain direction to pray. We are not bound by having to go into a building so that we can commune with God. There are no unique postures and times and limitations that restrict our access to God. My relationship with God is intimate and personal. The Christian does not go to the temple to worship. The Christian takes the temple with him or her. Jesus lifts us beyond the building and pays the human body the highest compliment by making it His dwelling place, the place where He meets with us. Even today He would overturn the tables of those who make it a marketplace for their own lust, greed, and wealth."

"We exaggerate the separation of the emotion and the will as two distinct faculties of operation ? some kind of misshapen two-headed monster. Think for example, of the caricature we make of one difference between men and women. We seem to think that women are more emotionally driven and men more cerebrally driven. If that caricature were true, why is it that more men fall into infidelity after marriage than do women? If women are more emotionally driven, should it not be the other way around?"

"What I believe in my heart must make sense in my mind."

"When a plane crashes and some die while others live, a skeptic calls into question God's moral character, saying that he has chosen some to live and others to die on a whim; yet you say it is your moral right to choose whether the child within you should live or die. Does that not sound odd to you? When God decides who should live or die, he is immoral. When you decide who should live or die, it's your moral right."

"What we need is not a religion that is right where we are right, but one that is right where we are wrong."

"When God is our Holy Father, sovereignty, holiness, omniscience, and immutability do not terrify us; they leave us full of awe and gratitude. Sovereignty is only tyrannical if it is unbounded by goodness; holiness is only terrifying if it is untempered by grace; omniscience is only taunting if it is unaccompanied by mercy; and immutability is only torturous if there is no guarantee of goodwill."

"When we look into the human heart we see the lust, the greed, the hate, the pride, the anger, and the jealousies that are so destructive. This is at the heart of the human predicament, and the Scriptures call this condition sin."

"When I do things my way, I exhaust pleasure very quickly. It is not that Christianity has failed to teach me how to delight in God's presence; it is that I have failed by seeking pleasure through godless ways or by resisting God's provision for me because it is not what I want."

"When you find your definitions in God, you find the very purpose for which you were created. Put your hand into God's hand, know His absolutes, demonstrate His love, present His truth, and the message of redemption and transformation will take hold."

"Who is God? Who are we? What is our purpose? All these questions remain unanswered. I want to reach the genuine seeker of spiritual well-being. My goal is to satisfy the hunger and longing for those who are seeking the truth."

"When you think of it, really there are four fundamental questions of life. You've asked them, I've asked them, every thinking person asks them. They boil down to this; origin, meaning, morality and destiny. 'How did I come into being? What brings life meaning? How do I know right from wrong? Where am I headed after I die?'"

"Where destruction is the motive, unity is dangerous. For example, if I have evil intent and I galvanize that evil intent with many others, the capacity to destroy is immense. Where goodness is the motive, unity is phenomenal and actually has some good issues to it."

"Wonder blasts the soul - that is, the spiritual - and the skeleton, the body - the material. Wonder interprets life through the eyes of eternity while enjoying the moment, but never lets the moment's revision exhaust the eternal."

"With no fact as a referent, what is normative is purely a matter of preference."

"Wonder knows that while you cannot look at the light, you cannot look at anything else without it. It is not exhausted by childhood, but finds its key there. It is a journey like a walk through the woods over the usual obstacles and around the common distractions while the voice of direction leads, saying, 'This is the way, walk ye in it.'"

"Worship is a posture of life that takes as its primary purpose the understanding of what it really means to love and revere God."

"Yes, if truth is not undergirded by love, it makes the possessor of that truth obnoxious and the truth repulsive."

"You can only learn so much from books. You can only learn so much from education. Ultimately, it is the wisdom of God that will carry you through in the toughest situations of life."

"Wonder is that possession of the mind that enchants the emotions while never surrendering reason. It is a grasp on reality that does not need constant high points in order to be maintained, nor is it made vulnerable by the low points of life's struggle."

"You'll never get to a person's soul until you understand their hurts."