Great Throughts Treasury

"God's mercies are new every morning. Receive them."

"Grace is God as heart surgeon, cracking open your chest, removing your heart - poisoned as it is with pride and pain - and replacing it with his own."

"He saw you cast into a river of life you didn?t request. He saw you betrayed by those you love. He saw you with a body that gets sick and a heart that grows weak. He saw you in your own garden of gnarled trees and sleeping friends. He saw you staring into the pit of your own failures and the mouth of your own grave. He saw you in your own garden of Gethsemane and he didn?t want you to be alone ? He would rather go to hell for you than to heaven without you."

"GRACE is the GIFT of God's Riches' the PEACE of God, The LOVE of God, The HOPE of God."

"Grace is God?s best idea. Rather than tell us to change, he creates the change. Do we clean up so he can accept us? No, he accepts us and begins cleaning us up. Grace is God as heart surgeon, cracking open your chest, removing your heart?poisoned as it is with pride and pain?and replacing it with his own. His dream isn?t just to get you into heaven, but to get heaven into you. What a difference this makes! Can?t forgive your enemy? Can?t face tomorrow? Can?t forgive your past?"

"Here?s what you need to keep in mind. You no longer have yesterday. You do not yet have tomorrow. You have only today. This is the day the Lord has made. Live in it."

"He loves each one of us like there is only one of us to love (when God whispers your name)."

"He promises a lamp unto our feet, not a crystal ball into the future."

"How can a person deal with anxiety? You might try what one fellow did. He worried so much that he decided to hire someone to do his worrying for him. He found a man who agreed to be his hired worrier for a salary of $200,000 per year. After the man accepted the job, his first question to his boss was, Where are you going to get $200,000 per year? To which the man responded, That?s your worry."

"Here's a salute to a long good life: goodness that outlives the grave. Love that outlasts the final breath. May you live your life in such a way that your death is just the beginning of your life."

"Here's what you need to keep in mind. You no longer have yesterday. You do not yet have tomorrow. You have only today. This is the day the Lord has made. Live in it."

"Human love is emotional. Feelings dominate a human's love landscape. We feel as though we're in love, or we don't feel as though we're in love. Hormones, sleeplessness, wory, past hurts, Mexican food--all complicate these emotions."

"I am a spiritual being... After this body is dead, my spirit will soar. I refuse to let what will rot rule the eternal. I choose self-control. I will be drunk only by joy. I will be impassioned only by my faith. I will be influenced only by God."

"I choose faithfulness? Today I will keep my promises. My debtors will not regret their trust. My associates will not question my word. My wife will not question my love. And my children will never fear that their father will not come home."

"I choose goodness? I will go without a dollar before I take a dishonest one. I will be overlooked before I will boast. I will confess before I will accuse. I choose goodness."

"I choose kindness...I will be kind to the poor, for they are alone. Kind to the rich, for they are afraid. And kind to the unkind, for such is how God has treated me."

"I choose patience? I will overlook the inconveniences of the world. Instead of cursing the one who takes my place, I'll invite him to do so. Rather than complain that the wait is too long, I will thank God for a moment to pray. Instead of clenching my fist at new assignments, I will face them with joy and courage."

"I don't believe our works save us, but I believe they follow us into heaven and bring glory to God."

"I guess grace doesn't have to [be] logical. If it did, it wouldn't be grace."

"I refuse to let what will rot, rule the eternal. I choose self-control. I will be drunk only by joy. I will be impassioned only by my faith. I will be influenced only by God. I will be taught only by Christ. I choose self-control."

"I get one hour, really 25 minutes in a sermon on a weekend, to combat all the hours of the week that people are told you are what you have through billboards, commercials, and sitcoms, and so forth."

"I think that a church should be setting the pace for social justice."

"I think we question God?s grace because we do exhaust the grace of people, the grace of companies, and the grace of institutions. There are times in which one spouse will look at their spouse and say, ?You know, I can?t forgive you anymore. I can?t love you anymore.? Or a company will say, ?I can?t loan you anymore, I can?t give you anymore.? We are accustomed to hearing that and we assume God will say the same. He will not. That?s what makes grace so astounding.?"

"I was raised in the greatest of homes... just a really great dad, and I miss him so much... he was a good man, a real simple man... Very faithful, always loved my Mom, always provided for the kids, and just a lot of fun."

"I will invite my God to be the God of circumstance. I will refuse the temptation to be cynical. I will refuse to see people as anything less than human beings, created by God. I will refuse to see any problem as anything less than an opportunity to see God."

"I think it's noteworthy that the Almighty didn't act high and mighty. The Holy One wasn't holier-than-thou. The One who knew it all wasn't a know-it-all. The One who made the stars didn't keep his head in them. The One who owns all the stuff of earth never strutted it."

"I will be kind to the poor, for they are alone. Kind to the rich, for they are afraid. And kind to the unkind, for that is how God has treated me."

"I will go without a dollar before I take a dishonest one. I will be overlooked before I will boast. I will confess before I accuse. I choose goodness."

"I will overlook the inconveniences of the world. Instead of cursing the one who takes my place, I'll invite him to do so, Rather complain that the wait is too long, I will thank God for a moment to pray. Instead of clenching my fist at new assignments, I will face them with joy and courage."

"Identity: smack-dab in the middle... Neither omnipotent nor impotent. Neither God's MVP nor God's mistake."

"I will live forgiven. I will forgive so I may live."

"If a person has nothing but nature, then nature is enough to reveal something about God."

"If we can understand that death is not the end but is really a transition into the next life, the great part of life, that frees us up into receiving God's courage and his help."

"If God had a refrigerator, your picture would be on it. If He had a wallet, your photo would be in it. He sends you flowers every spring and a sunrise every morning... Face it, friend. He is crazy about you"

"If we think that this life is all there is to life, then there is no interpretation of our problems, our pain, not even of our privileges. But everything changes when we open up to the possibility that God's story is really our story too."

"Immerse yourself in the curriculum of grace."

"If I succeed, I will give thanks. If I fail, I will seek His grace."

"If you knew that only a few would care that you came, would you still come? If you knew that those you loved would laugh in your face, would you still care? If you knew that the tongues you made would mock you, the mouths you made would spit at you, the hands you made would crucify you, would you still make them?"

"In the Chinese language the word for righteousness is a combination of two characters, the figure of a lamb and a person. The lamb is on top, covering the person. Whenever God looks down at you, this is what he sees: the perfect Lamb of God covering you."

"Is it possible for an unbaptized believer to be saved? Yes, definitely. Should every believer be baptized? Yes, definitely."

"It seems to me that election season is just a Petri dish for anger and cynicism."

"Let God have you, and let God love you - and don?t be surprised if your heart begins to hear music you?ve never heard and your feet learn to dance as never before."

"It is impossible to talk with you. You always draw conclusions. No one knows. Say only this. Your sons had to go to war, and mine did not. No one knows if it is a blessing or a curse. No one is wise enough to know. Only God knows."

"Just when the truth about life sinks in, his truth starts to surface. He takes us by the hand and dares us not to sweep the facts under the rug but to confront them with him at our side."

"Let him into the mire and muck of our world. For only if we let Him in can he pull us out."

"Live passionately? Discover your passions by looking back over your life for those sweet-spot moments where you've had "Yes!" experiences. String those together, and you'll begin to see new possibilities for your life."

"Lower your expectations of earth. This isn?t Heaven, so don?t expect it to be."

"Loosen up. Don't you have some people to hug, rocks to skip, or lips to kiss? . . , Someday you are going to retire; why not today? Not retire from your job, just retire from your attitude. Honestly, has complaining ever made the day better? Has grumbling ever paid the bills? Has worrying about tomorrow ever changed it? Let someone else run the world for a while."

"Mark it down. You will never go where God is not."

"?Mark it down: God loves you with an unearthly love. You can't win it by being winsome. You can't lose it by being a loser. But you can be blind enough to resist it"