"I never cease to be amazed that Jesus invites you and me, as His children and in His name...to come into His Father's presence, to crawl up into His lap by faith, to put our head on His shoulder of strength, to feel His loving arms of protection around us, and to pour out our hearts."
"Christians are now the foreigners in a post-Christian culture, and we have got to wake up to this reality if we haven't."
"On this first day of Christmas, we are the shepherds who run to the Lord. From our fears of loss and instability, from the anguish of troubled finances, from poverty we run to the treasure that will not tarnish nor ever diminish."
"It's Christmas Day. The quietness is shattered. God will never, never be silent again! And now the world must know the news."
"God enters creation as every human ever has -- but though the way is common, it is God who takes that way tonight, so the birth is uncommon indeed, a crack in the universe, and the baby blazes with divinity."
"People all over the world read the Bible because it is a fascinating book, filled with gripping stories and challenging exhortations."
"Almost every Christian, regardless of how they understand the Lord's Supper, agrees with this much -- Christ instituted it, and the New Testament commands his followers to celebrate it."
"The Creator of the cosmos became a fetus in a young woman's womb, and the Maker of heaven and earth became dependent on a young girl's breasts! For the Christian it is occasion to hide one's face in awe and adoration."
"Reading is a sage way to bump up against life. It is escape from the narrow boundaries of being only me. Reading in some wonderful way helps me find out who I am."
"Be it a stadium event or the four walls of a church for the Sunday worship service, the future is about the decentralization of the church to where it's every person in every domain of society in the pew connecting with domains and people globally."
"Most Christians don't know that 'Xmas' was first used by the early church and not invented as a shortcut used by merchants during the commercialization of the holiday season."
"The tree that can survive even the most barbarous winter has come to represent the everlasting promise of eternal life offered through Christ."
"Guess what issue is not on the top of church leaders' list of concerns for a church building program: security (actually, most of the time it doesn't even make the list)."
"As Islam, the religion of the Koran, continues to advance across the world, the need grows for greater understanding of the Muslim holy book."
"Through all the Advents of our life, we shall wait and look forward with longing for that day of the Lord, when God says, "I am making everything new!"
"Christmas is based on a historical reality; a mystery backed up by facts."
"Spiritual growth should affect relationship problems, emotional problems, and all other problems of life. There is no such thing as our 'spiritual life' and then our 'real life.' It is all one."
"If human beings were created for an eternal existence, nothing could be more important than finding out what that eternal future is all about and making sure that we are going in the right direction."
"For nearly 1500 years Christians have spent the days of Advent not in passive inaction, but in activities strenuous and profitable: they have prepared themselves by scrubbing and cleaning their lives, by examining and repairing their souls."
"God wants his children to experience deep and lasting rest in every nook and cranny of our being."
"God is looking for some disturbed people. He is searching for men and women, students, and young adults who will allow him to disturb them by making them truly see the world in which we live -- so disturbed that they will be compelled to do something about what they see."
"In caregiving we lose a good part of the control of our lives, we become powerless to determine outcomes, and we must put our needs behind theirs."
"All things necessary to become a Christian, live as a Christian, and grow as a Christian are clearly presented in the Bible."
"The armor our teens need is good sense, knowledge, and wisdom gained from growing in independence under the watchful supervision of parents who are learning what's going on with social networking and the Internet."
"No group of people has been more unjustly maligned in the [21st] century than the Puritans."
"The future is about the decentralization of the church to where it's every person in every domain of society in the pew connecting with domains and people globally."
"Reminding ourselves of what it means to be made in God's image is the starting point for understanding what medicine, science, and technology should be used for -- and what they should not."
"An anonymous author in the Middle Ages wrote, 'Wherefore play the game of life warily, for your opponent is full of subtlety, and take abundant thought over your moves, for the stake is your soul.' Have a good game."
"If all I do is teach kids Bible stories, I've given them head knowledge and a history lesson. We need to go past traditional teaching and get into transformational teaching."
"We all have learned that we can go through the motions of leadership with an empty heart. Love is our heartbeat, and too often our heartbeat is weaker than we want to admit."
"Everything I know about a personal relationship with Jesus Christ begins and ends with surrender -- with saying yes to God. That tiny, simple word initiates an exhilarating, life-altering adventure that will take you places you never thought you'd go -- both literally and figuratively."
"The issue is not whether we trust people; what is crucial is that we take precautions wherever possible to create a safe environment for the children."
"When you know what God says and renew your mind daily to the truth, you start to think differently about God, about yourself, about others, and about life."
"I admit I don't like the burdens of old age -- the slow decline in energy, the physical annoyances and disabilities, the pain of losing loved ones, the sadness of seeing my friends decline. But old age also can be a special time in life, and I have discovered that God still has lessons to teach us."
"There is a drive in the human psyche that compels us to seek out a higher power, a source for our existence, and some explanation for who we are and why we are here at all."
"Combating racism must start in the way we raise our children."
"The irony is that while many of us are in churches and denominations that have a rich heritage and strong reputation for evangelism, in many cases, precious little is actually happening."
"It is faith -- without good works and prior to good works -- that takes us to heaven."
"As you understand who you are in Christ, you'll no longer let lust steal your identity and control your behavior."
"Part of the problem, if truth be told, is that in many of our educational institutions and churches Christians are not being grounded in their heritage."
"There is much in the Koran that is consistent with God's revelation in the Bible."
"Nothing -- not the probing fingers, the painful needle stabs, the interminable waiting for results, the surgery, the pathology reports, the naming of the dreaded word cancer -- can separate us from the love of God."
"Aging, in this generation and at this time in history, just happens to be the vehicle through which struggle seems most evident and present: the struggle to be weak when we desire to be strong, to be helpless when we want power, and to be sacrificial when we'd really rather be selfish."
"The Bible proceeds according to a plan. Beginning with the creation of the world, it then relates and interprets a series of historical events that lead to the grand climax and goal of the world's history."
"The problem is, all of us pass through stretches of time -- sometimes long stretches of time -- when God does not seem willing or capable of answering our prayers."
