“Today the idea of the shed blood of Christ is becoming old-fashioned and out of date in a lot of preaching. It is in the Bible. It is the very heart of Christianity.”
“Does this verse mean God gives us a blank check (so to speak) when we pray? Does He promise to give us anything we want, if we just keep asking? No. God loves us too much to answer prayers that are foolish or might harm us. But the closer we get to Him—the more we abide in Him and His word abides in us—the more we will desire what He desires, and the more our prayers will reflect His will.”
“In our desire to make Christ known and to increase the influence of the church, we are many times prone to think that Christians and the church can be made popular with the unbelieving world. This is a grave mistake on the part of the church.”
“Learn from your disappointments and failures and with God’s help seek to overcome them. Ask yourself, could I have done anything to prevent this? Were my hopes and dreams unrealistic, or were my motives wrong? Is there a new path God wants me to explore?”
“Thousands of people have entered churches without discovering a vital experience with Jesus Christ. The substitutes have been handed them in the guise of religious rituals, good works, community effort, or social reform . . .none of which can gain a person a right relationship with God.”
“You can’t change the past. But with God’s help you can change the future. No matter what your life has been like so far, God wants to put your feet on a new path . . . a better path . . . His path.”
“Men and women do make decisions wherever the Gospel is proclaimed; whether publicly or privately, some say yes, some say no, and some procrastinate. No one ever hears the Gospel proclaimed without making some kind of decision!”
“[Every] believer will receive a reward for his works. The New Testament teaches these rewards are called “crowns.” We will surely be surprised to note who receives the crowns and who doesn’t. The lowliest servant may sparkle with more jewels than the philanthropist who endowed the church and whose name is engraved on the plaque in the narthex.”
“There is a great counterfeiter who adapts himself to every culture, even deceiving true believers at times. He doesn’t charge on the scene clothed in red and wearing a hideous mask but charms his way as an “angel of light.” This is how Satan operates.”
“In a decadent society the will to believe, to resist, to contend, to fight, to struggle is gone. In place of this will to resist, there is the desire to conform, to drift, to follow, to yield, and not give up.”
“Double-mindedness means the faculty of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind and accepting both of them. We talk out of both corners of our mouths at once.”
“Church is not for pretenders and performers. Church is a place for pastors to preach principles of the faith in order to prepare believers to face the storms of life on the stage of an unbelieving world.”
“People today don’t like the word narrow, but Jesus clearly said there are two roads to the future for all of us: the way to Hell and destruction is broad, but the way to Heaven is narrow. Which road are you on? Is a course correction necessary?”