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806 illustrations evoking conviction
"Present YOUR body—not someone else's. YOUR mind renewed—not just agreeing it should happen. This is personal, practical, daily. Every day YOU choose: conform or be transformed. Every moment is an altar call to offer yourself again." — Charles Spurgeon. Baptist: personal daily offering.
"A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher... Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse." — C.S.
"The heart is utterly corrupted; nothing less than creation will do. David asks God to do what only God can do: make new. This is not repair but recreation, not modification but transformation. Our depravity runs so deep that only...
"The clean heart sees injustice clearly and acts. Hearts corrupted by privilege are blind to the poor; cleansed hearts see and respond. David's sin was exploitation; his cleansing led to justice restored. God creates hearts that beat for the marginalized." — Gustavo Gutiérrez.
"Put first things first and we get second things thrown in: put second things first and we lose both first and second things. Seek first the kingdom—make God's reign the priority—and 'all these things' follow. Reverse the order and lose everything." — C.S.
"What does God require of YOU? Justice—be fair in all your dealings. Mercy—be kind to those in need. Humble walk—stay close to God. This is personal obedience, lived out in YOUR relationships, YOUR decisions, YOUR daily walk with God." — Billy Graham.
"God works all things for good—but we must not use this as excuse for passivity. God works through our struggle for justice, through our solidarity with the poor. Romans 8:28 is not opiate but fuel: God is with us in...
"Seek first the kingdom and His righteousness—and righteousness is holy living. Make holiness your priority; pursue Christlikeness first. When heart-holiness is sought, God supplies all temporal needs. We do not neglect work, but we order loves rightly." — John Wesley.
"God's thoughts subvert human assumptions—especially assumptions of the powerful. Our 'common sense' often serves empire; God's ways overturn it. His thoughts judge our nationalism, our economics, our hierarchies. Divine transcendence is not comforting to the comfortable but to the marginalized." — Walter Brueggemann.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer warned against 'cheap grace'—grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ. He wrote, 'Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves.
John Wesley once said, 'I am not afraid that the people called Methodists should ever cease to exist either in Europe or America.
"There are three classes of people: those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see." - Leonardo da Vinci
"Simplicity is a difficult thing to achieve. " - Charlie Chaplin
"Being entirely honest with oneself is a good exercise." - Sigmund Freud