Do you know the difference between an optimist and a pessimist? A pessimist says, ‘Oh dear, things can’t possibly get any worse.’ An optimist says, ‘Don’t be so sad. Things can always get worse.
Because of Jesus, I can never say about a person, She must be suffering because of some sin she committed; Jesus, who did not sin, also felt pain.
Ariel Durant, There is no significant example in history, before our time, of a society successfully maintaining moral life without the aid of religion. The Durants add a foreboding remark, The greate...
All human nature vigorously resists grace because grace changes us and the change is painful.
[Jesus] invoked a different kind of power: love, not coercion.
Where is the church when it hurts? If the church is doing its job—binding wounds, comforting the grieving, offering food to the hungry—I don't think people will wonder so much where God is when it hur...
When we make condescending judgments, or proclaim lofty words that don’t translate into action, or simply speak without first listening, we fail to love — and thus deter a thirsty world from Living W...
To judge God solely by the present world would be a tragic mistake. At one time, it may have been the best of all possible worlds, but surely it is not now. The Bible communicates no message with more...
There is only one way for any of us to resolve the tension between the high ideals of the gospel and the grim reality of ourselves: to accept that we will never measure up, but that we do not have to....
The law did not encourage obedience, rather it magnified disobedience. Law merely indicated the sickness; grace brought about the cure.
Some people find no comfort in the prophets’ vision of a future world. The church has used that line for centuries to justify slavery, oppression, and all manner of injustice, they say. The criticism...
Prayer allows me to admit my failures, weaknesses, and limitations to One who responds to human vulnerability with infinite mercy.
Pain allows us, the fortunate ones at least, to lead free and active lives. If you ever doubt that, visit a leprosarium and observe for yourself a world without pain.
Often a work of God comes with two edges, great joy and great pain, and in that matter-of-fact response Mary embraced both. She was the first person to accept Jesus on His own terms, regardless of the...
Los israelitas dieron amplias pruebas de que podemos llegar a desear las señales sin desear en realidad a Dios.
Jesus did not give the parables to teach us how to live. He gave them, I believe, to correct our notions about who God is and who God loves.
It has taken me years to distill the Gospel out of the subculture in which I first encountered it. Sadly, many of my friends gave up on the effort, never getting to Jesus because the pettiness of the...
God. Grace means there is nothing we can do to make God love us more —no amount of spiritual calisthenics and renunciations, no amount of knowledge gained from seminaries and divinity schools, no amou...
Faith in God offers no insurance against tragedy. Nor does it offer insurance against feelings of doubt and betrayal. If anything, being a Christian complicates the issue. If you believe in a world of...
Doubt always coexists with faith, for in the presence of certainty who would need faith at all?