The first act of love is always the giving of attention.

Relations between parents and children and siblings and mates. This is not external. We can't separate them.

What is thinking? It is the activity of searching out what must be true, or cannot be true, in the light of the given facts or assumptions.

The will is transformed by experience, not information.

In Spiritual formation we are aiming at a character and life that is so shaped that the deeds of Christ routinely and easily come from what is inside.

Many people get what they need from church attendance because the Word is preached, and the rituals are carried on, and God works, but it's drift more than anything else. And that's why the churches keep reaching for some programmatic formula that will make people come and give money. It's just really very sad.

And God has set up prayer in such a way that, if you want to explain it away, you can. That's the human mind. God set it up like that for a reason, which is this: God ordained that people should be governed in the end by what they want.