What we can do with these means (our own unassisted strength) is still very small compared to what we could do in acting in union with God himself, who created and ultimately controls all other forces.

Spiritual formation cannot, in the nature of the case, be a 'private' thing, because it is a matter of whole-life transformation. You need to seek out others in your community who are pursuing the renovation of the heart.

I was in a fascinating meeting where one man had been in China recently. A Chinese professor has found evidence that Christians reached Western China before 90 AD. Before 90 AD! The idea isn't all that astonishing when we think about it. That's what the disciples thought they were supposed to do! And, I'm sure, the disciples just said, "That's it. Let's go!" And they all wound up dead. But everyone else did too!

What we think is, in the adult person, very much a matter of what we allow ourselves to think, and what we feel is very much a matter of what we allow ourselves to feel. Moreover, what we think is very much a matter of what we wish and seek to think, and what we feel is very much a matter of what we wish and seek to feel. In short, the condition of our mind is very much a matter of the direction in which our will is set.

In a world apart from God, the power of denial is absolutely essential if life is to proceed. The will or spirit cannot-psychologically cannot-sustain itself for any length of time in the face of what it clearly acknowledges to be the case. Therefore it must deny and evade and delude itself.

You can no more trust Jesus and not intend to obey him than you could trust your doctor and your auto mechanic and not intend to follow their advice. If you don't intend to follow their advice, you simply don't trust them. Period.

The most important thing in your life is not what you do; it's who you become. That's what you will take into eternity.