"God is the greatest thing that exists, ever has existed or ever will for us to glory in anything else, would be sin, as there is nothing greater than God, there is no calling greater than praising God."

"America is the first culture in jeopardy of amusing itself to death."

"Knowing and thinking exist for the sake of love -- for the sake of building people up in faith. Thinking that produces pride instead of love is not true thinking."

"Pride is no respecter of persons. The serious thinkers may be humble, and the careless mystics may be arrogant."

"I am wired by nature to love the same toys that the world loves. I start to fit in. I start to love what others love. I start to call earth "home." Before you know it, I am calling luxeries "needs" and using my money just the way unbelievers do. I begin to forget the war. I don't think much about people perishing. Missions and unreached people drop out of my mind. I stop dreaming about the triumphs of grace. I sink into a secular mind-set that looks first to what man can do, not what God can do. It is a terrible sickness. And I thank God for those who have forced me again and again toward a wartime mind-set."

"The Word frees us from smallness of mind (1 Kings 4:29) and from threatening confinements (Psalm 18:19)."

"A godly life is lived out of an astonished heart-a heart that is astonished at grace."

"Every good thing in the Christian life grows in the soil of humility. Without humility, every virtue and every grace withers. That's why Calvin said humility is first, second, and third in the Christian faith."

"All that looks like reality to us is dependent on God. There is creation and Creator, nothing more. And creation gets all its meaning and purpose from God."

"It is better to lose your life than to waste it."

"There would be no obstacles to overcome. We won't fight for joy in heaven. But we are not there yet."

"Here was an absolutely compelling road sign. Stay on the road of objective truth - there is objective being and objective value. Stay on the road. There is Truth. There is a Point and Purpose and Essence to it all. Keep searching. You will find it."

"Now there was only one hope, the sovereign grace of God. God would have to transform my heart to do what a heart cannot make itself do, namely, want what it ought to want. Only God can make the depraved heart desire God. Once when Jesus' disciples wondered about the salvation of a man who desired money more than God, he said to them, "With man it is impossible, but not with God. For all things are possible with God (Mark 10:27). Pursuing what we want is possible. It is easy. It is a pleasant kind of freedom. But the only freedom that lasts is pursuing what we want when we want what we ought. And it is devastating to discover we don't, and we can't."

"The evil and suffering in this world are greater than any of us can comprehend. But evil and suffering are not ultimate. God is. Satan, the great lover of evil and suffering, is not sovereign. God is."

"Don't follow a defeated foe. Follow Christ. It is costly. You will be an exile in this age. But you will be free."

"God wills to be displayed and known and loved and cherished and worshiped."

"You can't ever be your heroes, but you can love their gifts."

"Love is the overflow of joy in God that meets the needs of others."

"Christ did not die to forgive sinners who go on treasuring anything above seeing and savoring God. And people who would be happy in heaven if Christ were not there, will not be there. The gospel is not a way to get people to heaven; it is a way to get people to God. It's a way of overcoming every obstacle to everlasting joy in God. If we don't want God above all things, we have not been converted by the gospel."

"It was becoming clearer and clearer that if I wanted to come to the end of my life and not say, "I've wasted it! then I would need to press all the way in, and all the way up, to the ultimate purpose of God and join him in it. If my life was to have a single, all-satisfying, unifying passion, it would have to be God's passion."

"If death is no longer a fear, we're really free. Free to take any risk under the sun for Christ and for love."

"But to enjoy him we must know him. Seeing is savoring. If he remains a blurry, vague fog, we may be intrigued for a season. But we will not be stunned with joy, as when the fog clears and you find yourself on the brink of some vast precipice."

"Did you wake up feeling fragile? Read the bible till you find a promise strong enough to carry you through the day."

"Jesus - "the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily (Colossians 2:9)."

"What is sin?It is the glory of God not honored.The holiness of God not reverenced.The greatness of God not admired.The power of God not praised.The truth of God not sought.The wisdom of God not esteemed.The beauty of God not treasured.The goodness of God not savored.The faithfulness of God not trusted.The commandments of God not obeyed.The justice of God not respected.The wrath of God not feared.The grace of God not cherished.The presence of God not prized.The person of God not loved.That is sin."

"God is not an employer looking for employees. He is an Eagle looking for people who will take refuge under his wings. He is looking for people who will leave father and mother and homeland or anything else that may hold them back from a life of love under the wings of Jesus."

"By nature, we get more pleasure from God's gifts then from Himself."

"But whatever you do, find the God-centered, Christ-exalting, Bible-saturated passion of your life, and find your way to say it and live for it and die for it. And you will make a difference that lasts. You will not waste your life."

"I want you to see persecution and opposition and slander and misunderstanding and disappointment and self-recrimination and weakness and danger as the normal portion of faithful pastoral ministry."

"Don't make peace with the sin in your life."

"The fight for joy is first and always a fight to see."

"Therefore we should pray for each other the way Jesus prays for us in John 17:17-- "Sanctify them in the truth; thy Word is truth."

"Long looking with admiration produces change. From your heroes you pick up mannerisms and phrases and tones of voice and facial expressions and habits and demeanors and convictions and beliefs. The more admirable the hero is and the more intense your admiration is, the more profound will be your transformation. In the case of Jesus, he is infinitely admirable, and our admiration rises to the most absolute worship. Therefore, when we behold him as we should, the change is profound."

"If you live gladly to make others glad in God, your life will be hard, your risks will be high, and your joy will be full."

"That's who Jesus Christ is. He became the final Priest and the final Sacrifice. Sinless, he did not offer sacrifices for himself. Immortal, he never has to be replaced. Human, he could bear human sins. Therefore he did not offer sacrifices for himself; he offered himself as the final sacrifice. There will never be the need for another. There is one mediator between us and God. One priest. We need no other. Oh, how happy are those who draw near to God through Christ alone."

"DOING is often God's remedy for despair."

"Whenever the strength of God is not recognized as the source of our strength, we are breaking the First Commandment: Do not have any gods before me."

"In other words, when all the supports of human life and earthly happiness are taken away, God will be our delight, our joy. This experience is humanly impossible. No ordinary person can speak in truth like this. If God alone is enough to support joy when all else is lost, it is a miracle of grace."

"When you take all three categories of temptation to self-reliance " wisdom, might and riches " they form a powerful inducement toward the ultimate form of pride, namely, atheism. The safest way to stay supreme in our own estimation is to deny anything above us. This is why the proud preoccupy themselves with looking down on others. A proud man is always looking down on things and people and, of course, as long as you are looking down, you cannot see something that is above you. But to preserve pride it may be simpler to proclaim that there is nothing above to look at (Psalm 10:4). Ultimately, the proud must persuade themselves that there is no God."

"Indeed the devil thinks more true thoughts about God in one day than a saint does in a lifetime, and God is not honored by it. The problem with the devil is not his theology, but his desires. Our chief end is to glorify God, the great Object. We do so most fully when we treasure him, desire him, delight in him so supremely that we let goods and kindred go and display his love to the poor and the lost."

"There is hope in forgiveness."

"Brand-new truths are probably not Truths."

"I recall hearing one of my professors in seminary say that one of the best tests of a person's theology was the effect it has on one's prayers."

"God has made us to be conduits of his grace. The danger is in thinking the conduit should be lined with gold. It shouldn't. Copper will do."

"O, how easy it is to do religious things if other people are watching! Preaching, praying, attending church, reading the bible, acts of kindness and charity-they all take on a certain pleasantness of the ego if we know that others will find out about them and think well of us. It is a deadly addiction for esteem that we have."

"This point is often missed by evangelical feminists. They conclude that a difference in function necessarily involves a difference in essence; i.e., if men are in authority over women, then women must be inferior. The relationship between Christ and the Father shows us that this reasoning is flawed. One can possess a different function and still be equal in essence and worth. Women are equal to men in essence and in being; there is no ontological distinction, and yet they have a different function or role in church and home. Such differences do not logically imply inequality or inferiority, just as Christ's subjection to the Father does not imply His inferiority."

"If we were perfect-if there were no remaining corruption in our hearts-there would be no fight. There would be no obstacles to overcome. We won't fight for joy in heaven. But we are not there yet."

"Desire that your life count for something great! Long for your life to have eternal significance. Want this! Don't coast through life without a passion."

"The aim of the climb is not intellectual satisfaction. The aim is worship. God gets more honor when we worship on the basis of what we know about him than he gets if we worship on the basis of what we don't know."

"The essence of faith is being satisfied with all that God is for us in Jesus."