“We take a cavalier approach to Scripture at our own peril. If the scientific and historical accounts are true, then the commandments, promises and penalties are much more so. The Bible is not just a guideline. It is the authoritative Word of God. Disobeying it has consequences. Obeying it has rewards. Yet we fudge. We compromise. We rationalize. We trade away our spiritual integrity for man’s approval and as we do, we gradually erode our ability to distinguish right from wrong, to see our own failings, and to turn back in repentance to God. We simply have no idea how this cavalier attitude towards God’s Word taints our witness and hinders the kingdom of God.”

“if we resist God's right to rule our lives, if we doubt the goodness of his word, if we use one part of Scripture to silience another part that we find objectionable, then it is a salvation issue-because our attitude to God's word cannot be separated from our attitude towards God himsel. And so as God's children, may we not resist the Holy Spirit. Rather, may we prefer to differ from our fallen world than from his glorious word in the way we live and relate and minister as Christian women and men, and in all things.”

“God is often silent when we prefer that he speak and he interrupts us when we prefer that he stay silent. His ways are not our ways. To live with the sacred God of creation means that we conduct our lives with a God who does not explain himself to us. It means that we worship a God who is often mysterious - too mysterious to fit our formulas for better living. It means that God is not our best friend our secret lover or our good-luck charm. He is God.”

“Accountability is the natural product of agency and is the basis of the plan of life. We are responsible for our own actions and accountable to God for what we choose to do with our lives. Life is God’s gift to us, and what we do with it is our gift to him.”

“We feel that, for the honour of God (and also, though we do not say this, for the sake of our own reputation as spiritual Christians), it is necessary for us to claim that we are, so to speak, already in the signal-box, here and now enjoying the inside information as to the why and wherefore of God’s doings. This comforting pretence becomes part of us: we feel sure that God has enabled us to understand all His ways with us and our circle thus far, and we take if for granted that we shall be able to see at once the reason for anything that may happen to us in the future. And then something very painful and quite inexplicable comes along, and our cheerful illusion of being in God’s secret councils is shattered. Our pride is wounded; we feel that God has slighted us; and unless at this point we repent, and humble ourselves very thoroughly for our former presumption, our whole subsequent spriritual life may be blighted.”

“When we look at other people comparatively and competitively, we're not seeing them as our brothers and sisters. We're not loving them more than we love ourselves, and we we're definitely not seeing them as God sees them.”

“Simplifying our temporal environment leads to discovery in the spiritual environment. Finding Christ opens the world we yearn to enter but cannot fathom on our own.”