Our God Reigns Quotes

Our need is so desperate an idea, a thing, a law can't help us. It took one thing, the gift of gifts, God in the flesh, to rescue us. ~ Paul David Tripp

We're not giving what we're called to give, unless that giving affects how we live - affects what we put on our plate and where we make our home and hang our hat and what kind of threads we've got to have on our back. Surplus Giving is the leftover you can afford to give; Sacrificial Giving is the love gift that changes how you live - because the love of Christ has changed you. God doesn't want your leftovers. God wants your love overtures, your first-overs, because He is your first love. ~ Ann Voskamp

It's a gift to joyfully recognize and accept our own smallness and ordinariness. Then you are free with nothing to live up to, nothing to prove, and nothing to protect. Such freedom is my best description of Christian maturity, because once you know that your "I" is great and one with God, you can ironically be quite content with a small and ordinary "I." No grandstanding is necessary. Any question of your own importance or dignity has already been resolved once and for all and forever. ~ Richard Rohr

Even in the darkest night it's still within our power to hold to faith. We can still embrace hope. And although we may ourselves feel unloved we can still stand steadfast in our love for others and for God. All this is in our control. God gave us these gifts and he does not take them back. It is we who choose to discard them. ~ William Kent Krueger

Might we consider boredom as not only necessary for our life but also as one of its greatest blessings? A gift, pure and simple, a precious chance to be alone with our thoughts and alone with God? ~ Kathleen Norris

Those who are faithful to God are protected and prospered. That comes as the result of serving God and keeping His commandments. But with those blessings comes the temptation to forget their source. It is easy to begin to feel the blessings were granted not by a loving God on whom we depend but by our own powers. ~ Henry B. Eyring

In our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.'" He ~ Richard North Patterson

The human act of blind faith, whether in a god or man, is both noble and tragic. Tragic, because it demands the sacrifice of the very essence of our intellect - the ability to question. ~ Vladimir Pozner

In our patriarchal world, we are all taught - whether we like to think we are or not - that God, being male, values maleness much more than he values femaleness ... that in order to propitiate God, women must propitiate men. ~ Sonia Johnson

In other words, our conscious representations are sometimes ordered (or arranged in a pattern) before they have become conscious to us. The 18th-century German mathematician Karl Friedrich Gauss gives an example of an experience of such an unconscious order of ideas: He says that he found a certain rule in the theory of numbers "not by painstaking research, but by the Grace of God, so to speak. The riddle solved itself as lightning strikes, and I myself could not tell or show the connection between what I knew before, what I last used to experiment with, and what produced the final success." The French scientist Henri Poincare is even more explicit about this phenomenon; he describes how during a sleepless night he actually watched his mathematical representations colliding in him until some of them "found a more stable connection. One feels as if one could watch one's own unconscious at work, the unconscious activity partially becoming manifest to consciousness without losing its own character. At such moments one has an intuition of the difference between the mechanisms of the two egos. ~ C.G. Jung

The God who gave us life gave us liberty at the same time; the hand of force may destroy but cannot disjoin them. ~ Thomas Jefferson

Joseph is an example of true patience and endurance in the plan of God. From the moment we are conceived in the womb, our destiny is being shaped by God the Father. From the life of Joseph we can learn what it is to suffer for God, what it is to truly die to self and the blessing that God bestows upon those who lay down their lives in service to Him and the resurrection power of new beginnings that only God can bring to pass by and through His Spirit of grace. ~ Paddick Van Zyl

As I contemplate the kind of future I want for children-my own and other people's-I believe we must look inward to God for guidance and strength and backward to draw on the values and legacies of our families, ancestors, and communities. ~ Marian Wright Edelman

When we were given dominion over the world, we were also given dominion over ourselves. God is not our navigator. It was never His intention to chart a course for each of us and thus place us all under His bondage. Instead, He bestowed each of us with intellect and talent and vision to map our own way, to write our own Book of Life in any manner we choose. ~ Og Mandino

When we talk it's not merely idle chatter
We discuss things that really don't matter
We talk of love and god and pain
To life's never-ending song
We add yet one more refrain
And as the pace gets more and more frantic
The words get more and more pedantic
We leave no sophistry unturned
As our rhetoric becomes more intense
Using our very large vocabularies
To disguise our very common sense.
The words get longer and the plot gets thinner
Another discourse to discuss at dinner
There is no feeling we can't analyze
Seizing each chance to intellectualize
Talking in the past and present tense
We're making a lot more noise
And a lot less sense. ~ Carrie Fisher

we can't be filled with the power of God until we let go of the false pretense that we can get by on our own. ~ Lee Strobel

The cart slowed as they came to a place so dark and quiet that it seemed as if they had entered some remote forest. Peeking beneath the hem of the cart's canvas covering, Garrett saw towering gates covered with ivy, and ghostly sculptures of angels, and solemn figures of men, women, and children with their arms crossed in resignation upon their breasts. Graveyard sculptures. A stab of horror went through her, and she crawled to the front of the cart to where West Ravenel was sitting with the driver.
"Where the devil are you taking us, Mr. Ravenel?"
He glanced at her over his shoulder, his brows raised. "I told you before- a private railway station."
"It looks like a cemetery."
"It's a cemetery station," he admitted. "With a dedicated line that runs funeral trains out to the burial grounds. It also happens to connect to the main lines and branches of the London Ironstone Railroad, owned by our mutual friend Tom Severin."
"You told Mr. Severin about all this? Dear God. Can we trust him?"
West grimaced slightly. "One never wants to be in the position of having to trust Severin," he admitted. "But he's the only one who could obtain clearances for a special train so quickly."
They approached a massive brick and stone building housing a railway platform. A ponderous stone sign adorned the top of the carriage entrance: Silent Gardens. Just below it, the shape of an open book emblazoned with words had been carved in the stone. Ad Meliora. "Toward be ~ Lisa Kleypas

We have a friend and protector, from whom, if we do not ourselves depart from Him, nor power nor spirit can separate us. In His strength let us proceed on our journey, through the storms, and troubles, and dangers of the world. However they may rage and swell, though the mountains shake at the tempests, our rock will not be moved: we have one friend who will never forsake us; one refuge, where we may rest in peace and stand in our lot at the end of the days. That same is He who liveth, and was dead; who is alive forevermore; and hath the keys of hell and of death. ~ Reginald Heber

Then hast our the Red Stone perfect with less labour, expense of time and costs, for the which ever thank God. ~ George Ripley

In America the taint of sectarianism lies broad upon the land. Not content with acknowledging the supremacy as the Deity, and with erecting temples in his honor, where all can bow down with reverence, the pride and vanity of human reason enter into and pollute our worship, and the houses that should be of God and for God, alone, where he is to be honored with submissive faith, are too often merely schools of metaphysical and useless distinctions. The nation is sectarian, rather than Christian.
Religion's first lesson is humility; its fruit, charity. In the great and sublime ends of Providence, little things are lost, and least of all is he imbued with a right spirit who believes that insignificant observances, subtleties of doctrine, and minor distinctions, enter into the great essentials of the Christian character. The wisest thing for him who is disposed to cavil at the immaterial habits of his neighbor, to split straws on doctrine, to fancy trifles of importance, and to place the man before principles, would be to distrust himself. ~ James Fenimore Cooper

The chief purpose of life, for any of us, is to increase according to our capacity our knowledge of God by all means we have, and to be moved by it to praise and thanks. ~ J.R.R. Tolkien

God only requires two things from us. First, He asks that we stay unwavering in our knowledge that His faithful love endures forever. And second, He asks that we stay steadfast in our belief that His intentions are to bless and redeem. As we stand on these two truths, He strengthens our faith and increases our trust. ~ Katherine J. Walden

God is the highest place within each and every one of us. It's our divine self. ~ Wayne Dyer

With time and perspective we recognize that such problems in life do come for a purpose, if only to allow the one who faces such despair to be convinced that he really does need divine strength beyond himself, that she really does need the offer of heaven's hand. Those who feel no need for mercy usually never seek it and almost never bestow it. Those who have never had a heartache or a weakness or felt lonely or forsaken never have had to cry unto heaven for relief of such personal pain. Surely it is better to find the goodness of God and the grace of Christ, even at the price of despair, than to risk living our lives in a moral or material complacency that has never felt any need for faith or forgiveness, any need for redemption or relief. ~ Jeffery R. Holland

I move for a creed for all our denominations made out of Scripture quotations, pure and simple. That would be impregnable against infidelity and Appolyonic assault. That would be beyond human criticism. Let us make it simpler and plainer for people to get into the Kingdom of God. ~ Thomas De Witt Talmage

God help us
you full of talk of a city called Edinburgh
and me in silence so very deep we were so very much in love.

And the burns and sikes and streams
though shallow
were deep music to us.
You trout-tickler,
you flower-picker,
climber in willow trees, me laughing below

as best I could laugh, though you never thought it ugly.
Indeed the word you used was the word beautiful,
pinning cowslips behind my ears,

you patting and running fingers through our
beckwashed hair.
Lying by the marigold beds
bare toes entwined, then dancing under branches
before the elms ever died. But our mutual hearts never did.

Bar it is 7 and your raining rage
must cease
under my morning moon.
In my dawn shawl looking dawndown upon you
in your foot-striding fellhighhighupuptopheavyrainbeatingrainrain.
We have always walked together so long.
In the long grass we walked and walked forever so long so very language long
and I could say so once you had the slate in my lap.

My tongue blank - FOREVER, word we wrote on a slate, remember
when you taught me? - only my hands and eyes moving now - two
daughters we could have had -

but I am looking kindly and lovingly on you
'Please do it'
- cool your raging fire lovelorn heart - for me.

And love me - forever. ~ Barry MacSweeney

The world needs to see Christians burning, not with self-righteous fury at the sliding morals in our country, but with passion for God. ~ Kevin DeYoung

Instead of seeing all of this as God's extraordinary grace, we come to expect the comfort and joys that God gives us as the baseline, the measure of what we believe to be our due. When our comfort level drops below our expectations, we are shocked and angered, and even foolishly express our outrage to God Himself. ~ R.C. Sproul Jr.

Writing is how I communicate my deepest beliefs, and what I hope are helpful observations about our dual citizenship, as children of God, as regular old mixed-up, worried, flawed, precious human beings. ~ Anne Lamott

That was just a hug, and we were fully clothed."
He shot me a weird look, and the flush on his neck got redder.
"I mean
our skin didn't touch,' I hurried on, and now, oh God, I was blushing too.
"So maybe this thing needs skin-on-skin-contact. Or hand-on-hand. Or ... ~ Rachel Hawkins

We cannot enjoy peace in this world unless we are ready to yield to the will of God in respect of death. Our times are in His hand, at His sovereign disposal. We must accept that as best. ~ John Owen

Our prayers must not be efforts to bend God to our will but to yield ourselves to His. ~ Catherine Marshall

A strong woman has waited patiently while her roots grew down deep into the Word of God. Over time, she becomes unshakeable in her faith. She starts bearing fruit naturally and is full of life. People are attracted to her strength and growth, and many find rest and peace as they lean on her. And when storms and trials come, as they always do, they will not be able to take her down. A few branches may be lost or pruned away, but in their place comes new growth, new life. This is what I long to be! A strong woman who is anchored in God's promises. But it starts by setting down your roots in God's Word. It will not happen as you stand up for yourself, and demand attention, and fight for yourself. It will happen as you stand in Christ, and demand that He gets your attention, and fight for His glory. The beautiful thing is that as we pursue this, God takes His rightful place in our lives. ~ Francis Chan

I want to talk about jobs and health care and pension security and what we're going to do to stop the brain drain in Ohio and make it possible for our young people to stay here and build a life in Ohio rather than in Pennsylvania or West Virginia or God knows where. ~ Ted Strickland

Making our worst decisions in life, can destroy us, but God is trying to Rebuild us ~ Gary Louis

The Bible is full of evidence that God's attention is indeed fixed on the little things. But this is not because God is a great cosmic cop, eager to catch us in minor transgressions, but simply because God loves us
loves us so much that we the divine presence is revealed even in the meaningless workings of daily life. It is in the ordinary, the here-and-now, that God asks us to recognize that the creation is indeed refreshed like dew-laden grass that is "renewed in the morning" or to put it in more personal and also theological terms, "our inner nature is being renewed everyday". Seen in this light, what strikes many modern readers as the ludicrous details in Leviticus involving God in the minuitae of daily life might be revisioned as the very love of God. ~ Kathleen Norris

What we hold sacred is honor, justice, and glory. You need not swear allegiance to our storm god, to serve with us. Fighters are among us from many lands, with many gods and many beliefs. Believe as you will. What is between a man and his god is theirs alone to say. ~ Janet Morris

I believe that appreciation is a holy thing
that when we look for what's best in a person we happen to be with at the moment, we're doing what God does all the time. So in loving and appreciating our neighbor, we're participating in something sacred. ~ Fred Rogers

Because of grace we have nothing to prove. Our confidence is in the security and power God gives us, not in ourselves. To know that you are absolutely treasured, unconditionally, changes you in this way. You feel free, and you want to run with a God who would love you like that. To know that we do not measure up and that we don't have to because of Jesus, because of grace, means that life gets a whole lot more fun. ~ Jennie Allen

The decision we must make now is whether we will give our allegiance to outmoded and unjust customs or to the ethical demands of the universe. As Christians we owe our allegiance to God and His will, rather than to man and his folkways ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

Almost everybody says they know God loves people, but there is a difference between knowing that He loves people in general and knowing without a shadow of a doubt that God loves you and me individually and personally, even with all our imperfections. ~ Sandra McCollom

God has decreed troubles for the church's good. The troubles of God's church is like the angel's troubling the water, which made way for healing his people. John 5: 4. He has decreed troubles in the church. 'His fire is in Zion, and his furnace in Jerusalem.' Isa 31: 9. The wheels in a watch move cross one to another, but they all carry on the motion of the watch; so the wheels of Providence often move cross to our desires, but still they carry on God's unchangeable decree. ~ Thomas Watson

I conclude by applying to political economy what Chateaubriand says of history: "There are," he says, two consequences in history; an immediate one, which is instantly recognized, and one in the distance, which is not at first perceived. These consequences often contradict each other; the former are the results of our own limited wisdom, the latter, those of that wisdom which endures. The providential event appears after the human event. God rises up behind men. Deny, if you will, the supreme counsel; disown its action; dispute about words; designate, by the term, force of circumstances, or reason, what the vulgar call Providence; but look to the end of an accomplished fact, and you will see that it has always produced the contrary of what was expected from it, if it was not established at first upon morality and justice.3 ~ Frederic Bastiat

You must learn, you must let God teach you, that the only way to get rid of your past is to make a future out of it. God will waste nothing. ~ Phillips Brooks