This is one of the great paradoxes of suffering. Those who don't suffer much think suffering should keep people from God, while many who suffer a great deal turn to God, not from him.
Grace never ignores the awful truth of our depravity; in fact it emphasizes it. The worse we realize we are the greater we realize God's grace.
Statistics show that a soldier's chances of survival in the front lines of combat are greater than the chances of an unborn child avoiding abortion. What should be the safest place to live in America - a mother's womb - is now the most dangerous place.
The cost of redemption cannot be overstated. The wonders of grace cannot be overemphasized. Christ took the hell He didn't deserve so we could have the heaven we don't deserve.
What you do with your resources in this life is your autobiography.
Given our abundance, the burden of proof should always be on keeping, not giving. Why would you not give? We err by beginning with the assumption that we should keep or spend the money God entrusts to us. Giving should be the default choice. Unless there is a compelling reason to spend it or keep it, we should give it.
Give voluntarily. When we catch a vision of God's grace, we will give beyond our duty.
Give sacrificially. We don't like risky faith. We like to have our safety net below us. But we miss the adventure of seeing God provide when we've really stretched ourselves in giving.
Am I getting braver, or just getting accustomed to being terrified?
Sin and death and suffering and war and poverty are not natural—they are the devastating results of our rebellion against God. We long for a return to Paradise—a perfect world, without the corruption of sin, where God walks with us and talks with us in the cool of the day.
Give worshipfully. Our giving is a reflexive response to God's grace. It doesn't come out of our altruism - it comes out of the transforming work of Christ in us.
For Christians this present life is the closest they will come to Hell. For unbelievers, it is the closest they will come to Heaven.
If economic catastrophe does come, will it be a time that draws Christians together to share every resource we have, or will it drive us apart to hide in our own basements or mountain retreats, guarding at gunpoint our private stores from others? If we faithfully use our assets for his kingdom now, rather than hoarding them, can't we trust our faithful God to provide for us then?
Tomorrow's character is made out of today's thoughts. Temptation may come suddenly, but sin does not.
Your children should love the Lord, work hard, and experience the joy of trusting God. More important than leaving your children an inheritance is leaving them a spiritual heritage. If you left your children money they didn't need, and if they were thinking correctly, wouldn't they give it to God anyway? Then why not give it to God yourself, since He entrusted it to you?
If we get it wrong about Jesus, it doesn’t matter what else we get right.
Shouldn't we suppose that many of our most painful ordeals will look quite different a million years from now, as we recall them on the New Earth? What if one day we discover that God has wasted nothing in our life on Earth? What if we see that every agony was part of giving birth to an eternal joy?
Contrary to common belief, Christian fiction did not begin with Catherine Marshall, Janette Oke, or Frank Peretti.
It is by serving God and others that we store up heavenly treasures. Everyone gains; no one loses.
I think we need to not look at sorrow and happiness as opposites that cannot co-exist. They can and do co-exist. I have preached many memorial services where you see the sadness and the tears for those attending, and then you see how quick people are to laugh as they remember funny and happy things about their loved ones. And if the deceased knew Christ, those in attendance are able to rejoice as they anticipate the reunion that will one day come.