Don't have good ideas if you aren't willing to be responsible for them.
There's a difference between knowing God and knowing about God. When you truly know God, you have energy to serve Him, boldness to share Him, and contentment in Him.
To an age which has unashamedly sold itself to the gods of greed, pride, sex, and self-will, the church mumbles on about God's kindness but says virtually nothing about his judgment. . . The fact is that the subject of divine wrath has become taboo in modern society, and Christians by and large have accepted the taboo and conditioned themselves never to raise the matter.
There is tremendous relief in knowing that His love to me is based at every point on prior knowledge of the worst about me.
Living becomes an awesome business when you realize that you spend every moment of your life in the sight and company of an omniscient, omnipresent Creator.
I am graven on the palms of His hands. I am never out of His mind. All my knowledge of Him depends on His sustained initiative in knowing me. I know Him, because He first knew me, and continues to know me. He knows me as a friend, One who loves me; and there is no moment when His eye is off me, or His attention distracted for me, and no moment, therefore, when His care falters.
Our high and privileged calling is to do the will of God in the power of God for the glory of God.
After September 11 there was feeling obligated to respond, and allow other people to set the terms of the conversation. There was this ritualistic condemnation of terrorism. I'm not saying that that's unimportant, but it became the case that the Muslim people in the United States or in other parts of the world were inclusively taking on responsibility for things that they had nothing to do with. Of course, it's very important that a community define its moral boundaries. A community also must acknowledge what it can and cannot control.
Gold is a deep-persuading orator.
Public opinion polls are rather like children in a garden, digging things up all the time to see how they're growing.
We see nation-states collapsing all around us: Libya, Syria, Iraq. We do not want another failed state in our neighborhood, which would rapidly turn into a stronghold for terrorists, as we have seen in Gaza. We do not want tunnels to suburbs of Tel Aviv or missiles pointed at Jerusalem.