"Almighty God, whose Son our Savior Jesus Christ was lifted high upon the cross that he might draw the whole world to himself: Mercifully grant that we, who glory in the mystery of our redemption, may have grace to take up our cross and follow him; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, in glory everlasting. Amen."
~Collect for Holy Cross Day, BCP p.244
"It was unworthy of the goodness of God that creatures made by Him should be brought to nothing through the deceit of evil spirits. As, then, the creatures whom He had created reasonable, like the Word, were in fact perishing, and such noble works were on the road to ruin, what then was God, being Good, to do? Was he to let corruption and death have their way with them? In that case, what was the use of having made them in the beginning? Surely it would have been better never to have been created at all than, having been created, to be neglected and perish; and, besides that, such indifferences to the ruin of His own work before His very eyes would argue not goodness in God but limitation, and that far more than if He had never created men at all. It was impossible, therefore, that God should leave man to be carried off by corruption, because it would be unfitting and unworthy of Himself."
~St. Athanasius, On the Incarnation, I.6
"And he said to all, 'If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself?'"
~Luke 9:23-25
"This... is about me pursuing God and running after His heart wherever He leads me, and that is something that I hope to be doing for the rest of my life. It’s not something I can check off a list whenever I get off the plane. It’s a pursuit that goes beyond my location or circumstances... God can be found wherever we are at any time; we don’t have to go all the way around the world to find Him. I actually think that I have spent far too much of my life 'waiting for the moment' rather than fully giving myself to the chase. And I think those moments that I wait for end [up] being a disappointment if I haven’t been engaged in the journey and the process of getting there, and if I choose not to remain engaged once the moment has passed.
Right now our plane is literally chasing the moon, and we seem to be catching up. We flew right through our daylight hours and we’re about to cross over into night again. For now, I am chasing God and the moon right into India, and I pray that I will not at any moment find myself waiting to Live."
~ S.D. Zielstorff
"In the two fundamental duties of pleasing God and loving one another there must be no complacency."
~ John Stott, Evangelical Truth (IVP, 2003), 32.
"Do not ask for what some tell you that you should ask for, but for that which you feel the need of, that which the Holy Spirit has made you to hunger and to thirst for, you ask for that."
~ C.H. Spurgeon, from his sermon "Pray, Always Pray"
"Abraham Lincoln once said, characteristically, 'I am sorry for the man who can't feel the whip when it is laid on the other man's back.'
Much of the world is callous and indifferent toward mankind's poverty and distress. This is due largely to the fact that for many people there has never been a rebirth. The love of God has never been shed abroad in their hearts.
Many people speak of the social gospel as though it were separate and apart from the redemptive gospel. The truth is: There is only one gospel. Divine love, like a reflected sunbeam, shines down before it radiates out. Unless our hearts are conditioned by the Holy Spirit to receive and reflect the warmth of God's compassion, we cannot love our fellow-men as we ought.
Jesus wept tears of compassion at the graveside of a friend. He mourned over Jerusalem because as a city it had lost its appreciation of the things of the spirit. His great heart was sensitive to the needs of others.
To emphasize the importance of people's love for each other, He revised an old commandment to make it read: 'Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart... and thy neighbor as thyself' (Luke 10:27).
St. Francis of Assisi had discovered the secret of happiness when he prayed:
O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
To be consoled as to console,
To be understood as to understand,
To be loved as to love;
For it is in giving that we receive;
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
It is in dying that we are born to eternal life!'"
~Billy Graham, The Secret of Happiness (BGEA, 2002), 35.
