January 1, 2007
"There won't be churches or temples in the new universe, not because they're bad, but because they won't be necessary. We won't need to be drawn into God's presence. We'll live there, constantly and consciously."
Randy Alcorn, Heaven

December 25, 2006
"To see God will be our greatest joy. Not only will we see his face and live—we will likely wonder if we ever lived before we saw his face!"
Randy Alcorn, Heaven

December 18, 2006
"Don't underestimate God's plan and Christ's redemptive work. He created us, our bodies, and the earth. And he hasn't given up on us, our bodies, or the earth. He's committed to repairing them... permanently."
Randy Alcorn, Heaven

December 11, 2006
"We do not long for a non-body, non-Earth and non-culture, but for a new body, New Earth, and new culture, without sin and death. This is all part of longing for the resurrection of the dead, which is at the heart and soul of the Christian faith (1 Corinthians 15)."
Randy Alcorn, Heaven

December 04, 2006
"The Lord's prayer, prayed countless millions of times over the centuries, will be dramatically answered: "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven."
Randy Alcorn, Heaven

November 27, 2006
Your worst days are never so bad that you are beyond the reach of God's grace. And your best days are never so good that you are beyond the need of God's grace.

Jerry Bridges, The Disciplines of Grace, Navpress, 1994

November 20, 2006
This week, may your heart overflow with thanksgiving to our kind and gracious God:

You turned my wailing into dancing;
you removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy,
that my heart may sing to you and not be silent.
O LORD my God, I will give you thanks forever.

Psalm 31:11-12

October 29, 2006
When Jesus speaks of moths and rust and thieves taking our earthly treasures, he is saying in effect: "You can't take it with you." But then he adds something breathtaking, something revolutionary, a brand-new corollary to the old adage: "You can't take it with you, but... you can send it on ahead."

Randy Alcorn, Law of Rewards

October 22, 2006
Despite prevailing opinions to the contrary, the prospect of rewards is a proper motivation for the Christian's obedience—including the generous sharing of our money and possessions. If we maintain that it's wrong to be motivated by rewards, we bring a serious accusation against Christ. We imply he is tempting us to sin every time he offers rewards for obedience! When he offered us treasures for ourselves in heaven, was he tempting us toward sin? If rewards are a wrong motive, then he was luring us to do wrong. This is unthinkable. Since God does not tempt his children, it's clear that whatever he lays before us as a motivation is legitimate. It's not wrong for us to be motivated by the prospect of reward. Indeed, something is seriously wrong if we are not motivated by the promise of reward made by our God.

Randy Alcorn, Law of Rewards

October 09, 2006
To be a biblical Christian, I must not simply affirm the inspiration of God's Word (that is necessary, but not sufficient). I must consciously critique everything else in light of Scripture (otherwise all else will unconsciously conform my mind to the world, the flesh and the devil). I must make a conscious effort to evaluate all my beliefs and my lifestyle preferences in the light of God's Word.

Randy Alcorn

August 28, 2006
Many, I fear, would like glory, who have no wish for grace. They would [want to] have the wages, but not the work; the harvest, but not the labor; the reaping, but not the sowing; the reward, but not the battle. But it may not be.

J. C. Ryle, Holiness

August 21, 2006
Shall we beat a retreat, and turn back from our high calling in Christ Jesus, or dare we advance at God's command in the face of the impossible?...Let us remind ourselves that the Great Commission was never qualified by clauses calling for advance only if funds were plentiful and no hardship or self-denial was involved. On the contrary, we are told to expect tribulation and even persecution, but with it victory in Christ.

Statement from speech given to Moody Class of 1932 by John Stam, missionary martyr in China, December 1934

August 14, 2006
The gnawing emptiness she's feeling affords you understandable pleasure. But the Enemy draws her attention to her emptiness in order to fill it Himself. You must bombard her life with so much noise that she cannot hear the Enemy's still small voice.

When the Enemy or that flunky Jaltor whispers to her about her deepest needs, prompt her to open the refrigerator. Or turn up the radio. Turn on the television. Pick up the phone. Let her do anything besides examine her life, her emptiness, and her mortality.

I was delighted to hear that the suicidal thoughts you instilled in one of our youths has evolved into an actual plan. You can use this not just to ruin one life, but others. They're already headed to hell in a hand basket. All you have to do is keep them from falling out.
Excerpt from The Ishbane Conspiracy (Prince Ishbane speaking) by Randy Alcorn

August 7, 2006
"The true Christian is called to be a soldier, and must behave as such from the day of his conversion to the day of his death. He is not meant to live a life of religious ease, [laziness], and security. He must never imagine for a moment that he can sleep and doze along the way to heaven, like one traveling in an easy carriage...If the Bible is the rule of his faith and practice, he will find his course laid down very plainly in this matter. He must 'fight.'"
J. C. Ryle, Holiness

"No one who considers a preborn child a full-fledged person can rationally defend abortion's legality, unless they also defend legalizing the killing of other human beings."
Excerpt from Randy Alcorn's book, ProLife Answers to ProChoice Arguments

July 31, 2006
"When thou prayest, rather thy heart should be without words than thy words without heart."
John Bunyan

"All the retaining walls of my mind—carefully constructed to deny the supernatural, to explain away the miraculous—fell to the ground like shacks in a hurricane. Much of what I'd seen in Thuros had beaten upon those walls, but only now did they collapse in ruins. I knew then, in the face of the Woodsman's return from the abyss, that the course of my journey had been charted by an unseen hand, which had led me not just to this world, but to this moment. Yet I felt not only awe, but terror."
Excerpt from Randy Alcorn's book, Edge of Eternity

July 24, 2006
"This struggle against the sin in our heart is precious because by it we learn what a great price the Lord Jesus has paid. It is in this struggle that we will learn to trust Him and to distrust ourselves, to hate sin and love holiness, to cultivate humility and to long for heaven. And in the midst of it all, we'll learn the joy of obedience and the happiness that is found only in loving God."
Elyse Fitzpatrick, Idols of the Heart

"'Cosmos-Maker, you who live beyond the realm where stars are born and quasars sing and the great Wind blows the silent stars in the vast explosion of your creation.' He paused, then sang. 'Architect of the cosmos, Builder of worlds; you became Road-Hiker, then Tree-Walker, making the road red with your heart. You are the Crosser of the Chasm.'"
Excerpt from Randy Alcorn's book, Edge of Eternity

July 17, 2006
"When you speak of Heaven, let your face light up, let it be irradiated with a heavenly gleam, let your eyes shine with reflected glory. But when you speak of Hell—well, then your ordinary face will do."
Charles Spurgeon

"He looked again at the fair fabric of Elyon's creation, this delicate living being. In another nine months she would be born, and in the Shadowlands they would say she had become. But she already was, before anyone on earth knew of the pregnancy. Finney had been there to behold her becoming."
Excerpt from Randy Alcorn's book, Deadline

July 10, 2006
"Children of religious parents...often grow up professing a religion without knowing why, or without ever having thought seriously about it. And then when the realities of grown-up life begin to press upon them, they often astound everyone by dropping all their religion, and plunging right into the world. And why? They had never thoroughly understood the sacrifices which Christianity entails. They had never been taught to 'count the cost.'"
J. C. Ryle, Holiness

June 25, 2006
"Though mortification must be done by the strength and under the direction of the Holy Spirit, it is nevertheless a work which we must do. Without the Holy Spirit's strength there will be no mortification, but without our working in His strength there will also be no mortification."
Jerry Bridges, The Pursuit of Holiness

June 18, 2006
"The abortion issue isn't about the church needing to speak to the world. It's about the church needing to speak to itself first, and then to the world."
Randy Alcorn, ProLife Answers to ProChoice Arguments

"I want to go to Charis, I can tell you that much." Even as I said it, the words struck me, almost as if I'd finally said what I knew deep in my heart. "If the red road will take me there, it's the red road I want. As for the chasm, I'm still not convinced there is one. And if there is, why would I want to go there?"
Randy Alcorn, excerpt from Edge of Eternity

June 11, 2006
"The primary objective of our quiet time should be fellowship with God—developing a personal relationship with Him and growing in our devotion to Him...I like to think of the quiet time as a conversation: God speaking to me through the Bible and I responding to what He says."
Jerry Bridges, The Practice of Holiness

"But beware—novels can stimulate imagination, foster thought and self-evaluation. This is never to our advantage. That's why television—or an innocuous piece of nonfiction—is nearly always to be preferred over a novel. When they're reading, the danger is, they may pause and reflect, consider changing their direction. Movies and television are usually nonreflective, undermining their values at the subconscious level, with minimal thought and self-examination. They do their work so well you hardly have to do anything."

At your death, the autobiography you've written with the pen of faith and the ink of works will go into eternity unedited, to be seen and read as is by the angels, by the redeemed, and by God himself.
Randy Alcorn, excerpt from Lord Foulgrin's Letters

June 04, 2006
"If we are to make any progress in the pursuit of holiness, we must assume our responsibility to discipline or train ourselves. But we are to do all this in total dependence on the Holy Spirit to work in us and strengthen us with the strength that is in Christ."
Jerry Bridges, The Pursuit of Holiness

"Your death will be like the final buzzer at a basketball game. No shots taken thereafter will count. If you've failed to use your use your money and possessions and time and talent and energies for eternity—then you've failed, period.

At your death, the autobiography you've written with the pen of faith and the ink of works will go into eternity unedited, to be seen and read as is by the angels, by the redeemed, and by God himself.
Randy Alcorn, In Light of Eternity

May 29, 2006
"The choicest believers, who are assuredly freed from the condemning power of sin, aught yet to make it their business all their days to [put to death] the indwelling power of sin."
John Owen, The Works of John Owen

Foulgrin's rule number one: keep them in the dark.
The central question is always this—how can we exact revenge on the Enemy? It was he who evicted us from our rightful dwelling, he who chose the sludgebags over us. He made ours a government in exile, driving us out to the hinterlands of the spirit realm, where we have no place to call our own until we colonize Skiathorus.
Randy Alcorn, excerpt from Lord Foulgrin's Letters

May 22, 2006
"The Christian's instincts of trust and worship are stimulated very powerfully by knowledge of the greatness of God."
J. I. Packer, Knowing God

"If you wonder if there's anything you've done that God could possibly reward, be encouraged by 1 Corinthians 4:5 which talks of the judgment when 'each will receive his praise from God.' He will find something to reward you for. Will you seek to do more rewardable works for him?"
Randy Alcorn, In Light of Eternity

May 15, 2006
"Having convictions can be defined as being so thoroughly convinced that Christ and his Word are both objectively true and relationally meaningful that you act on your beliefs regardless of the consequences."
Josh McDowell and Bob Hostetler Beyond Belief to Convictions

"In eternity, past sins and sufferings won't plague us, nor interfere with God's acceptance of us. We won't dwell on them. Likewise, we'll be capable of choosing not to recall our past troubles and sorrows in any way that would diminish heaven."
Randy Alcorn, In Light of Eternity

May 8, 2006
"True worship is deadly dangerous. Having once worshipped the Enemy ourselves—the foul smell still plagues me—we can recall what worship did to us. It's entrapping, intoxicating. It grabs hold of them, changes them, reorients them toward the Enemy."
Randy Alcorn, excerpt from Lord Foulgrin's Letters

"When I think of friendships without Christ, it saddens me to realize they're like old clocks, winding down with each tick, destined to ultimately stop, the mainspring forever broken, never to be wound up again. My relationship with Jerry wasn't like that. His death wasn't an end to our friendship. It was only an interruption."
Randy Alcorn, In Light of Eternity

May 1, 2006
"We must seek, in studying God, to be led to God."
J. I. Packer, Knowing God

"Scripture makes clear that the one central business of this life is to prepare for the next."
Randy Alcorn, In Light of Eternity

April 24, 2006
"A conviction is a determinative belief: something you believe so strongly that it affects the way you live."
Jerry Bridges, Discipline of Grace

"In moments of strength, make decisions that will prevent temptation in moments of weakness."
Randy Alcorn, The Purity Principle

April 17, 2006
No Spiritual Discipline is more important than the intake of God's Word. Nothing can substitute for it. There simply is no healthy Christian life apart from a diet of the milk and meat of Scripture.

Donald Whitney, Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life

"Never underestimate Christ. Sin is not more powerful than God. Don't imagine there can't be victory until we get to heaven. God says otherwise. We're not to wait for victory. We're to live in it. (see I John 5:4)"
Randy Alcorn, The Purity Principle

April 10, 2006
It is a very ill omen to hear a wicked world clap its hands and shout well done to the Christian man.

Charles Spurgeon

Donald Whitney, Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life

Jerry Bridges, The Practice of Godliness

March 20, 2006

"The most crucial battle in our lives is the continuing one of securing enough time alone in the presence of God. Our spiritual vigor and vitality in everything else depend on the outcome of this battle."

Paul Little

"The thing I know will give me the deepest joy—namely, to be alone and unhurried in the presence of God, aware of His presence, my heart open to worship Him—is often the thing I least want to do."

John Stott

March 13, 2006

"It is a very ill omen to hear a wicked world clap its hands and shout well done to the Christian man."

Charles Spurgeon

March 6, 2006

"Rest assured, if you are a child of God, you must pass through the fire. Fear not, but rather rejoice that such fruitful times are in store for you, for in them you will be weaned from earth and will qualify to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light: you will be delivered from clinging to the present and made to long for those eternal things which are so soon to be revealed to you."

Charles Spurgeon

February 27, 2006

Here is a book, the Bible, worth more than all others that were ever printed. Yet it is my misfortune never to have found time to read it.

Patrick Henry

There is no book in the world whose words will yield such treasures of truth, such spiritual richness, such rivers of refreshing water, such strengthening of the soul as the words with which the Holy Spirit has inspired the authors of the books of our Bible.

Wilber Smith

February 20, 2006

I have got a child now that I wasn't planning to have, and I believe the hospital should take some responsibility for that....I still don't know if, or what, I am going to tell Jayde when the time comes.

Stacy Dow, of Perth, Scotland, who is suing a hospital for £250,000 because her daughter, now 4, was not aborted along with her twin.

February 13, 2006

God created you with your unique abilities, and He does want to use them. But He's far more interested in you knowing Him than He is in you knowing your abilities. The world tells us to affirm self, but God tells us to deny self. Your identity and self-worth aren't found in your abilities, but in your relationship with God.

Henry & Mel Blackaby, What's So Spiritual About Your Gifts

January 29 & February 6, 2006

When their mother asked Jesus for her sons to be seated at his side, Jesus answered, "You do not know what you are asking... Can you drink the cup I am about to drink?"

I like to think of my brother Jim as having drunk that cup at an early age, like James. James was decapitated as one of the first martyrs. Jim wrote in his journal shortly before his death, "In Thee lives the spirit of the great short-lived One. Art thou sufficient for this, oh my soul?"

I think that it's not the length of one's life; it's the consecration of that life. You can drink that cup by dying, like my brother, at an early age, or you can drink that cup day by day, year by year, as I have done.

Bert Elliot, Jim Elliot's brother
(Bert & Colleen Elliot have been missionaries in Peru for the past 56 years.)

January 22, 2006

"Heaven awaits all of us who love Him. None of us know the timing—I might arrive there first and welcome you. But we do know our God is in charge and numbers our days. And 'there will be no more death or crying or pain.' How glorious. The best is yet to be. We are not past our prime...we are headed toward it.

Our Father will lovingly oversee the eternity of great adventures awaiting us in Heaven and, in the resurrection, on the New Earth."

Randy Alcorn

January 15, 2006

"In truth thou canst not read the Scriptures too much; and what thou readest, thou canst not read too well; and what thou readest well, thou canst not too well understand; and what thou understandest well, thou canst not too well teach; and what thou teachest well, thou canst not too well live."

Martin Luther

January 8, 2006

"O you souls who wish to go on with so much safety and consolation, if you knew how pleasing to God is suffering, and how much it helps in acquiring other good things, you would never seek consolation in anything; but you would rather look upon it as a great happiness to bear the Cross of the Lord."
St. John of the Cross, The Dark Night of the Soul

January 1, 2006

"A closed mouth before God and silent heart are indispensable for the reception of certain kinds of truth. No man is qualified to speak who has not first listened."
A. W. Tozer

December 26, 2005

"When we are tempted, let's be motivated not only by our love for God, and our desire to see God glorified. (Lofty as those are, sometimes they seem insufficient to motivate us.) Let's also be motivated by our desire for life rather than death, and gain rather than loss. Let's be motivated by our desire to live smart rather than to live stupid. Let's realize that the passing cost of discipleship, real though it be, pales in comparison to the lasting cost of non-discipleship."
Randy Alcorn

December 19, 2005

"I have thought that I am a creature of a day, passing through life as an arrow through the air. I am a spirit come from God and returning from God; just hovering over the great gulf, till a few moments hence I am no more seen. I drop into an unchangeable eternity! I want to know one thing, the way to heaven—how to land save on that happy shore. God himself has condescended to teach the way: for this very end he came from heaven. He hath written it down in a book. O give me that book! At any price give me the Book of God! I have it. Here is knowledge enough for me. Let me be homo unius libri [a man of one book]."
John Wesley

December 12, 2005

A steward manages assets for the owner's benefit. The steward carries no sense of entitlement to the assets he manages. It's his job to find out what the owner wants done with his assets, then carry out his will.
Randy Alcorn, The Treasure Principle

December 5, 2005

Another pitfall we need to watch for is the tendency to trust in God's instruments of provision rather than God Himself. In the usual course of events in our lives, God provides for our needs through human means rather than directly...But these human instruments are ultimately under the controlling hand of God. They succeed or prosper only to the extent God prospers them. We must be careful to look beyond the means and human instrumentalities to the God who uses them.
Jerry Bridges, Trusting God

November 28, 2005

Sin is any failure to conform to the moral law of God in act, attitude, or nature.
Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology

A sin...consists in doing, saying, thinking, or imagining anything that is not in perfect conformity with the mind and law of God.
J. C. Ryle, Holiness

November 21, 2005

Tom Landry, coach of the Dallas Cowboys football team for almost three decades, said, "The job of a football coach is to make men do what they don't want to do in order to achieve what they've always wanted to be." In much the same way, Christians are called to make themselves do something they would not naturally do—pursue the Spiritual Disciplines—in order to become what they've always wanted to be, that is, like Jesus Christ.

Donald Whitney, Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life

November 14, 2005
Theological illiteracy and unbelief have dramatically increased among evangelical Christians in the past three decades. Churches are in desperate need of a fresh infusion of truth, a vigorous teaching of biblical doctrine. Without it, we and our children will have nothing to offer this truth-deprived world.

Randy Alcorn, The Grace and Truth Paradox

November 7, 2005
When you are near death as I am, you will know that all the different states of life, whether of youth or age, riches or poverty, greatness or smallness, signify no more to you than whether you die in a poor or stately apartment. The greatness of the things which follow death (heaven or hell) , makes all that goes before it slip into nothing...What a strange thing! That a little health or the poor business of a shop, should keep us so senseless of these great things that are coming so fast upon us!

George Whitefield, 1838

October 31, 2005
When we are tempted, let's be motivated not only by our love for God, and our desire to see God glorified. (Lofty as those are, sometimes they seem insufficient to motivate us.) Let's also be motivated by our desire for life rather than death, and gain rather than loss. Let's be motivated by our desire to live smart rather than to live stupid. Let's realize that the passing cost of discipleship, real though it be, pales in comparison to the lasting cost of non-discipleship.

Randy Alcorn

October 24, 2005
The Loving Presence does not burden us equally with all things, but considerately puts upon each of us just a few central tasks, as emphatic responsibilities...I wish I might emphasize how a life becomes simplified when dominated by faithfulness to a few concerns.

Thomas Kelly

October 17, 2005
Our God is a God of justice and surprises. Faithful, yet not predictable other than the fact that He is true to Himself and His Word and His people.

The greatest surprise is also the greatest certainty: His grace. So I do not doubt for a moment I will be in Heaven. For it is dependent on Him, not on me. If on me, I would have no doubt either—because I know Hell would await me. I thank Him for His assurance that what He has done for me is far greater even than what I have done against Him (and that is far greater than I grasp).

Randy Alcorn

J. I. Packer, Knowing God

Randy Alcorn, The Grace and Truth Paradox

Josh McDowell

Josh McDowell and Bob Hostetler, Beyond Belief to Convictions

Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology

September 05, 2005
We are never thankful for what we think we deserve. We are deeply thankful for what we know we don't deserve.

Randy Alcorn, The Grace & Truth Paradox

August 29, 2005
At every state of our Christian development and in every sphere of our Christian discipleship, pride is our greatest enemy and humility our greatest friend.

John Stott, The Practice of Godliness

Jerry Bridges, The Practice of Godliness

Randy Alcorn, Heaven

John Piper, A Hunger for God

Jerry Bridges, Holiness

Jerry Bridges, Discipline of Grace

Jerry Bridges, Discipline of Grace

Randy Alcorn, The Grace and Truth Paradox

Randy Alcorn, The Grace and Truth Paradox

Charles Spurgeon, Morning and Evening

John Owen, Communion With God

Randy Alcorn, The Grace and Truth Paradox

J. C. Ryle, Holiness

Oswald Chambers

J. I. Packer

Randy Alcorn

Francis Schaeffer

C. S. Lewis

Charles H. Spurgeon

A. W. Pink

John Bunyan

Martin Luther

John Owen on "Holiness"

Oswald Chambers

J. I. Packer

"I value all things only by the price they shall gain in eternity." - John Wesley

"Only one life, it'll soon be past, only what's done for Christ will last." - C. T. Studd

"He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose." - Jim Elliot

By A. W. Tozer, Of God and Men, pp. 48-49

Martin Luther

Charles H. Spurgeon

Jonathan Edwards

J. C. Ryle

"Now what is the food for the inner man: not prayer, but the Word of God: and here again not the simple reading of the Word of God, so that it only passes through our minds, just as water runs through a pipe, but considering what we read, pondering over it, and applying it to our hearts....."

George Mueller

"A true love of God must begin with a delight in his holiness, and not with a delight in any other attribute; for no other attribute is truly lovely without this."

Jonathan Edwards

Of all doctrines, the one of who Jesus really is trumps them all.

Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth and the life; no man comes to the Father but by Me" (John 14:6) He didn't merely say He would show the truth or teach the truth or model the truth. He is the truth. Truth personified. He is the source of all truth, the embodiment of truth and therefore the reference point for evaluating all truth-claims.

That Jesus is the God-man, the second member of the trinity come in human flesh, is central to our faith. To deny this is to be a "liar" (1 John 2:22).

If we get it right about Jesus, much else will come out in the wash. If we get it wrong about Jesus, it doesn't matter what else we get right.

Randy Alcorn

"The refusal to be committed and the attitude of indifference can in fact never be neutral."

J. B. Phillips

"Christians are like the several flowers in a garden that have each of them the dew of heaven, which, being shaken with the wind, they let fall at each other's roots, whereby they are jointly nourished, and become nourishers of each other."

John Bunyan

"There is no guarantee that men faithful to God will be recognizable by their numbers, their talents or their successes."

Ian H. Murray

"Trials are medicines which our gracious and wise physician prescribes because we need them; and he proportions the frequency and weight of them to what the case requires. Let us trust in his skill and thank him for his prescription."

John Newton

"Just as no one can go to hell or heaven for me, so no one can believe for me and so no one can open or close heaven or hell for me, and no one can drive me either to believe or disbelieve."

Martin Luther

"The enjoyment of God is the only happiness with which our souls can be satisfied. To go to heaven, fully to enjoy God, is infinitely better than the most pleasant accommodations here. Fathers and mothers, husbands, wives, or children, or the company of earthly friends, are but shadows; but God is the substance. These are but scattered beams, but God is the sun. These are but streams. But God is the ocean. Therefore it becomes us to spend this life only as a journey toward heaven, as it becomes us to make the seeking of our highest end and proper good, the whole work of our lives; to which we should subordinate all other concerns of life. Why should we labour for, or set our hearts on, anything else, but that which is our proper end, and true happiness?"

Jonathan Edwards

"Man...is of few days, and full of trouble."
-Job 14:1

"It may be of great service to us, before we fall asleep, to remember this mournful fact, for it may lead us to set loose by earthly things. There is nothing very pleasant in the recollection that we are not above the shafts of adversity, but it may humble us and prevent our boasting like the Psalmist in our morning's portion. "My mountain standeth firm: I shall never be moved." It may stay us from taking too deep root in this soil from which we are so soon to be transplanted into the heavenly garden. Let us recollect the frail tenure upon which we hold our temporal mercies. If we would remember that all the trees of earth are marked for the woodman's axe, we should not be so ready to build our nests in them. We should love, but we should love with the love which expects death, and which reckons upon separations. Our dear relations are but loaned to us, and the hour when we must return them to the lender's hand may be even at the door. The like is certainly true of our worldly goods. Do not riches take to themselves wings and fly away? Our health is equally precarious. Frail flowers of the field, we must not reckon upon blooming for ever. There is a time appointed for weakness and sickness, when we shall have to glorify God by suffering, and not by earnest activity. There is no single point in which we can hope to escape from the sharp arrows of affliction; out of our few days there is not one secure from sorrow. Man's life is a cask full of bitter wine; he who looks for joy in it had better seek for honey in an ocean of brine. Beloved reader, set not your affections upon things of earth: but seek those things which are above, for here the moth devoureth, and the thief breaketh through, but there all joys are perpetual and eternal. The path of trouble is the way home. Lord, make this thought a pillow for many a weary head!"

Charles Spurgeon, Morning and Evening

Echoes from Eden, 44. by A.W. Tozer

If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.
--2 Chronicles 7:14

"Dark providences, never understood before, will then be clearly seen, and all that puzzles us now will become plain to us in the light of the Lamb.... In this world it doth not yet appear what we shall be. God's people are a hidden people, but when Christ receives His people into heaven, He will touch them with the wand of His own love, and change them into the image of His manifested glory. They were poor and wretched, but what a transformation! They were stained with sin, but one touch of His finger, and they are bright as the sun, and clear as crystal. Oh! what a manifestation! All this proceeds from the exalted Lamb. Whatever there may be of effulgent splendour, Jesus shall be the centre and soul of it all. Oh! to be present and to see Him in His own light, the King of kings, and Lord of lords!"

Charles Spurgeon, Morning and Evening

Excerpted from The God I Love by Joni Eareckson Tada

Oh, God, I love thee.
Not that my poor love might win me entrance to thy heaven above,
nor yet that strangers to thy love must know
the bitterness of everlasting woe.
But, Jesus, thou art mine and I am thine,
clasped to thy bosom by thy arms divine,
who on the cruel cross for me hast borne
the pain, the tears and man's unpitying scorn.
No thought can fathom and no tongue express
thy grief, thy toil, thy anguish measureless.
Thy death, O lamb of God, the undefiled,
and all for me, thy wayward sinful child.
Not for the hope of glory or reward,
but even as thou hast loved me, Lord,
I love Thee, and wilt love Thee and adore,
who art my King, my God, forevermore.

Francis Xavier, missionary to the East Indies, Ceylon, and Japan. In 1552 he left on mission to China, and died on the island of Chang-Chuen-Shan.

Personal note from Randy Alcorn: When I read this as a college student many years ago it found a permanent place in my heart; it will bear hours of contemplation.

Thomas Brooks

Excerpted from The God I Love by Joni Eareckson Tada

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