Ephesians

“There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. They themselves are equally pleased by both errors and hail a materialist or a magician with the same delight.”

C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters

“Though sin wars, it shall not reign; and though it breaks our peace, it cannot separate from his love. Nor is it inconsistent with his holiness and perfection, to manifest his favor to such poor defiled creatures, or to admit them to communion with himself; for they are not considered as in themselves, but as one with Jesus, to whom they have fled for refuge, and by whom they live by faith.”

John Newton

“My friend, if you think of your Christian life … with this sense of grudge, or as a wearisome task or duty, I tell you to go back to the beginning of your life, retrace your steps to the wicket gate through which you passed. Look at the world in its evil and sin, look at the hell to which it was leading you, and then look forward and realize that you are set in the midst of the most glorious campaign into which a man could ever enter, and that you are on the noblest road that the world has ever known.”

M. Lloyd-Jones

“Let the Church remember this: that every maker and worker is called to serve God in his profession or trade – not outside of it.  The Apostles complained rightly when they said it was not right they should leave the word of God and serve tables; their vocation was to preach the word.  But the person whose vocation it is to prepare the meals beautifully might with equal justice protest: It is not right for us to leave the service of our tables to preach the word.”

Dorothy Sayers

“Power is for flourishing – teeming, fruitful, multiplying abundance.  Power creates and shapes an environment where creatures can flourish . . . Image bearing is for power . . . image bearing is for flourishing.  The image bearers do not exist for their own flourishing alone, but to bring the whole creation to its fulfillment. Why is power a gift? Because power is for flourishing.  When power is used well, people and the whole cosmos come more alive to what they were meant to be. And flourishing is the test of power . . . In enslavement, one human being asserts unlimited power over another, an assertion that requires not just the inflation of the slave owner’s power to unholy, godlike levels, but the eradication of the slave’s power.”

Andy Crouch, Playing God: Redeeming the Gift of Power

“Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant . . .”

Philippians 2: 5-7

“Discipline is like a vaccine. It inflicts lesser pain now to avoid greater pain later.”

Dan Doriani, The Life of a God-Made Man

“There’s one more voice you may need to adjust. It’s the voice in your head whispering, There’s not enough. Not enough resources, spots in the best schools, teacher’s attention, opportunities, friends who will provide the right type of influence. Not enough hours in the day, funds in the account, time to protect the planet, chances to do things over. Fear of scarcity is alive and blooming inside the minds of most parents. That’s what sends their voices into the pinched and panicky zone. Fear is behind the rushing, hovering, chiding, and pleading that sours our conversations with our children . . .   For as long as I have practiced therapy with families, parents have been worried about scarcity . . . Relinquish the fear and you open a door to enchantment.”

Wendy Mogel, Voice Lessons, 4.

“Salvation is  . . . membership in the family of God . . .The creation of a family with children is the reason for all of God’s activity.  This is how he intends to show his glory . . . Our sonship to God is the apex of creation and the goal of redemption . . . The story of Paradise lost becoming Paradise regained is the story of God’s grace bringing us from alienation from him to membership in his family . . . Our self-image, if it is to be biblical, will begin just here. God is my Father (the Christian’s self-image always begins with the knowledge of God and who he is!); I am one of his children (I know my real identity); his people are my brothers and sisters (I recognize the family to which I belong and have discovered my deepest ‘roots’).”

Sinclair Ferguson