Revelation

 “Crown Him the Lord of heav’n,
One with the Father known,
One with the Spirit through Him giv’n
From yonder glorious throne,
To Thee be endless praise
For Thou for us hast died;
Be Thou, O Lord, through endless days
Adored and magnified.” 

Matthew Bridges

“We wonder, What does worship have to do with my work? . . . The work we do together each week in gathered worship transforms and sends us into the work we do in our homes and offices . . . we are people who are blessed and sent; this identity transforms how we embody work and worship in the world, in our week, even in our small day.” 

Tish Harrison Warren

“When I have learned to love God better than all my earthly dearest, I shall love my earthly dearest better than I do now.  In so far as I learn to love my earthly dearest at the expense of God and instead of God, I shall be moving towards the state in which I shall not love my earthly dearest at all.  When first things are put first, second things are not suppressed but increased.” 

CS Lewis

“Worship is the strategy by which we interrupt our preoccupation with ourselves and attend to the presence of God.”

Eugene Peterson

“Worship is the arena in which God recalibrates our hearts, reforms our desires, and rehabituates our loves. Worship isn’t just something we do; it is where God does something to us. Worship is the heart of discipleship because it is the gymnasium in which God retrains our hearts.”

James K.A. Smith

“Beethoven … turned out pieces of breath-taking rightness. Rightness — that’s the word! When you get the feeling that whatever note succeeds the last is the only possible note that can rightly happen at that instant, in that context, then chances are you’re listening to Beethoven… Our boy has the real goods, the stuff from Heaven, the power to make you feel at the finish: Something is right in the world. There is something that checks throughout, that follows its own law consistently: something we can trust, that will never let us down.”

Leonard Bernstein, The Joy of Music

“It is clear that at the very beginning of Christianity, there must have occurred a vast release of energy, unequaled in the history of the race. Without it, the future course of the faith is inexplicable… Something happened to the men who associated with Jesus. That burst of energy was ascribed by the early disciples to the founder of their faith. Why this occurred may lie outside the realms in which historians are supposed to move.” 

Kenneth LaTourette

“A zealous man in religion is pre-eminently a man of one thing. It is not enough to say that he is earnest, hearty, uncompromising, thorough-going, whole-hearted, fervent in spirit. He only sees one thing, he cares for one thing, he lives for one thing, he is swallowed up in one thing; and that one thing is to please God.” 

JC Ryle

“There are two ways to be fooled: one is to believe what isn’t true, the other is to refuse to believe what is true.” 

Soren Kierkegaard

“Idols are non-gods and as such are much more congenial to us than God, for we not only have the pleasure of making them, using our wonderful imaginations and skills in creative ways, but also of controlling them.  They are gods with all the God taken out so that we can continue to be our own gods.” 

Eugene Peterson

“Nothing could be more cruel than the tenderness that consigns another to his sin. Nothing could be more compassionate than the severe rebuke that calls a brother back from his sin.” 

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” 

John 1:14

“There is no attribute more comforting to His children than that of God’s Sovereignty. Under the most adverse circumstances, in the most severe trials, they believe that Sovereignty has ordained their afflictions, that Sovereignty overrules them, and that Sovereignty will sanctify them all.” 

Charles Spurgeon

“A great mystery: to redeem our brokenness and lovelessness the God who suffers with us did not strike some mighty blow of power but sent his beloved son to suffer like us and through his suffering to redeem us from suffering and evil. Instead of explaining our suffering God shares it.”

 Nicholas Wolterstorff

“Jesus has many who love his kingdom in heaven, but few who bear his cross. He has many who desire comfort, but few who desire suffering. He finds many to share his feast, but few his fasting. All desire to rejoice with him, but few are willing to suffer for his sake. Many follow Jesus to the breaking of bread, but few to the drinking of the cup of his passion. Many admire his miracles, but few follow him in the humiliation of the cross.”

Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ

“Aslan had stopped and turned and stood facing them, looking so majestic that they felt as glad as anyone can who feels afraid, and as afraid as anyone can who feels glad . . . A mad chase began. Round and round the hill-top he led them, now hopelessly out of their reach, now letting them almost catch his tail, now diving between them, now tossing them in the air with his huge and beautifully velveted paws and catching them again, and now stopping unexpectedly so that all three of them rolled over together in a happy laughing heap of fur and arms and legs. It was such a romp as no one has ever had except in Narnia; and whether it was more like playing with a thunderstorm or playing with a kitten Lucy could never make up her mind . . .Terrible paws, if he did not know how to velvet them.” 

CS Lewis, describing Aslan in the Chronicles of Narnia

“The essence of idolatry is the entertainment of thoughts about God that are not worthy of him.” 

AW Tozer

“Who do you say that I am?” 

Jesus, Matthew 16:15