When was the last time you challenged your beliefs?

"My feelings are not God. God is God. My feelings do not define truth. God’s word defines truth. My feelings are echoes and responses to what my mind perceives. And sometimes - many times - my feelings are out of sync with the truth. When that happens - and it happens every day in some measure - I try not to bend the truth to justify my imperfect feelings, but rather, I plead with God: Purify my perceptions of your truth and transform my feelings so that they are in sync with the truth.”
― John Piper, Finally Alive



"If you believe what you like in the gospels, and reject what you don’t, it's not the gospel you believe, but yourself." Augustine



“Christ did not die to forgive sinners who go on treasuring anything above seeing and savoring God. And people who would be happy in heaven if Christ were not there, will not be there. The gospel is not a way to get people to heaven; it is a way to get people to God. It's a way of overcoming every obstacle to everlasting joy in God. If we don't want God above all things, we have not been converted by the gospel.”
― John Piper, God Is the Gospel: Meditations on God's Love as the Gift of Himself



“There is not one blade of grass, there is no color in this world, that is not intended to make us rejoice.”  John Calvin
 


“Love may, indeed, love the beloved when her beauty is lost: but not because it is lost. Love may forgive all infirmities and love still in spite of them: but Love cannot cease to will their removal. Love is more sensitive than hatred itself to every blemish in the beloved… Of all powers he forgives most, but he condones least: he is pleased with little, but demands all.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain



“I [God] am what some would say 'holy, and wholly other than you.' The problem is that many folks try to grasp some sense of who I am by taking the best version of themselves, projecting that to the nth degree, factoring in all the goodness they can perceive, which often isn't much, and then call that God. And while it may seem like a noble effort, the truth is that it falls pitifully short of who I really am. I'm not merely the best version of you that you can think of. I am far more than that, above and beyond all that you can ask or think.”
― William P. Young, The Shack



“Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.”    Matthew 10:34



“We...sin not because we want what is evil, but because we want what isn't good enough.”
― Scott Hahn, Lord, Have Mercy: The Healing Power of Confession



“Never think that you need to protect God. Because anytime you think you need to protect God, you can be sure that you are worshipping an idol.”
Stanley M. Hauerwas



“We fear men so much, because we fear God so little.” William Gurnall




“If tribulation is a necessary element in redemption, we must anticipate that it will never cease till God sees the world to be either redeemed or no further redeemable.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain



“Is it faith to understand nothing, and merely submit your convictions implicitly to the Church?”   John Calvin


“In the Church of Jesus Christ there can and should be no non-theologians.”
― Karl Barth



"Choose... this day whom you will serve! Joshua 24:15 Remember, any day not surrendered to the Spirit is virtually surrendered to the flesh by simple default!" -Beth Moore