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Read through the most famous quotes by topic #chris
Neither fear nor self-interest can convert the soul. They may change the appearance, perhaps even the conduct, but never the object of supreme desire... Fear is the motive which constrains the slave; greed binds the selfish man, by which he is tempted when he is drawn away by his own lust and enticed (James 1:14). But neither fear nor self-interest is undefiled, nor can they convert the soul. Only charity can convert the soul, freeing it from unworthy motives. ↗
Right now, I am in Fallujah. I am in Darfur. I am on Sixty-third and Park having dinner with Ellen Barkin and Ron Perelman... Right now, I'm on Lafayette and Astor waiting to hit you up for change so I can get high. I'm taking a walk through the Rose Garden with George Bush. I'm helping Donald Rumsfeld get a good night's sleep...I was in that cave with Osama, and on that plane with Mohamed Atta...And what I want you to know is that your work has barely begun. And what I want you to trust is the efficacy of divine love if practiced consciously. And what I need you to believe is that if you hate who I love, you do not know me at all. And make no mistake, "Who I Love" is every last one. I am every last one. People ask of me: Where are you? Where are you?...Verily I ask of you to ask yourself: Where are you? Where are you? ↗
Your heart of devotion and obedience is not in vain. Who knows but God how many people have come near to you and were forever changed simply by the fragrance of his love in you? Who knows but God if he will put you before kings and leaders to speak the truth, redirecting the future of nations? Who knows when that small crack in the dam of our enemy’s plans will give way and God’s glory will truly cover the earth as the sea? Do not become distracted or discouraged by the death around you. Death must always give way when the life of Christ enters the picture. ↗
The Pope would have an easier job than the President of the United States in adopting a change of course. He has no Congress alongside him as a legislative body nor a Supreme Court as a judiciary. He is absolute head of government, legislator and supreme judge in the church. If he wanted to, he could authorize contraception over night, permit the marriage of priests, make possible the ordination of women and allow eucharistic fellowship with this Protestant churches. What would a Pope do who acted in the spirit of Obama? ↗
Whose but his own? ingrate, he had of mee All he could have; I made him just and right, Sufficient to have stood, though free to fall. Such I created all th’ Ethereal Powers And Spirits, both them who stood and them who fail’d; Freely they stood who stood, and fell who fell. Not free, what proof could they have giv’n sincere Of true allegiance, constant Faith or Love, Where only what they needs must do, appear’d, Not what they would? what praise could they receive? What pleasure I from such obedience paid, When Will and Reason (Reason also is choice) Useless and vain, of freedom both despoil’d, Made passive both, had served necessity, Not mee. They therefore as to right belong’d, So were created, nor can justly accuse Thir maker, or thir making, or thir Fate; As if Predestination over-rul’d Thir will, dispos’d by absolute Decree Or high foreknowledge; they themselves decreed Thir own revolt, not I; if I foreknew Foreknowledge had no influence on their fault, Which had no less prov’d certain unforeknown. So without least impulse or shadow of Fate, Or aught by me immutable foreseen, They trespass, Authors to themselves in all Both what they judge and what they choose; for so I form’d them free, and free they must remain, Till they enthrall themselves: I else must change Thir nature, and revoke the high Decree Unchangeable, Eternal, which ordain’d Thir freedom: they themselves ordain’d thir fall. ↗
if you truly want to know why I'm helping you, you won't get any easy answers. It's not because I believe in the goodness of humankind. It's not because I believe God and the rest of the monsters are evil. I only wish to have the capacity to change. To know that we have the ability to take a different direction than the one presented to us. That is more important than good and evil. Than life or death. ↗
Today everybody admits that something is wrong with the world, and the critics of Christianity are the very people who feel this most. The most violent attacks on religion come from those who are most anxious to change the world, and they attack Christianity because they think that it is an obstructive force that stands in the way of a real reform of human life. There has seldom been a time in which men were more dissatisfied with life and the more conscious of the need for deliverance, and if they turn away from Christianity it is because they feel that Christianity is a servant of the established order and that it has no real power or will to change the world and to rescue man from his present difficulties. They have lost their faith in the old spiritual traditions that inspired civilization in the past, and they tend to look for a solution in some external practical remedy such as communism, or the scientific organisation of life; something definite and objective that can be applied to society as a whole. ↗
In the soul where Christ savingly is, there He lives. He not only lives without it, so as violently to actuate it, but He lives in it, so that the soul also is alive. Grace in the soul is as much from Christ, as the light in a glass, held out in the sunbeams, is from the sun. But this represents the manner of the communication of grace to the soul only in part; because the glass remains as it was, the nature of it not being at all changed; it is as much without any lightsomeness in its nature as ever. But the soul of a saint receives light from the Sun of Righteousness, in such a manner that its nature is changed, and it becomes properly a luminous thing; not only does the sun shine in the saints, but they also become little suns, partaking of the nature of the Fountain of their light. In this respect, the manner of their derivation of light is like that of the lamps in the tabernacle, rather than that of a reflecting glass; which, though they were lit up by fire from heaven, yet thereby became themselves burning shining things. ↗
My request today is simple. Today. Tomorrow. Next week. Find somebody, anybody, that’s different than you. Somebody that has made you feel ill-will or even hateful. Somebody whose life decisions have made you uncomfortable. Somebody who practices a different religion than you do. Somebody who has been lost to addiction. Somebody with a criminal past. Somebody who dresses “below” you. Somebody with disabilities. Somebody who lives an alternative lifestyle. Somebody without a home. Somebody that you, until now, would always avoid, always look down on, and always be disgusted by. Reach your arm out and put it around them. And then, tell them they’re all right. Tell them they have a friend. Tell them you love them. If you or I wanna make a change in this world, that’s where we’re gonna be able to do it. That’s where we’ll start. Every. Single. Time. ↗
