#christ

What is the spirit of Christmas, you ask?  Let me give you the answer in a true story... On a cold day in December, feeling especially warm in my heart for no other reason than it was the holiday season, I walked through the store sporting a big grin on my face.  Though most people were far too busy going about their business to notice me, one elderly gentleman in a wheelchair brought his eyes up to meet mine as we neared each other traveling opposite directions.  He slowed in passing just long enough to speak to me. "Now that's a Christmas smile if I ever saw one," he said. My lips stretched to their limit in response, and I thanked him for the compliment.  Then we went our separate ways. But, as I thought about the man and how sweetly he'd touched me, I realized something simply wonderful!  In that brief, passing interaction we'd exchanged heartfelt gifts! And that, my friend, is the spirit of Christ~mas.  ↗

— Richelle E. Goodrich

#gifts #giving #holidays #richelle #richelle-goodrich

Why should any man have power over any other man's faith, seeing Christ Himself is the author of it? ↗

— George Fox

#author #christ #faith #himself #man

We do not have to look about us very far or for very long to realize the disastrous effects produced on the inner life of man by this age of noise. Spun about in the whirl of business, enslaved to countless technical inventions, man is severed from God and from the world of the spirit. Non in commotione Deus: God does not dwell in turbulence. To find him, there must be calm within; certain senses must be hushed. Tossed around as we are, if God wishes to speak to us, his voice, small and still, will be lost in the hubbub of our daily lives; the rackets and noise drowning our minds will prevent his penetration into that seclusion we call “heart”–the living witness of that life in us which is most sacred and most true: the life we call “inner” or “spiritual. ↗

— Jean Déchanet

#christ #christian #yoga #age

I’ve often wondered where Jesus would apply His hastily made whip if He were to visit our culture. My guess is that it would not be money-changing tables in the temple that would feel His wrath, but the display racks in Christian bookstores. ↗

— R.C. Sproul

#jesus #materialism #retail #change

(About changing faith) At our best, Christians embrace it, leaving enough space within orthodoxy for God to surprise us every now and then. ↗

— Rachel Held Evans

#christianity #evolution #faith #god #mystery

Change from the inside out involves a steadfast gaze upon our Lord that's life changing because it reflects a deep turning from a commitment to self-sufficiency. Without repentance, a look at Christ provides only the illusion of comfort. ↗

— Larry Crabb

#christ #comfort #repentance #self #sufficiency

The discrepancy between the modern observance and the prescriptions of the Rule had struck me ever since the novitiate, and no satisfactory explanation had ever been given to me. People said that man had changed: the weakness of people's health no longer allows us to fast. Was it true? ↗

— Adalbert de Vogüé

#fasting #change

Jesus always kept it real: He always responded in a way that led one to the end of ones self and presented one with a clear choice: Will I walk away feeling challenged or will I walk with Him being changed. ↗

— R. Alan Woods

#r-alan-woods #change

Christianity's goal is not escape from this world. It loves this world and seeks to change it for the better. ↗

— Marcus J. Borg

#christianity #change

I have been praying, too, for the first time in my life. That parson, Tugwell, he helped me see - not the error of my ways, for I knew them all to well already - but what was wanting in me. I am far from perfect, I know, but I am changed and changing still ↗

— Julie Klassen

#change