#christianity

It is Jesus that you seek when you dream of happiness; He is waiting for you when nothing else you find satisfies you; He is the beauty to which you are so attracted; it is He who provoked you with that thirst for fullness that will not let you settle for compromise; it is He who urges you to shed the masks of a false life; it is He who reads in your heart your most genuine choices, the choices that others try to stifle. It is Jesus who stirs in you the desire to do something great with your lives, the will to follow an ideal, the refusal to allow yourselves to be ground down by mediocrity, the courage to commit yourselves humbly and patiently to improving yourselves and society, making the world more human and more fraternal. ↗

— John Paul II

#christianity #jesus-christ #beauty

I am wired by nature to love the same toys that the world loves. I start to fit in. I start to love what others love. I start to call earth "home." Before you know it, I am calling luxeries "needs" and using my money just the way unbelievers do. I begin to forget the war. I don't think much about people perishing. Missions and unreached people drop out of my mind. I stop dreaming about the triumphs of grace. I sink into a secular mind-set that looks first to what man can do, not what God can do. It is a terrible sickness. And I thank God for those who have forced me again and again toward a wartime mind-set. ↗

— John Piper

#fitting-in #materialism #mind-set #missions #money

I have been seized by the power of a great affection. ↗

— Brennan Manning

#jesus #gospel

Sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll is easy. True christianity…that's rebellion. ↗

— Alice Cooper

#rock-n-roll #rebellion

Everything about Christianity is contained in the pathetic image of 'the flock. ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#christianity #atheism

Orthodoxy is marked by sobriety, not by emotional enthusiasm. It is also marked by a quite “ordinary” persistence in living the humble, consistent life of Christ, not by seeking out extraordinary experiences, especially supernatural ones. ↗

— Andrew Stephen Damick

#christianity #eastern-orthodox-church #orthodox-christianity #orthodoxy #experience

It is here that we see the dawn of hope: for no matter how formidably Communism bristles with tanks and rockets, no matter what successes it attains in seizing the planet, it is doomed never to vanquish Christianity. ↗

— Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

#communism #communism

Prayer is an acknowledgment that our need of God's help is not partial but total. ↗

— Alistair Begg

#god #help #prayer #theology #faith

There is no indication that any church official suggested or supported the emperor's action against gay people. On the contrary, the only persons known by name to have been punished for homosexual acts were prominent bishops. ↗

— John Boswell

#christianity #church #gay-rights #roman-empire #homosexuality

Over the years, I have come to realize that the greatest trap in our life is not success, popularity, or power, but self-rejection. Success, popularity, and power can indeed present a great temptation, but their seductive quality often comes from the way they are part of the much larger temptation to self-rejection. When we have come to believe in the voices that call us worthless and unlovable, then success, popularity, and power are easily perceived as attractive solutions. The real trap, however, is self-rejection. As soon as someone accuses me or criticizes me, as soon as I am rejected, left alone, or abandoned, I find myself thinking, "Well, that proves once again that I am a nobody." ... [My dark side says,] I am no good... I deserve to be pushed aside, forgotten, rejected, and abandoned. Self-rejection is the greatest enemy of the spiritual life because it contradicts the sacred voice that calls us the "Beloved." Being the Beloved constitutes the core truth of our existence. ↗

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

#christianity #faith #feelings #identity #rejection