#unity

Without God man neither knows which way to go, nor even understands who he is... One of the deepest forms of poverty a person can experience is isolation... Poverty is often produced by a rejection of God's love, by man's basic and tragic tendency to close in on himself, thinking himself to be self-sufficient or merely an insignificant and ephemeral fact, a "stranger" in a random universe...The human being develops when ... his soul comes to know itself and the truths that God has implanted deep within, when he enters into dialogue with himself and his Creator... It is not by isolation that man establishes his worth, but by placing himself in relation with others and with God. ↗

— Pope Benedict XVI

#god #pope #experience

But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked” (Luke 6:35). ↗

— Michele Woolley

#christian-living #faith #favor #hope #self-esteem

By giving us control, our new technologies tend to enhance existing idols in our lives. Instead of becoming more like Christ through the forming and shaping influence of the church community, we form, and shape, and personalize our community to make it more like us. We take control of things that are not ours to control. Could it be that our desire for control is short-circuiting the process of change and transformation God wants us to experience through the mess of real world, flesh and blood, face-to-face relationships? ↗

— Tim Challies

#discipleship #idolatry #change

It is not the number of prayers that will give you happiness, but the number you answer for another person. ↗

— Shannon L. Alder

#charity #community #compassion #faith #kindness

The brother is a burden to the Christian, precisely because he is a Christian. For the pagan the other person never becomes a burden at all. He simply sidesteps every burden that others may impose upon him. ↗

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

#spiritual-friendship #the-church #faith

#4. Spend more time considering areas of agreement than disagreement. The doctrines you share with other true believers are the foundational doctrines; the ones you do not share are necessarily less central to the faith. Acknowledging that you and those with whom you disagree will spend eternity together should encourage you to not allow peripheral doctrines to separate you here on earth. ↗

— Thomas Brooks

#divisiveness #unity #faith

Realize that if a door closed, it’s because what was behind it wasn’t meant for you. ↗

— Mandy Hale

#destiny #everything-happens-for-a-reason #faith #meant-to-be #new-beginnings

If God closes a door AND a window, consider the fact that it might be time to build a whole new house. ↗

— Mandy Hale

#closed-doors #destiny #faith #faith-in-god #holding-out-for-the-best

[I]n Africa I was a member of a family—of a sort of family that the people of your culture haven't known for thousands of years. If gorillas were capable of such an expression, they would tell you that their family is like a hand, of which they are the fingers. They are fully aware of being a family but are very little aware of being individuals. Here in the zoo there were other gorillas—but there was no family. Five severed fingers do not make a hand. ↗

— Daniel Quinn

#community #family #philosophy #family

This is my country, that is your country, these are the conceptions of narrow souls, to the liberal minded the whole world is a family ↗

— Virchand Raghavji Gandhi

#country #family #inpirational-quotes #liberal #motivational-quotes