Reality Check Quotes

Sometimes we don't need another chance to express how we feel or to ask someone to understand our situation. Sometimes we just need a firm kick in the pants. An unsmiling expectation that if we mean all these wonderful things we talk about and sing about, then lets see something to prove it. Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Divisions and separations are most objectionable in religion. They weaken the cause of true Christianity ...But before we blame people for them, we must be careful that we lay the blame where it is deserved. False doctrine and heresy are even worse than schism. If people separate themselves from teaching that is positively false and unscriptural, they ought to be praised rather than reproved. In such cases separation is a virtue and not a sin. J.C. RYLE

We all, therefore, have to face this ultimate and final question: Do we accept the Bible as the Word of God, as the sole Authority in all matters of faith and practice, or do we not? Is the whole of my thinking governed by Scripture, or do I come with my reason and pick and choose out of Scripture and sit in judgment upon it, putting myself and modern knowledge forward as the ultimate Standard and Authority? The issue is crystal-clear: Do I accept Scripture as the revelation from God, or do I trust to speculation, human knowledge, human learning, human understanding, and human reasons? Or, putting it still more simply, do I pin my faith to and subject all my thinking to what I read in the Bible? Or do I defer to modern knowledge, to modern learning, to what people think today, to what we know at this present time (which was not known in the past)? It is inevitable that we occupy one or the other of those two positions. D. Martin Lloyd-Jones

Pride leads to the "I can do it myself" approach. We think we're capable of anything. We don't need God, counselors, prayer partners, or friends. Truth be told, we've got too much pride to ask for help, so we struggle along and alone. David Jeremiah

"Our thoughts not only reveal what we are, they predict what we will become. We will soon be the sum total of our thoughts." A.W. Tozer

Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow; it empties today of its strength. Corrie ten Boom

In a Christian community, everything depends upon whether each individual is an indispensable link in a chain. Only when even the smallest link is securely interlocked is the chain unbreakable. A community which allows unemployed members to exist within it will perish because of them. It will be well, therefore, if every member receives a definite task to perform for the community, that he may know in hours of doubt that he, too, is not useless and unusable. Every Christian community must realize that not only do the weak need the strong, but also that the strong cannot exist without the weak. The elimination of the weak is the death of the fellowship. Dietrich Bonhoeffer

What good would outward appearance be, if the soul were in hopeless darkness? To strive to keep our bodies fit and healthy is good, but a fit and healthy soul is even better. Anonymous

We fail to see the place of suffering in the broader scheme of things. We fail to see that suffering is an inevitable dimension of life. Because we have lost perspective, we fail to see that unless one is willing to accept suffering properly, he or she is really refusing to continue in the quest for maturity. To refuse suffering is to refuse personal growth. Henri J. M. Nouwen

In the history of humanity there are no civilizations or cultures which fail to manifest, in one or a thousand ways, this need for an absolute that is called heaven, freedom, a miracle, a lost paradise to be regained, peace, the going beyond History....There is no religion in which everyday life is not considered a prison; there is no philosophy or idealogy that does not think that we live in alienation....Humanity has always had a nostalgia for the freedom that is only beauty, that is only real life, plenitude and light. Philip Yancey

If false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important. C.S. Lewis

When Jesus wore a crown of thorns, do you wish to wear a crown of gold?" Johann Arndt, True Christianity.