“Faith is like lighting the torch that passes from one person to the next. You can’t light the torch of another if yours isn’t burning.”

Focusing intently on Christ naturally results in a lifestyle of increasingly greater selflessness. And it has another benefit. Gazing on Christ gives us greater ability to look past life’s trials and remain calm in the midst of what others would call chaos.

Hope is like an anchor. Our hope in Christ stabilizes us in the storms of life, but unlike an anchor, it does not hold us back.

I’m here today to warn you: I want you to watch out for the adversary. Guard yourself from any spirit of entitlement. Restrain any and all subtle temptation to gain attention or to find ways to promote yourself.

God will never adjust His agenda to fit ours. He will not speed up His pace to catch up with ours; we need to slow our pace in order to recover our walk with Him. God will not scream and shout over the noisy clamor; He expects us to seek quietness, where His still small voice can be heard again.

When you accept the fact that sometimes seasons are dry and times are hard and that God is in control of both, you will discover a sense of divine refuge, because the hope then is in God and not in yourself.

All he asks is that we trust Him, that we stand before Him in integrity and faith. God is just waiting for us to trust Him.

I’m here today to warn you: I want you to watch out for the adversary. Guard yourself from any spirit of entitlement. Restrain any and all subtle temptation to gain attention or to find ways to promote yourself.

Jesus kept it simple. The lesson wasn’t complicated. ‘I speak; you believe My word; your son will be fine.’ We complicate what God has made simple by seeing the world through human eyes. We want to see in order to believe and presume that our limitations are His.

Envy is one of the great enemies of active spirituality. It keeps us from loving our neighbours, from functioning with others in community, and from affirming people’s unique worth. It also steals contentment from the heart. Is there anything or anyone you are envious of?

We can’t solve modern problems by going back in time. Retreating to the safety of the familiar is an understandable response, but God has called us to a life of faith. And faith requires us to face the unknown while trusting Him completely.

God is a specialist at making something useful and beautiful out of something broken and confused.

No pressure is greater than God’s power.

If you never get criticized, chances are you aren’t getting anything done.

We shouldn’t deny the pain of what happens in our lives. We should just refuse to focus only on the valleys.

One of the worst things you can give to your people is someone you’re not.

A teardrop on earth summons the King of heaven.

At present, Nations are burning. But, their leaders mistake the ash for snow.

For what I have publish’d, I can only hope to be pardon’d; but for what I have burned, I deserve to be prais’d.

He looks at me as if I’m the flame and he’s the sea; he’d turn his tide for a chance to burn with me.

Even in darkness, your light burns with the cosmic energy of a thousand falling stars.

I should never have played with fire and I did. And I got very burned.

Motivation is a fire from within. If someone else tries to light that fire under you, chances are it will burn very briefly.

I think perhaps I will always hold a candle for you – even until it burns my hand. And when the light has long since gone I will be there in the darkness holding what remains, quite simply because I cannot let go.

The lamp burns bright when wick and oil are clean.