“Friends make life a lot more fun.”

Because God gave you your makeup and superintended every moment of your past, including all the hardship, pain, and struggles, He wants to use your words in a unique manner. No one else can speak through your vocal cords, and, equally important, no one else has your story.

God often does His best work in us when He catches us by surprise and introduces a change that is completely against our own desire.

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.

Innocence has a friend in heaven.

Friends show me what I can do, foes teach me what I should do.

We can never replace a friend. When a man is fortunate enough to have several, he finds they are all different. No one has a double in friendship.

As freely as the firmament embraces the world, or the sun pours forth impartially his beams, so mercy must encircle both friend and foe.

Gangster is the truest friend I can ever ask for.

I cannot love a friend whose love is words.

In giving advice seek to help, not to please, your friend.

I don’t like anybody to be angry with me. I’d rather have friends.