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As long as young people are asking, ‘Can I get away with this?’ or ‘Can I get away with that?’ I wonder if they’re regenerate. If they’re asking, instead, ‘How can I grow in holiness?’ then I suspect they’ve begun to understand.

D. A. Carson

True freedom is not the liberty to do anything we please, but the liberty to do what we ought; and it is genuine liberty because doing what we ought now pleases us
D. A. CARSON

Genuine Liberty Please
For the far higher task of teaching fortitude and patience I was never fool enough to suppose myself qualified, nor have I anything to offer my readers except my conviction that when pain is to be borne.
D. A. CARSON

Love Pain Teaching
Many of us in our praying are like nasty little boys who ring front door bells and run away before anyone answers.
D. A. CARSON

Boys Doors Running
It was not nails that held Jesus to that wretched cross; it was his unqualified resolution, out of love for his Father, to do his Father’s will-and it was his love for sinners like me.
D. A. CARSON

Father Jesus Unqualified
The person who prays more in public than in private reveals that he is less interested in God’s approval than in human praise. Not piety but a reputation for piety is his concern.
D. A. CARSON

Approval Prayer Reputation
Christians come together because they have all been loved by Jesus himself. They are a band of natural enemies who love one another for Jesus’ sake.
D. A. CARSON

Another Christian Come Sake
If the text is God’s Word, it is appropriate that we respond with reverence, a certain fear, a holy joy, a questing obedience.
D. A. CARSON

Holy Joy Obedience
He is sold for thirty pieces of silver but gives His life a ransom for many; He will not turn stones to bread for Himself but gives His own body as bread for people.
D. A. CARSON

Bread People Sold Stones
That God normally operates the universe consistently makes science possible; that he does not always do so ought to keep science humble.
D. A. CARSON

Doe Humble Ought
What the Bible says is what God has disclosed and we want to approach this sacred text with cognitive reverence.
D. A. CARSON

Reverence Sacred Want
Good praying is more easily caught than taught.
D. A. CARSON

Caught Praying Taught
There is no long-range effective teaching of the Bible that is not accompanied by long hours of ongoing study of the Bible.
D. A. CARSON

Long Teaching
Failure to believe stems from moral failure to recognize the truth, not from want of evidence, but from willful neglect or distortion of the evidence.
D. A. CARSON

Believe Evidence Moral Want
A prayerless person is a disaster waiting to happen.
D. A. CARSON

Disaster Persons Waiting
A text without a context is a pretext for a proof text.
D. A. CARSON

Context Pretext Proof
Our prayers may be an index of how small and self-centered our world is.
D. A. CARSON

Our Prayer Self World

As long as young people are asking, ‘Can I get away with this?’ or ‘Can I get away with that?’ I wonder if they’re regenerate. If they’re asking, instead, ‘How can I grow in holiness?’ then I suspect they’ve begun to understand.

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As long as young people are asking, ‘Can I get away with this?’ or ‘Can I get away with that?’ I wonder if they’re regenerate. If they’re asking, instead, ‘How can I grow in holiness?’ then I suspect they’ve begun to understand.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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