I know of no other way to triumph over sin long-term than to gain a distaste for it because of a superior satisfaction in God.

If our effort to know God more clearly is not an effort to love him more dearly, it will be fatal.

Long looking with admiration produces change. From your heroes you pick up mannerisms and phrases and tones of voice and facial expressions and habits and demeanors and convictions and beliefs. The more admirable the hero is and the more intense your admiration is, the more profound will be your transformation. In the case of Jesus, he is infinitely admirable, and our admiration rises to the most absolute worship. Therefore, when we behold him as we should, the change is profound.

O, Lord, how devious we can be! Our hearts are deceitful, and we look quickly for reasons to believe that our disobedience is not serious. Humble us before the truth that there is one Judge and one God whose fellowship and fatherly delight is more precious than all the pleasures of sin. Forbid that we would forfeit this fortune -- even for a season -- while justifying our sin by thinking that it is small and partial surrounded by other good deeds.

In other words, all the highest aims of language are decisively the work of God. They are decisively supernatural. And no amount of poetic effort or expertise in the use of words can bring about the great aims of life if God withholds his saving power.

Mental health is, in great measure, the gift of self-forgetfulness. The reason is that introspection destroys what matters most to us- the authentic experience of great things outside ourselves.

God and his word are the reality we need -- the Rock under our feet.

I know God's voice. I've seen God's hand. If the Lord is my helper, why should I be afraid?

Whenever the strength of God is not recognized as the source of our strength, we are breaking the First Commandment: Do not have any gods before me.