To build character of purpose and integrity is our high mark, and that cannot be done in a world where there are no adverse elements.

We are challenged these days, but not changed; convicted, but not converted. We hear, but do not; and thereby we deceive ourselves.

One of the greatest errors in the church today is the artificial distinction we have created between accepting Christ as Savior and confessing Him as Lord. We have made two experiences of it, but the New Testament makes them one.

God judges what we tolerate as well as what we practice. Too often we put up with things we ought to put out.

Too many Christians live their Christian lives inside their heads; it never gets out through hands and feet and lips.

I remember when the Titanic sank in 1912, it was the ship that was supposed to be unsinkable. The only thing it ever did was sink. When it took off from England, all kinds of passengers were aboard - millionaires, celebrities, people of moderate means, and poor folks down in the steerage. But a few hours later when they put the list in the Cunard office in New York, it carried only two categories - lost and saved. Grim tragedy had leveled all distinctions.

Satan does some of his worst work on exhausted Christians when nerves are frayed and the mind is faint.

If the devil cannot keep you from being saved, if next he fails to make you backslide, then he undertakes to keep you just an average Christian. Here he succeeds with most believers.

We need a dedicated minority who, like the apostles of old, are willing to be called the scum of the earth and a spectacle to the world for the scandal of the cross.