“until the theologians and the ordained clergy begin to communicate with ordinary people in the vernacular, in a way that they can understand, I’m going to have to do this sort of thing.”

“I do not pray for success, I ask for faithfulness.”

“Everyone in the world worth being nice to. Because God never creates inferior human beings, each person deserves respect and dignity.”

“The effective Christians of history have been men and women of great personal discipline. The connection between the words disciple and discipline is obvious. To be a true, effective disciple of Christ we must seek to discipline our lives and endeavor to walk even as He walked. The thing that has hindered the progress of the church is not so much our talk and our creeds; but it has been our walk, our conduct, our daily living. We need a revival of Christian example, and that can only come when professed followers of Christ begin to practice Christian discipline.”

“Don’t fight with narrow minded people; be determined to compel them to change their mindsets about who you stand to be, not by arguments, but by focusing on what you do every day. If they change it, fine; if they don’t, fine. The good news is that you are pursuing excellence!”

“God created things which had free will. That means creatures which can go wrong or right. Some people think they can imagine a creature which was free but had no possibility of going wrong, but I can't. If a thing is free to be good it's also free to be bad. And free will is what has made evil possible. Why, then, did God give them free will? Because free will, though it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having. A world of automata -of creatures that worked like machines- would hardly be worth creating. The happiness which God designs for His higher creatures is the happiness of being freely, voluntarily united to Him and to each other in an ecstasy of love and delight compared with which the most rapturous love between a man and a woman on this earth is mere milk and water. And for that they've got to be free. Of course God knew what would happen if they used their freedom the wrong way: apparently, He thought it worth the risk. (...) If God thinks this state of war in the universe a price worth paying for free will -that is, for making a real world in which creatures can do real good or harm and something of real importance can happen, instead of a toy world which only moves when He pulls the strings- then we may take it it is worth paying.”

“Anger flees when the Spirit’s fruit fills our hearts.”

“You feed your fears to grow muscles against you when you run away from what frightens you. Little do you know that it’s frightened when you face it boldly!”

“Diligence is the mother of good luck.”

“People must have affirmation and praise in order to maintain a high level of performance. Withholding negative or critical comments is not nearly as important as giving positive input through compliments and praise.”

“The vocation of every man and woman is to serve people. ”

“The great crowds themselves are meaningless. The thing that counts is what happens in the hearts of the people. The evangelist sows the seed, and much inevitably falls upon stony ground and bears no fruit. But if only a few seeds flourish, the results are manifold.”

“One needs to be slow to form convictions, but once formed they must be defended against the heaviest odds.”

“I'm a little pencil in the hand of a writing God, who is sending a love letter to the world.”

When your life is on course with its purpose, you are your most powerful”