Points to Ponder
"I think everybody should get rich and famous and do everything they ever dreamed of so they can see that it's not the answer." [Jim Carrey in Reader's Digest, (March 2006), p. 81]
"The ground beneath your bed might have shaken and the fire-works exploded all around you, but in the morning the ground is still and the sky is gray. You will do your best not to notice this; you will try to dull the hunger pangs with new romantic thoughts and sexual fantasies, and for awhile this will help, but not forever. The pangs will get sharper until you have to admit you want something ...far more satisfying. You might convince yourself that you simply need another person, thus purchasing little more time in fantasyland. But sooner or later you will realize that you have in the center of your heart a black hole of fierce longing that sucks everything into it and is never satisfied. That's because you're...a creature...who will not be happy with fleeting experiences of physical oneness, a creature who wants to--needs to--transcend your fragmentary life, a creature made in the image of God who will not be satisfied until you discover a more complete and lasting wholeness. St. Augustine said that eros is the power that drives us to God. Only in God do we finally find a relationship that will heal our present brokenness. What we really want is not to satisfy lust but to become holy--whole--and that finally is found only in the Creator and Sustainer of the universe..." [Donald McCullough, The Consolations of Imperfection, Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2004), p. 97]
"We are justified by faith. Directly we are joined to Christ, we stand before the law of God in his righteousness, and accepted not only as forgiven sinners, but as righteous. We know that God will never enter into judgment with us, since we were judged in our Substitute. There will be a judgment of our works, but there can be no condemnation of our persons. It is God that justifies. Who shall condemn?" [F. B. Meyer, Great Verses Through the Bible, (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1966), p. 247]
