Points to Ponder
“Grant, O Lord, that in your wounds I may find my safety, in your stripes my cure, in your pain my peace, in your cross my victory, in your resurrection my triumph, and a crown of righteousness in the glories of your eternal kingdom.” [Jeremy Taylor in The Westminster Collection of Christian Prayers quoted in Richard A. Kauffman, “Reflections,” Christianity Today, (March 2008), p. 72]
"Excuses are easily made. There is no action so trivial, no crime so great, but the selfish heart can frame an excuse for it. But are these excuses valid? Will our self-vindication absolve us at the judgment-seat of Christ? 'He knoweth our hearts.' They are not even satisfactory to ourselves,—much less to God. Sinner, if you have a valid excuse for impenitence, write it out; nay, cast it in brass, hang it up in your house; delight in it, for it is your savior; and teach it to others, that they may share your joy. When you come to die, take it with you down into the grave; when the trump of God calls the dead to judgment convey it to the throne, and show it to the Judge. If it will justify you in life, it will excuse you in eternity." [D. L. Moody, One Thousand and One Thoughts from My Library, (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, n.d.), p. 205]
"Women deprived of the company of men pine, men deprived of the company of women become stupid." [Anton Chekhov in Every Day Quotations edited by Jack Maguire, (Garden City, NY: Doubleday Direct, Inc., 1998), p. 172]
"A single church convention would suffice to make Orwell feel he had died and gone to hell. The communication in much of church life amounts to a vocabulary of code, a jargon for initiates, where no one says exactly what he means. Of course, the ancient church also spoke in code, as in the book of Revelation, in order to elude detection by the authorities. We seem to have continued the habit in order to elude detection by one another." [Garret Keizer, The Enigma of Anger: Essays on a Sometimes Deadly Sin, (San Francisco: Josey-Bass, 2002), p. 216]
