Dr. Charles Stanley, the long-time Senior Pastor of First Baptist Church in Atlanta, author of many books, broadcaster, and founder of InTouch Ministries passed away peacefully at his home this morning (April 18) at age 90. Tributes have been pouring in from Christian leaders around the world, and while there were a lot of very formal pictures to choose from, I liked this one, and I think he would, too.
I realized we had never included him in our quotations series, so this seems an appropriate time. Items 2 through 7 have appeared here in longer articles, the others are from various quotation sites. As always with our quote series, take time to consider each before moving on to the next.
Think about the comfortable feeling you have as you open your front door. That’s but a hint of what we’ll feel some day on arriving at the place our Father has lovingly and personally prepared for us in heaven. We will finally – and permanently – be ‘at home’ in a way that defies description.
Conviction begins even before salvation. The Holy Spirit reveals our wrongs to help us recognize that we need forgiveness. When we accept Jesus’ sacrifice on our behalf and choose to follow Him, we are born again. Only then are we free from the penalty of sin. At the same time, we are still human and will make some poor choices. So, even after we are His children, God continues to redirect us.
No matter where we are in our Christian walk, most of us will admit that our prayer life isn’t what we’d like it to be. Our attempts to make room for prayer in our busy schedules are often short-lived. And when we do manage to spend time with the Lord, we find ourselves easily distracted by random thoughts, our own desires, and the demands of the day. Instead of giving up in frustration and settling for a sporadic devotional experience, we need to realize that prayer was essential to Christ and should be to us also. The road to a deepening prayer life begins with a commitment to make it a top priority in our day.
When James spoke of joy, he wasn’t referring to a cheery, frivolous feeling. Rather, he was talking about an inner sense of calmness, peace, and confidence in the Lord. He wasn’t telling us to feel happy about our trials but to know, as we go through them, that God is up to something good in our life. Our attitude during the struggle will determine what shape we’re in when we come out on the other side.
From the very beginning, God has shown Himself to be a loving parent, but it is only through Christ that we’ve inherited the privilege to call the Him “our Father” (Gal. 4:4-7*). The New Testament gives witness to Christ’s revelation of the wonderful relationship we can have with our heavenly Father: The name appears 245 times—over 100 times in John’s gospel alone. Paul opens each of his letters acknowledging God as our Father. The fact that man could know God as the perfect parent was a radical new idea in Jesus’ time, and it continues to be a life-impacting truth today
Our intimacy with God is His highest priority for our lives because it determines the impact of our lives. The more profound our fellowship with the Father, the more powerful our lives will be—regardless of whether we’re educated, attractive, wealthy, or of prominent social standing. We don’t have to be perfect, not by any means. No, it is our relationship with God that makes all the difference in our lives— our love for Him, our willingness to serve Him, and our dependence upon His Holy Spirit.
Very seldom does the Lord God reveal a future event to us. The motivational gift of prophecy is primarily concerned with speaking forth the truth. The Word of God helps us to understand characteristics and avoid misunderstandings associated with the gift of prophecy, and it shows us how we use that gift when we walk in the Spirit.
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus uses three verbs to describe prayer: ask, seek, and knock. Notice the progression in intensity from a request to a search and then to further action. Prayer is more than giving God requests. It involves seeking His will to guide our entreaties. It means “knocking on doors” by exploring different solutions and obtaining godly counsel to help determine the Lord’s mind. Jesus pledged that we will receive, we will find, and God will open the door for us. We have His assurance that God will respond and what He does is good.
The main thing to avoid being a casualty is simply this: to have a kind of intimate personal relationship with Jesus Christ whereby you’re able to hear God speak to your heart, you’re sensitive to what He’s saying to you to do, and that you’re willing to be obedient to Him.”
An unschooled man who knows how to meditate upon the Lord has learned far more than the man with the highest education who does not know how…
Too many Christians have a commitment of convenience. They’ll stay faithful as long as it’s safe and doesn’t involve risk, rejection, or criticism. Instead of standing alone in the face of challenge or temptation, they check to see which way their friends are going.
I think a lot of people, even Christians, are willing to be satisfied with gaining lots and lots of biblical knowledge – and many people go to Bible studies and don’t realize it isn’t enough to know what’s right, it’s applying the information and the knowledge that you have.
Fear stifles our thinking and actions. It creates indecisiveness that results in stagnation. I have known talented people who procrastinate indefinitely rather than risk failure. Lost opportunities cause erosion of confidence, and the downward spiral begins.
In our friendships we have to be wise that we choose godly people to be our friends. Somebody might say, well does that mean that you should never have a lost person as your friend? No, I wouldn’t say that. But you can’t have the same intimacy with a lost person that you can with a godly person in whom the Holy Spirit is living.
There is no need to go through life handicapped by past experiences. What others say about you doesn’t matter. How they treated you is inconsequential. The only accurate, eternal, unassailable measure of your worth comes from almighty God, who will one day judge the living and the dead without exception (1 Pet. 4:4–5)
None of us has become perfect (Phil. 3:12). None of us does everything right. None of us is so wise that we always speak the right word or so strong that we always do the right thing. Remembering this keeps us humble.
God’s plan for enlarging His kingdom is so simple- one person telling another about the Savior. Yet we’re busy and full of excuses. Just remember, someone’s eternal destiny is at stake. The joy you have when you meet that person in heaven will far exceed any discomfort you felt in sharing the gospel
If we walk in the Spirit daily, surrendered to His power, we have the right to expect anything we need to hear from God. The Holy Spirit living within us and speaking to us ought to be the natural, normal lifestyle of believers.
See the introduction for the InTouch USA page. Here are some other links:
How’s Your Heart?
“You need to be confronted
We do not need for all of our lived life to be gathered and rendered meaningful in order to be truly and fully redeemed…. no need to take all of our experiences, distinct in time, and bind them together in a single volume so that each experience draws meaning from the whole as well as contributes meaning to the whole. It suffices to leave some experiences untouched…, treat others with the care of a healing hand and then abandon them to the darkness of non-remembrance…, and reframe the rest.
Pastor, author, academic lecturer, the Message translator, pastor to pastors; all those words summarize 
Well clearly he’s not calling us to actually hate our families. Just a few chapters before this text, when he was asked what the most important law was, he’s quoted as saying, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’ and ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.'” (Lk. 10:27)
Pete Wilson is the author of Plan B (Thomas Nelson) and pastor of Cross Point Church in Nashville, TN. He blogs regularly at 
Brennan Manning (christened Richard Francis Xavier Manning) is an author, monk, priest, contemplative and speaker. Born and raised in Depression-era Brooklyn, New York, Manning finished high school and enlisted in the US Marine Corps, where he fought in the Korean War. When Manning returned to the states, he enrolled at Saint Francis University in Loretto, Pennsylvania. Upon his graduation from the seminary in 1963, Manning was ordained to the Franciscan priesthood.
Neuroimaging has shown that as we age, the center of cognitive gravity tends to shift from the imaginative right brain to the logical left brain. And this neurological tendency presents a grave spiritual danger. At some point, most of us stop living out of imagination and start living out of memory. Instead of creating the future we start repeating the past. Instead of living by faith, we live by logic. Instead of going after our dreams, we stop circling Jericho.
If in preaching the gospel you substitute your knowledge of the way of salvation for confidence in the power of the gospel, you hinder people from getting to reality.
Christianity 201 