"It is hard for me to realize
That some growth is slow,
That all processes are not Swift. I cannot always discriminate
Between what takes time to develop and what can be rushed,
Because my sense of time is dulled.
I measure things in terms of happenings"
~ Howard Thurman. Deep is The Hunger
"Of course more than half the battle with condemnation is won once we have given up anger and contempt. Condemnation always involves some degree of self-righteousness and of distancing ourselves from the one we are condemning."
~ Dallas Willard. The Divine Conspiracy
"Now a moment's reflection is all that is required to make one realize how terribly powerful condemnation is. It knifes into vulnerable areas at the core of our being. That is why it hurts so badly and at the same time why we rely upon it so heavily. The decision to step aside from it, neither giving it nor receiving it, is a major turning point in one's life."
~ Dallas Willard. The Divine Conspiracy
".... been far more impressed by the bad manners of parents to children than by those of children to parent."
~ C.S. Lewis
"He deeply desired for them to come back in a relational sense as sons, daughters, friends, and family members, but He knew that the hardness of heart and the hardness of life would make it impossible for them to see Him clearly or find a clear path back to Him. Sending prophets—or in our vernacular, preaching harder—wouldn’t get it done anymore. People had lost their ear for truth and couldn’t stomach any more baseless religion. Proclamation had run its course. Incarnation was now His only play."
(Hugh Halter. Flesh)
"Our driver, a local Haitian, tried to explain his own tension in watching his fellow citizens become savages: “I have known many of these thieves since I was a young man. Many were my closest friends. I see them now in alleyways, waiting to mug, hurt, and steal, but I still love them. I know them, and I know why they are broken.”
~ Hugh Halter. Flesh
"THERE IS A NOTION ABROAD that Christianity is on its last legs, or possibly already dead and just too weak to lie down.
This is confidently believed in Communist countries, and while spokesmen for the West are too polite to say so, one can hardly escape the feeling that they too believe the demise of the church to be a certain if embarrassing fact, the chief proof of her death being her failure to provide leadership for the world just when it needs it most.
Let me employ a pair of mixed and battered but still useful clichés and say that those who have come to bury the faith of our fathers have reckoned without the host. Just as Jesus Christ was once buried away with the full expectation that He had been gotten rid of, so His church has been laid to rest times without number; and as He disconcerted His enemies by rising from the dead so the church has confounded hers by springing again to vigorous life after all the obsequies had been performed over her coffin and the crocodile tears had been shed at her grave."
A. W. Tozer
"The weakness of so many modern Christians is that they feel too much at home in the world. In their effort to achieve restful "adjustment" to unregenerate society they have lost their pilgrim character and become an essential part of the very moral order against which they are sent to protest. The world recognizes them and accepts them for what they are. And this is the saddest thing that can be said about them. They are not lonely, but neither are they saints."
A W. Tozer
"The truly spiritual man is indeed something of an oddity. He lives not for himself but to promote the interests of Another. He seeks to persuade people to give all to his Lord and asks no portion or share for himself. He delights not to be honored but to see his Saviour glorified in the eyes of men. His joy is to see his Lord promoted and himself neglected. He finds few who care to talk about that which is the supreme object of his interest, so he is often silent and preoccupied in the midst of noisy religious shoptalk."
A.W. Tozer
"The pain of loneliness arises from the constitution of our nature. God made us for each other. The desire for human companionship is completely natural and right. The loneliness of the Christian results from his walk with God in an ungodly world, a walk that must often take him away from the fellowship of good Christians as well as from that of the unregenerate world. His Godgiven instincts cry out for companionship with others of his kind, others who can understand his longings, his aspirations, his absorption in the love of Christ; and because within his circle of friends there are so few who share his inner experiences he is forced to walk alone."
A.W. Tozer
"There are times when to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit in our life we must walk alone, which goes contrary to our natural inclination. Sometimes we must walk away from the crowd, even the Christian crowd."
A.W. Tozer
"In sixteenth—century Holland, the Mennonites were outlawed and, when caught, often executed. One of them, Dirk Willens, was being chased across an icefield when his pursuer broke through and fell in. In response to his cries for help, Willens returned and saved him from the waters. The pursuer was grateful and astonished that he would do such a thing but nevertheless arrested him, as he thought it his duty to do. A few days later Willens was executed by being burned at the stake in the town of Asperen. It was precisely his Christlikeness that brought on his execution."
(Dallas Willard. The Divine Conspiracy)
"... if we do not treasure earthly goods we must be prepared to be treated as more or less crazy. This is also true if we escaoe the delusions if responsibility and so are not governable by the opinions of those around us, even though we respect them in love."
(Dallas Willard. The Divine Conspiracy)
"There us very little time and occasion for openness in most of our gatherings because we fear it. We think it may lead to confrontation, anger, and divisiveness. We are not open because we fear what others will think of us and do to us."
(Dallas Willard. The Divine Conspiracy)
".... the beliefs we actually hold concerning reality..... Lack of confidence in the Kingdom will force us to take the "pretty words" reading of the words of scripture. Many people simply put all of the scriptures and even religion as a whole in that category. Thus George Santayana once described religion as only "a lyric cry in the business of Life," a brief indulging in pleasant feelings.
The story is told of a man who lost his composure and cursed in the presence of his pastor. After an embarrassed silence, he looks sheepishly at the pastor and said, "Oh, it's all right, Pastor. I cuss a little and you pray a little, but neither one of us means anything by it."
The challenge to our faith in the kingdom is to mean something by our talk of it"
(Dallas Willard. The Divine Conspiracy)
"Fund-raisers know that it is much easier nowadays to get someone to build a building for some social institution, such as a hospital or college, than it is to get them to endow the maintenance on a building You can name the building after the contributors or their family, or at least put up a plaque with their name upon it. But you can't do that for the maintenance of the building; no one seems to want their name on a mop or a broom."
(Dallas Willard. The Divine Conspiracy)
"The economy of the Kingdom of God is quite simple. Every new step into the Kingdom costs us everything we have gained to date. Every time we cross a new threshold, it costs us everything we now have. Every new step may cost us all the reputation and security we have accumulated up to that point. It costs us our life. A disciple is a follower, an acolyte, a student, an apprentice. A disciple of Jesus is always ready to take the next step with Him. If there is anything that characterizes Christian maturity, it is the willingness to become a beginner again for Jesus Christ. It is the willingness to put our hand in His hand and say, “I’m scared to death, but I’ll go with you. You’re the Pearl of great price.”
~ John Wimber
“We live, in fact, In a world starved for solitude, silence, and privacy: and therefore starved for meditation and true friendship.”
- C.S. Lewis
"Our skin is us to others. It’s what they see, and since our skin is able to bend and move, tighten and loosen, it is able to communicate hundreds of unique emotions, feelings, and thoughts. You can’t hide your skin. Most of our nerve endings are in our skin, so what happens to our flesh is usually obvious to someone watching us. We feel the world through our skin, and our flesh is the front door to our emotions.
(Hugh Halter. Flesh)
“I'm extremely concerned that we've become experts at the activities of church - to the point that we can do them without God. No matter what our favorite emphasis might be: worship, the gifts, making disciples, the lost, the poor, social justice, liturgy, unity, theology.... There's one thing that’s vastly more important than all of those activities combined – it’s Him. Intimate relationship with Him; with the Father who is rich in mercy and loves us with a great and lavish love.”
~ Tom Zawacki
"Every day people go to church trying to substitute or compensate for not responding to the situations of their lives as they require. People walk into church thinking they are living a spiritual life when what they need to do is leave and go home, and start sensibly addressing the broken parts of their lives that are hurting others."
(Jim Palmer. Notes From Over The Edge)
"Religion has always been an avenue that people have used to bargain for God’s blessing. If we do our part, we think that God will do his part and grant us our desires. The world can sometimes seem like a random and frightening place. People turn to God and religion in hope of finding some measure of security, protection, and favor. I get that.
However, the notion of pleasing or obeying God in order to gain favorable life circumstances as “God’s blessing” is false. God is not going to change the fact that the world is characterized by impermanence.....
The reason why people are so caught up with seeking favor from God is that they wrongly assume that peace and happiness has something to do with better life circumstances,......"
(Jim Palmer. Notes From Over The Edge )
I fear we live in a similar time. Our culture is in danger of forgetting that God exists.
But God’s intention was that the church would be the sign that would help people never to forget. This is why some people talk about the church being “the hope of the world.” Technically, the church isn’t the hope of the world – Christ is (Col.1:27). But the church is the sign, the last hope for a world suffering from spiritual amnesia, saying “God exists.”
Michael Frost. Australia
" Loving those who love us and lavishing care and honor on those of our own group is something that traitorous oppressors, the mafia, and terrorists do. How then, could that serve to distinguish the goodness of someone born into God's family or the presence of a different kind of reality of life?
(Dallas Willard. The Divine Conspiracy)
"Laziness was another “mistake” I made on the path. Most people want a magic bullet. They are not truly willing to do their own personal work, and would prefer someone just give them the answer. They are hoping for a formula that promises that if they do ‘A’ then ‘B’ will happen."
(Jim Palmer. Notes From Over The Edge)
"In my case, I left Christian fundamentalism behind but managed to create a different fundamentalism around whatever my new and improved understanding of God became. During one season I even became a Universalist fundamentalist – “God loves everyone . . . dammit! Maybe if you would get your head out of your religious ass, you would realize this!” In other words, each step of my journey became the new “it” or standard that I judged others by. Essentially I poured concrete over my latest epiphany, and it became the new religion. I wasn’t necessarily nasty or belligerent about it but there was a certain insistence, silent pride, and arrogance to it......
It’s no secret that any person who feels led astray and betrayed by their religion is likely to become its biggest critic. A person lives many years under the oppression of religion. In reaction to this, they over-correct and become an Atheist. There are lots of options between a hideous concept of God and concluding there is no God at all, but when you over-correct, you skid by all the stuff in the middle."
(Jim Palmer. Notes From Over The Edge)
"Spiritual living is not thinking about God while peeling a potato. Just peel the potato, and know that this is spiritual. God and life are inseparable."
(Jim Palmer. Notes From Over The Edge)
"You must now take full responsibility for your spiritual journey. Perhaps you feel you gave too many years of your life away in vain to religion. Don’t make the mistake of giving away more years in your bitterness. You have to move on. Stop railing against religion. It will keep you stalled on your spiritual journey, and feed your ego’s need to feel superior. Your ego is sneaky and would like nothing more than to distract you from your true Self by convincing you to forge an identity of being super spiritual or anti-religion. Instead, practice simple avoidance or quiet noncooperation with organized religion, but don’t waste time or energy being oppositional to it."
(Jim Palmer. Notes From Over The Edge)
"It is a common characteristic of an abusive church or religious group to have an authoritarian and control-oriented style of leadership. The leader is typically dogmatic, self-confident, arrogant, and is the spiritual focal point in the lives of his followers. The leader assumes he is more spiritually in tune with God than anyone else. To members of this type of church or group, questioning the leader is the equivalent of questioning God."
(Jim Palmer. Notes From Over The Edge)
"Breaking free from religion is one of the most difficult things a person will ever do. It involves standing on your own two feet, taking responsibility for your spiritual journey, and escaping the groupthink mentality, which is the assumption that something must be true just because a group of people believe it and no one wants to rock the boat by questioning it."
(Jim Palmer. Notes From Over The Edge)
"The premise that we have to get somewhere, achieve something, change something, improve something, add something, subtract something in order to have relationship with God isn’t true."
(Jim Palmer. Notes From Over The Edge)
“It's a great difficulty for leaders to preach grace when their churches have employed them to administer the law.”
~ Phil Drysdale
"..... when I look back reflectively I realize that I contributed to the problem by making the following mistakes:
Putting church over community.
Putting orthodoxy over love.
Putting certainty over wonder.
Putting teaching over conversation. Putting polished over real.
Putting answers over questions.
Putting membership over friendship. Putting Christianity over Christ.
Putting knowledge over action.
Putting style over substance.
Putting appearance over authenticity. Putting functionality over beauty.
Putting religion over spirituality.
Putting numbers over individuals.
Putting holiness over humanity.
Putting accountability over acceptance. Putting Heaven over earth.
Putting meetings over relationships. Putting reputation over risk.
Putting charisma over compassion. Putting the Afterlife over the Herelife. Putting thinking over feeling.
Jim Palmer. Notes From Over The Edge
