Joe Marlin

“The gifts of the Spirit are adornments to our Christian life, adornments of a loving God to His bride. They are important and precious, but peripheral. That is, they are not the main means of Christian living. Too many Christians today focus on a cosmetic view of Christianity in which they see themselves in self-improvement programs. Come to Jesus and get your marriage fixed. Come to Jesus and become prosperous. Come to Jesus and get this or that blessing or whatever thing they are looking for. We emphasize strongly to come to Jesus because He is worthy to be worshipped, whether or not He fixes our marriages or heals our bodies or gives us new cars. We may go through life with a marriage partner who for one reason or another is never going to come to Christ or relate in a proper way, but Jesus is still worthy of our loyalty. The commitment call to Christ is also to the community of Christ, the Church. This means we must learn to love the people we wouldn’t necessary even like.”
― John Wimber, Everyone Gets to Play

“Leaving the self out of Christian spirituality results in a spirituality that is not well grounded in experience. It is, therefore, not well grounded in reality. Focusing on God while failing to know ourselves deeply may produce an external form of piety, but it will always leave a gap between appearance and reality. This is dangerous to the soul of anyone—and in spiritual leaders it can also be disastrous for those they lead.”
― David G. Benner, The Gift of Being Yourself: The Sacred Call to Self-Discovery

“Don't loaf and invite inspiration; light out after it with a club.”
― Jack London

“Love is the greatest and most excellent thing we are masters of and therefore it is folly and baseness to bestow it unworthily. It is indeed the only thing we can call our own: other things may be taken from us by violence, but none can ravish our love.”
― Anonymous