Joel

“A veil removed, bringing freedom, transformation, glory. Do you see it? I am not making this up—though I have been accused of making the gospel better than it is. The charge is laughable. Could anyone be more generous than God? Could any of us come up with a story that beats the one God has come up with? All the stories that we tell borrow their power from the Great Story he is telling.”
― John Eldredge, Waking the Dead: The Glory of a Heart Fully Alive

“The story of your life is the story of the long and brutal assault on your heart by the one who knows what you could be and fears it.”
― John Eldredge, Waking the Dead: The Glory of a Heart Fully Alive

“And so leading up to his words “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens,” is Jesus’ statement, “I thank you, Father, . . . because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants” (Matthew 11:25, 28 NRSV). He is actually talking to people who are carrying a terrible religious burden. That is what religion does to you. It wears you out. If there is anything that we need to do, it is to learn how to lay down the burdens of religion in a loving, intelligent way.”
― Dallas Willard, Living in Christ's Presence: Final Words on Heaven and the Kingdom of God

“Far deeper objections may be felt—and have been expressed—against my use of the word Christian to mean one who accepts the common doctrines of Christianity. People ask: ‘Who are you, to lay down who is, and who is not a Christian?’ or ‘May not many a man who cannot believe these doctrines be far more truly a Christian, far closer to the spirit of Christ, than some who do?’ Now this objection is in one sense very right, very charitable, very spiritual, very sensitive. It has every available quality except that of being useful. We simply cannot, without disaster, use language as these objectors want us to use it. I will try to make this clear by the history of another, and very much less important, word.”
― C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity