Tori Samar

“Not long ago I had a conversation with a Jewish rabbi who said to me, “You know, one of the greatest differences between our two religions is this idea that you’ve committed a sin just by desiring or thinking it. We believe you have to actually commit the physical act before it’s really sin. Otherwise,” he concluded with an incredulous chuckle, “we’d be sinning all the time!” “We are,” I replied. “That’s the whole point.”
― Michael S. Horton, The Law of Perfect Freedom: Relating to God and Others through the Ten Commandments

“They say
you get what you pay for.
Sometimes. But
what about bread of life?
What about a cup
of living water?
Could it be?
We paid nothing.
This is the sacrament of love!”
― Ben Palpant, Sojourner Songs: Poems

“Waiting exposes our idols and throws a wrench into our coping mechanisms. It brings us to the end of what we can control and forces us to cry out to God. God doesn't waste our waiting. He uses it to conform us to the image of his Son.”
― Betsy Childs Howard, Seasons of Waiting: Walking by Faith When Dreams Are Delayed

“But, should the period ever arrive, when luxury and intemperance shall corrupt our towns, while ignorance and vice pervade the country; when the press shall become the common sewer of falsehood and slander; when talents and integrity shall be no recommendation, and open dereliction of all principle no obstacle to preferment; when we shall entrust our liberties to men with whom we should not dare to trust our property; when the chief seats of honor and responsibility in our government shall be filled by characters of whom the most malicious ingenuity can invent nothing worse than the truth; when we shall see the members of our national councils, in defiance of the laws of God and their country, throwing away their lives in defence of reputations, which, if they ever existed, had long been lost; when the slanderers of Washington and the blasphemers of our God shall be thought useful laborers in our political vineyard; when, in fine, we shall see our legislators sacrificing their senses, their reason, their oaths, and their consciences at the altar of party;—then we may say, that virtue has departed, and that the end of our liberty draweth nigh." p37”
― Edward Payson, Memoir, Select Thoughts and Sermons of the Late Rev. Edward Payson, D. D. Pastor of the Second Church in Portland, Vol. 3 of 3