Josiah

“Whatever is absolutely valuable in itself and is also capable of being sought and obtained by God is his ultimate end in creating the world.”
― Jonathan Edwards, The End for Which God Created the World: Updated to Modern English

“Becoming like Jesus means taking on his character, his way of looking at the world, his way of loving and interacting with others. It means cultivating a relationship with God like Jesus’s own—one of intimacy, depth, and care. It means living a life that’s at war with evil’s grip on the world around us, and that certainly includes the sin in our lives, but to make sin management primary in the Christian life misses the point of the gospel. Our sins are paid for, past, present, and future, and in that freedom we can be transformed.”
― Daniel Montgomery, Faithmapping: A Gospel Atlas for Your Spiritual Journey

“Yes, people will tell us they believe in a “God of love.” But they are self-deceived, and their lives reveal it. They neither love Him with heart, soul, mind, and strength in return, nor do they worship Him with zeal and energy. The truth is that their mantra “My God is a God of love” is a smokescreen, a phantasm of their imagination. Underneath it all is a deep mistrust of God—otherwise, why not yield the whole of life in joyful abandon to whatever He says or asks?”
― Sinclair B. Ferguson, The Trinitarian Devotion of John Owen

“The glib way people talk about prayer often reinforces our cynicism. We end our conversations with “I’ll keep you in my prayers.” We have a vocabulary of “prayer speak,” including “I’ll lift you up in prayer” and “I’ll remember you in prayer.” Many who use these phrases, including us, never get around to praying. Why? Because we don’t think prayer makes much difference.”
― Paul E. Miller, A Praying Life: Connecting With God In A Distracting World