262 results for tag: Quote for today

Reflections Along the Jesus Way

November 26, 2023 - Quote for the Day: “Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ (John 1:17).  He didn’t come breathing fire.  He didn’t come filled with threats and condemnation.  He didn’t come so that we could receive lurid, detailed explanations of the eternal torture that surely awaits us if we don’t start obeying the law.  He didn’t come to reveal an angry and vindictive God.  Jesus came as a breath of fresh air.  He came, not to start another religion, but to begin a revolution that would eventually put religion out of business.”  Originally published in: Spiritual Soup for the Hungry Soul, Volume ...

Reflections Along the Jesus Way

November 23, 2023 - Quote for the Day: “When you begin reading a book, you don’t pick it up and start reading page 78, do you?  You know that there is no way you will be able to make sense of the plot, the story thread, the theme or the main characters if you just plunge into the story without understanding the background.  If you go to a movie, you try to arrive before it starts.  You don’t want to miss anything you will need to understand as the story unfolds. We all like to see movies from the very beginning, and we all know that it’s hopeless trying to read a 600-page book in about 15-20 minutes by starting to ...

Reflections Along the Jesus Way

November 21, 2023 - Quote for the Day: “Isn’t it ironic that legalism threatens humans with hell if they don’t measure up and perform, but in reality the hell it threatens is the hell it produces in the lives of its slaves?  Many live wretched lives in the hellish swamps of legalism, trapped by an obsession with good deeds they attempt to produce, threatened with continuing and intensified hell in the afterlife. Apart from Christ we cannot be freed.  I know, for I have been to religious hell and by God’s grace returned to tell you this story. I know many ‘good’ and sincere people, many of them dear friends, who are ...

Reflections Along the Jesus Way

November 19, 2023 - Quote for the Day: “Many North Americans seek religious meaning by continuing a cultural trend first exemplified in the freedom movement of the 1960s.  In many celebration (or praise and worship) churches the underlying assumption is that God enjoys receiving what we most enjoy giving, in terms of worship.  In such a religious culture the underlying premise seems to be that God embraces our agenda, rather than the other way around. Spiritual menus in many mega-church environments are based on predigested, feel-good, positive thinking, self-empowering messages based on self-esteem.  God’s will has become a cliché in ...

Reflections Along the Jesus Way

November 16, 2023 - Quote for the Day: “Some suggest that laws and behavior create morality.  I insist that true morality is a product of God – the fruit of Christ’s Spirit alive in us.  Morality does not induce God’s favor or motivate God to take action.  True morality is because of God.  God does not serve laws.  God’s laws came from God and are given by God.  God’s law boils down to love.  Such love is the product of God, rather than humanly-produced morality, as if we could prove that we are good enough for God to love us back.  Rather, we willingly love God and our neighbor as God’s ...

Reflections Along the Jesus Way

November 14, 2023 - Quote for the Day:  “The real issue that authentic Christians must face is the fact that much of Christendom has been infiltrated and even co-opted by legalism, and therefore has degenerated into just another religion.”  Originally published in: Bad News Religion ------------------------------------- Help Us Help Others - Give Now

Reflections Along the Jesus Way

November 12, 2023 - Quote for the Day:  If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants. Issac Newton, 1676 “Hearing or observing someone giving credit to those who helped him/her in the past (or even the present!) is an incredibly beautiful and gratifying experience. I am forever grateful for the sacrifices made on my behalf, starting with parents and grandparents, who gave so much.  Simply being able to know I stand on the shoulders of many, in so many ways, is one of the enormous blessings for which I give thanks.  As Christ-followers, the Cross of Christ represents the ultimate sense in which we ...

Reflections Along the Jesus Way

November 9, 2023 - Quote for the Day:   “Robert Louis Stevenson once remarked, ‘How little we pay our way in life!’  He was speaking of the fact that we are all debtors to others, to a great host of people who have gone before, clearing the way, pioneering, building and producing.  We are indeed indebted to so many others, even those we never knew, because we pay very little of our own way in life. What do you have that you did not receive? – 1 Corinthians 4:7 Thus, as we give thanks, we remember that the blood that flows in our veins is that of those who gave and sacrificed that we might have what they never did.  An old ...

Reflections Along the Jesus Way

November 7, 2023 - Quote for the Day “Some churches include public testimonies in their services – really juicy personal stories told by someone who used to be really bad, but now that person has repented.  It’s called their testimony – and when it comes time for salacious testimonies some sit there in the church and think ‘God, I thank you I’ve never been that bad.’ I don’t mean to say that some church-goers are not genuinely delighted when God dramatically and miraculously, by his grace, transforms someone’s life.  Of course, I believe the reaction of real Christians, in whom Christ lives, is closer to ...

Reflections Along the Jesus Way

November 5, 2023 - Quote for the Day: “God loves us and invites us to accept and believe in Jesus, that we might be delivered from religious snobbery and pride, hatred, bigotry, murder, war, lust, greed and self-centeredness of every size, shape and description.  God loves everyone and invited all of us to be delivered from racism, including racists who don’t hesitate to condemn and denounce all who don’t agree with them as racists… Sadly, the human condition seems to include belittling and demeaning others, simply because they are different.  It seems natural and increasingly common today for people to despise those who are not ...

Reflections Along the Jesus Way

November 2, 2023 - Quote for the Day: “We cannot mow God’s lawn and then expect him to pay us.  We cannot rake the leaves in his backyard, we can’t dust or clean heaven, or make him a wonderful dinner.  When we read and understand God’s revelation, the gospel of Jesus Christ, we know that our relationship with God is not based on human interactions.  But we think, given the way our world works, that if we do things for him then he will be happier with us than he otherwise would have been.”  Originally published in: Between Religious Rocks and Life’s Hard Places ------------------------------------- Help Us ...

Reflections Along the Jesus Way

October 31, 2023 - Quote for the Day: “I am a critic of religious legalism, but more importantly I am a deeply devoted Christian.  I am also a recovering legalist, and I know the deadly power of religious legalism.  I know that Christ set me free from its bondage.  I know that I was blind but now I see (John 9:25).  I must report what I see and who healed and rescued me, whether modern religious Pharisees like the implications of my story or not. Grace helped me see that it is a travesty and a perversion of the gospel of Jesus Christ to be calling oneself a Christian while insisting that the work of salvation is ...

Reflections Along the Jesus Way

October 29, 2023 - Quote for the Day: “… salvation is not BY works, but FOR works.  God saves and rescues and re-births us, Christ in us, the hope of glory, works in our lives, producing in and through us the fruit of the Holy Spirit.  Only God can create a tree. And the only reason a tree brings forth fruit is that God created the tree and vibrant systems within the tree that enable fruit-bearing.  No stick of wood can plant itself in the ground, and by rigorous effort, expect fruit to be borne on its branches.  Jesus said, ‘I am the vine, you are the branches… without me, you can do nothing (John 15:5).” Originally ...

Reflections Along the Jesus Way

October 26, 2023 - Quote for the Day “In our world, whether it’s the workplace or the church, the relationship others are willing to have with you is normally based on a bottom line.  The relationship you have with a bank is based on the money you have on deposit.  If your checkbook doesn’t balance, you are an undesirable.  You must maintain a minimum balance.  In the spiritual realm, many are led to believe that if they don’t show up at church often enough the religious bankers will start adding service charges to their account – or just show them the door that supposedly leads directly to eternal torture in hell.  The kingdom ...

Reflections Along the Jesus Way

October 24, 2023 - Quote for the Day: “The word ‘religion’ itself, even while it has positive meanings attributed to it, is, at its core, a toxic faith. The etymology of the word goes back to the Latin religare – to bind – and religio – obligation (to the gods).   The use of the word ‘religion’ today generally points toward the practices and beliefs individuals accept as being a true definition of what God (or the gods) expects of them… Toxic faith is religious in the sense that religion binds and imprisons it followers in belief systems that control them.  Healthy faith is Christ-centered in the sense that ...

Reflections Along the Jesus Way

October 22, 2023 - Quote for the Day: “Quid pro quo means ‘something for something – something received or given in return for something else.’ We humans learn quickly that we must work for what we get in our world. We earn wages for services we render. Quid pro quo. We earn approval and acceptance by deeds we perform. Quid pro quo. People like and love us if we help them, serve them, and make them feel or look good. Quid pro quo. Grace is the opposite of quid pro quo. God is grace.  He gives and loves, without guarantee or prior evidence of any return on his investment.  Not only does God not reward us for what we deserve, ...

Reflections Along the Jesus Way

October 19, 2023 - Quote for the Day: “During a discussion with a new acquaintance in which I challenged some of her views, it became obvious to me that she considered the fact that I am an old white male as de facto proof that I am a hateful and bigoted racist. When I pointed out that her judgment of me was itself racist (I’m white), sexist (I’m male) and based on age discrimination (65 is fading fast in my rear-view mirror), she was not amused… I did not bother to tell her I am one of those hateful, bigoted racists who believe in the absolute historical proof of the Holocaust and that I support the right of the nation of ...

Reflections Along the Jesus Way

October 17, 2023 - Quote for the Day: “Today millions continue to be enslaved by ‘just-around-the-corner’ interpretations of the book of Revelation.  Some live in fear within cultic groups where apocalyptic anxieties allow leaders to combine irresponsible prophecy teaching with authoritarian control, while others experience the rigors of prophetic addiction (prophetic teaching that turns into a religious addiction) within churches that generally teach sound doctrine but corrupt and cheapen the gospel with irresponsible speculation.  In either case Revelation is used as a club to control and intimidate.”  Originally ...

Reflections Along the Jesus Way

October 15, 2023 - Quote for the Day: “The world that God loves is a gift from our gracious God.  The world, seen and unseen, animal, vegetable and mineral, testifies to the entire world’s absolute dependence on God. The world-at-large demonstrates our inter-relationship with all creatures, our environment and our fellow human beings.”   Originally published in: Wonders of His Love ------------------------------------- Help Us Help Others - Give Now

Reflections Along the Jesus Way

October 12, 2023 - Quote for the Day: "Eternal conscious torment in hell is an unbiblical, fabricated teaching of Christ-less religion designed to keep its followers in line.  ‘Believers’ in such teaching perceive hell as having positive results because 1) the fear of being consigned to the fiery coals of hell keeps the followers of Christ-less religion in tow, as they ‘toe-the-line,’ and 2) it gives those who are religiously devout ‘hope’ that God will see to it that those who do not faithfully ‘toe-the-line’ as they do will get what they deserve."   Originally published in: Letters to My Friends...