Two quotes, the first by J.R.R. Tolkien, The Two Towers, Chapter X, The Voice of Saruman:
“Suddenly another voice spoke, low and melodious, its very sound an enchantment. Those who listened unwarily to that voice could seldom report the words that they heard; and if they did, they wondered, for little power remained in them. Mostly [...]

This is a post by Rebecca Reynolds, one of my favorite writers. We’ve been co-writing a lot of songs lately. This blog post is Christmas courage in a tight spot. Check out the other articles on her site as well. Click here: Let Nothing You Dismay or cut and paste http://littlebootsliturgies.blogspot.com/2011/12/let-nothing-you-dismay.html

C.S. Lewis, writing as the Senior Tempter Screwtape:
“Humans are amphibians – half spirit and half animal…As spirits they belong to the eternal world, but as animals they inhabit time. This means that while their spirit can be directed to an eternal object, their bodies, passions, and imaginations are in continual change, for to be in [...]

I walked down our gravel drive along the fence and saw a little fruit-pod on a vine. God started me to thinking about it.
A tree grows in good soil. It produces fruit. The fruit carries the seeds. The fruit hangs over other ground. It falls, and bursts open. If the ground is receptive, another tree [...]

In Genesis 15, God speaks to Abram and says “I am your shield and your exceedingly great reward. Abram says, “What will you give me, seeing I have no children? At this point my servant Eliezer is my heir!” God then reiterates the promise made to Abram in chapter 12 of making him a great [...]

In my dialogues with others about grace, forgiveness, and our new identity in Christ, the question is often raised, “What about the commandments? Don’t we have to keep the commandments?” Let’s look at the Ten Commandments for a moment:
1. You shall have no other gods before Me.
2. You shall not make any carved images to [...]

The secret of his (Hudson Taylor’s) rest of heart, amid such tempests of hate, was his refusal to look at second causes. His times were in God’s hands. He believed that it was with God, and GOD ALONE, he had to do. This is strikingly brought out in his article entitled ”Blessed Adversity.” With the [...]

A reader writes in response to my last article, “Saying that we only trust Christ and everything will happen by some kind of spiritual osmosis is not reality.”
To “only trust Christ”: what does that look like? Well, if I really trust that there is a Person living me who is love, joy, peace, gentleness, goodness, [...]

An idea prevalent in the Church today is that we work to keep the Law and have forgiveness when we fail.
This “rule-keeping + grace” position is the very thing the Apostle Paul was getting so upset about in Galatians, and likewise, the Hebrews writer. It was the addition of “The sacrifice of Jesus plus your [...]

“Although the inspired words of the Biblical vocabulary are so pregnant with unequivocal meaning, the natural mind is overwhelmed by their implications and is tempted to qualify them by treating them as fantasy, purely as symbols, or as figures of speech. This is the way unbelief frequently emasculates the Word of God. One rule of [...]