A.W. Tozer

Religion today is not transforming the people – it is being transformed by the people.  It is not raising the moral level of society – it is descending to society’s own level and congratulating itself that it has scored a victory because society is smiling accepting its surrender.

Nancy Leigh DeMoss

Proud people have a feeling – conscious or subconscious – that “this ministry is privileged to have me and my gifts.” They focus on what they can do for God. Broken people have a heart attitude that says, “I don’t deserve to have any part in this ministry”; they know that they have nothing to offer God except the life of Jesus flowing through their broken lives.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

In speaking of love at this point, we are not referring to some sentimental or affectionate emotion. It would be nonsense to urge men to love their oppressors in an affectionate sense. Love in this connection means understanding, redemptive good will. When we speak of loving those who oppose us, we refer to neither eros nor philia; we speak of a love which is expressed in the Greek word agape. Agape means understanding, redeeming good will for all men. It is an overflowing love which is purely spontaneous, unmotivated, groundless, and creative. It is not set in motion by any quality or function of its object. It is the love of God operating in the human heart.[1]

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[1] Martin Luther King, Jr., “An Experiment in Love,” 1958, in James Melvin Washington, ed., A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr., (San Francisco: Harper San Francisco, 1991), 19.

Henry Ward Beecher

The test of Christian character should be that a man is a joy-bearing agent to the world.

George Martin

The Gospel is a message about God and His holiness, man and his sinfulness, the Person and work of Jesus Christ, and a summons to repentance and faith. If these truths are not declared, then no matter what else might have been preached, it was not the Gospel.

Thomas Oden

The narcissistic edge of our culture is inordinately concerned with individual hedonistic self-actualization. Doubtless all cultures to a certain degree have that concern, but few have carried it to the lengths of modern hedonists, with their feather massages, frenetic self-improvement strategies, upwardly mobile individualism, bed-hopping, and high juvenile suicide statistics.

As long as Christian community and ministry accommodate to these hedonistic assumptions about life's purpose, there is no room or even perceived need for mutual correction. There is only pretended tolerance and the inner condemnation we feel when we do not fully "actualize ourselves."

Good pastoral care will strongly affirm the freedom of the Christian. It is for responsible, Spirit-led freedom that Christ has set us free (Gal. 5:1). Justification is by grace, not our achievements in fulfilling of the law. But the gospel does not make void the law (Ro. 3:31). Life under grace is not a normless life without any moral accountability. It is a life in which moral accountability is transformed, deepened, and renewed in the light of Christ's forgiveness (Rom. 12:1 ff).

Timothy Keller

It is only because of the doctrine of judgment & hell that Jesus’ proclamation of grace & love are so brilliant & astounding.