12 More Quotes From “Peace In The Face Of Cancer”

June 5, 2017 — Craig T. Owens

For anyone battling cancer or standing as a caregiver or friend to a cancer patient, Lynn Eib’s book Peace In The Face Of Cancer is an absolute must-read! I have already shared a few quotes from Lynn, but she also did a great job including quotes from other authors.

“To handle yourself, use your head; to handle others, use your heart.” —Eleanor Roosevelt

“Every tear you cried will be redeemed. God will give you indescribable glory for your grief, not with a general wave of the hand, but in a considered and specific way. Each tear has been listed; each will be recompensed.” —Joni Eareckson Tada

“Hoping for the good news makes me feel helpless and vulnerable because it is what it is and my hoping won’t change what it is. Hoping for accurate news keeps me focused on useful information that will help me deal with what is. Hoping for accurate news helps me prepare for any news.” —Wendy Harpham

“Our anxiety does not come from thinking about the future, but from wanting to control it.” —Kahlil Gibran

“Folks are usually about as happy as they make up their minds to be.” —Abraham Lincoln 

“What you believe and tell yourself can become a powerful medication in your personal pharmacy.” —Dr. William Backus

“The best way to show my gratitude to God is to accept everything, even my problems, with joy.” —Mother Teresa

“You give Me thanks (regardless of your feelings), and I give you joy (regardless of your circumstances).” —Jesus, in Sarah Young’s Jesus Calling

“Don’t count the days; makes the days count.” —Mohammad Ali 

“When a train goes through a tunnel and it gets dark, you don’t throw away the ticket and jump off. You sit still and trust the engineer.” —Corrie ten Boom

“In emotional and mental health, what you believe it is all important. It makes a difference what you believe. Other people, circumstances, events and material things are not what make you happy.” —Dr. William Backus and Marie Chapian

“The people who do the best are those who don’t battle the disease, but dance with it. That means you have to be flexible and you have to know and accept your limitations. You have to allow people to help you, but without surrendering to the disease.” —Dr. George Fisher

Check out my review of Peace In The Face Of Cancer here. And check out some quotes from Lynn Eib here.

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Thursdays With Oswald—God’s Surgery

June 1, 2017 — Craig T. Owens

Oswald ChambersThis is a weekly series with things I’m reading and pondering from Oswald Chambers. You can read the original seed thought here, or type “Thursdays With Oswald” in the search box to read more entries.

God’s Surgery

     It is difficult to realize that it is God who arranges circumstances for the whole mass of human beings; we come to find, however, that in the Providence of God there is, as it were, a surgical knife for each one of us individually, because God wants to get at the things that are wrong and bring us into a right relationship to Himself. … 

     The nature of any dominating lust is that it keeps us from arriving at a knowledge of ourselves. For instance, a covetous man will believe he is very generous. Thank God for the surgery of providence by means of which He deals with these absurdities. … The surgery of the providence of God will break up all ignorance of ourselves. … 

     The Holy Spirit continually urges us to sign away our right to our individual self to Jesus. “Learn of Me,” says Jesus, “for I am meek and lowly in heart.” How few of us do learn of Him! We cling to our individuality like a drowning man to a straw. … Individuality must be transfigured by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, and that means a sword going through the natural. … 

     God’s providence seems to pay no attention whatever to our individual ideas because He is after only one thing—“that they may be one, even as We are one.” It may look like a thorough breaking up of the life, but it will end in a manifestation of the Christian self in oneness with God. 

From The Soul Of A Christian

In Psalm 139 David confesses how thoroughly God already knows him, but then he prays, “Search me!” David recognizes that there may be part of his individuality that is keeping God from using him completely.

Jesus taught us to pray, “Your kingdom come; Your will be done.” That means my kingdom has to go, and my will has to be set aside.

Christian, we must continually allow the Holy Spirit to search our heart and then perform the necessary surgery to remove the unhealthy clinging to our own kingdom. This is the only way for us to fully know the manifestation of the Christian self in oneness with God.

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Just Christians

May 30, 2017 — Craig T. Owens

“I’m thinking we aren’t so unlike these soldiers [see John 19:23-24]. (I’m sorry to say.) We, too, play games at the foot of the Cross.

“We compete for members. We scramble for status. We deal out our judgments and condemnations. Competition. Selfishness. Personal gain. It’s all there. So close to the Cross, yet so far from the blood. We are so close to the world’s most uncommon event, but we act like common crapshooters huddled in bickering groups and fighting over silly opinions.

“We major in the trivial, constantly finding fault with others. We split into little huddles and then, God forbid, we split again. Another name. Another doctrine. Another ‘error.’ Another denomination. Another poker game.

“So close to the Cross but so far from the Christ. ‘May they all be one,’ Jesus prayed. One. Not one in groups of two thousand. But one in One. One church. One faith. One Lord. Not Baptist, not Methodist, not Adventist. Just Christians. No denominations. No hierarchies. No traditions. Just Christ.” —Max Lucado, On Calvary’s Hill

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True Beauty vs. Pornography

May 29, 2017 — Craig T. Owens

God’s design for sex is truly the most beautiful thing that exists between two people. Its counterfeit is called pornography. Porn is simulated, imitated, and purchased; but no price tag can ever buy true beauty.

God demonstrates the purest love in Himself, when one part of the Godhead is the Lover and the other parts of the Godhead are the Beloved. The Lover is constantly discovering the beauty in the Beloved, and then praising that beauty. The Beloved then reciprocates back to the Lover. It’s a love dance! 

Humans are created in God’s image. We are first created to be God’s beloved. Then we are designed to be both lover and beloved in the bonds of marriage. True beauty—real, lasting beauty that pleases God—is discovered. It’s something that starts inside and radiates outside. A true lover takes the time to discover who the beloved truly is.

To see this in action, just look at some of the compliments between husband and wife in the Song of Songs—How beautiful you are, my darling! Oh, how beautiful! … How handsome you are, my lover! Oh, how charming! … Like a lily among thorns is my darling among the maidens. … My lover is mine and I am his. … All beautiful you are, my darling; there is no flaw in you.

True love that sees this kind of beauty cannot be imitated, purchased or simulated. If someone attempts to, it’s called pornography.

The dictionary gives this definition of pornography: sexually explicit materials whose purpose is to elicit sexual arousal. In other words, porn tries to imitate and simulate true beauty at a purchase price.

Jesus identified this sell-out of true love with the Greek word porneia (see Mark 7:14-23). This word means any sexual involvement outside the marriage between a husband and wife. Porneia comes from words that fill out its definition: things like prostitution, idolatry, and slavery.

Your body was not made for porneia but for God (1 Corinthians 6:13). You were made in His image: to be His Beloved, and He your Lover, and then to have a marriage relationship with another image-bearer of God, where you are both lover and beloved, and where you focus on true beauty.

Anything else is imitated, purchased, and simulated. It’s pornography. It’s idolatry.

Christians are told to fight many temptations, but there are only two that we are told not to fight, but to flee: pornography (1 Corinthians 6:18) and idolatry (1 Corinthians 10:14). So our prayer for the purity and enjoyment of God’s true beauty should be: Turn my eyes away from worthless things (Psalm 119:37).

Don’t sell out to the fake beauty in pornography. Discover true beauty exclusively in your spouse!

We’ll be looking at more relationship builders and killers, and I’d love to have you along for this journey of discovery.

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Thursdays With Oswald—Whose Temple Is My Body?

May 25, 2017 — Craig T. Owens

Oswald ChambersThis is a weekly series with things I’m reading and pondering from Oswald Chambers. You can read the original seed thought here, or type “Thursdays With Oswald” in the search box to read more entries.

Whose Temple Is My Body?

     If you have been laid hold of by the Spirit of God don’t think it strange concerning the spring-cleaning God is giving you, and don’t clamor for anything because it will have to go. … My body is designed to be a “temple of the Holy Ghost,” and it is up to me to stand up for the honor of Jesus Christ in my bodily practices. … 

     The Spirit of God will not allow me to use my body for my own convenience; the whole limit must be God’s. I am not to serve my own ends with my body, I am to serve the ends of Jesus Christ and be a devoted disciple of His. … 

     The historic Temple was twice cleansed by our Lord; and when He came again to Jerusalem He no longer spoke of it as “My Father’s house,” but “Behold, your house is left onto you desolate” [Matthew 23:37-38]. A terrible pronouncement, and a terrible possibility in our own lives. It is appallingly true that we may get to the place where Jesus can no longer say of us, “My Father’s house”; where He can no longer give us the benefit of scourging and cleansing, but can only retire, a weeping Christ, over our willfulness. “How often would I … and ye would not!” … 

     I am responsible before God for conducting my body as the temple of the Holy Ghost. Am I doing it, or is my body dictating to God, telling Him what it must do? … “Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof” [Romans 6:12]. 

From The Soul Of A Christian

This is the key question: Is my body my house or is it my Father’s house?

In other words, after becoming a Christian am I saying, “I can do whatever I want with my body” or am I saying, “My body is Yours, God, to do with as You see fit”?

Whose temple is your body?

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What If We Had Higher Expectations?

May 22, 2017 — Craig T. Owens

Humans are hardwired by God to be in relationship with Him and with others.

  1. God is a Triune God so each part of the Godhead is in relationship with the other parts—John tells us in his epistle that God is love, meaning there is both a Lover and a Beloved.
  2. We are created in God’s image—we are made to love and be loved.
  3. God affirmed our need for relationships with others—see Genesis 2:18.
  4. Relationships with others give us a return on investment, help in trouble, encouragement in dark times, and protection from attack—see Ecclesiastes 4:9-12.
  5. Christians being in healthy relationships with others is a testimony to just how powerful God’s love is.

Sadly, Brennan Manning pointed out that Christians “have come a long sad journey from the first century, when pagans exclaimed with awe and wonder, ‘See how these Christians love one another!’”

When I read this, I don’t want to throw in the towel, but I want to reclaim this awe and wonder! 

One of the things that will quickly kill relationships is having low expectations for the other person or for the relationship itself. This can be counteracted by having higher expectations for other people and for our relationships with them.

John Maxwell noted, “People rise or fall to meet our level of expectations for them. If you express skepticism and doubt in others, they’ll return your lack of confidence with mediocrity. But if you believe in them and expect them to do well, they’ll wear themselves out trying to do their best.”

Consider the high expectations that God had for a relationship with us. If He had low expectations, one of the best-known verses in the Bible would be, “God thought a few people in the world had something worth saving, so He sent a handful of angels to tell us His story.”

Instead, the verse tells us: God so loved the entire world that He sent the very best that He had—He sent His One and Only Son!

  • Jesus died for us when we were unworthy of His love
  • Jesus gave us all His authority to represent Him in the world
  • Jesus empowered us with His Holy Spirit to be His witnesses
  • Jesus told us that our love for others would be a blazing sign to that we were His

Since God has this high expectation for us … what would happen if we had the same high expectations for everyone with whom we came into contact? What would happen if we believed the best for everybody, and then gave all that we could to bring the best out of them? I think that once again people would exclaim with awe and wonder,

“See how these Christians love one another!”

We will be talking more about Relationship Builders & Killers this Sunday and I would love if you could join me!

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Poetry Saturday—Happy In Him

May 20, 2017 — Craig T. Owens
…But when I am happy in Him,
December’s as pleasant as May.


His Name yields the richest perfume,


And sweeter than music His voice;


His presence disburses my gloom,


And makes all within me rejoice;


I should, were He always thus nigh,


Have nothing to wish or to fear;


No mortal so happy as I,


My summer would last all the year.




Content with beholding His face,


My all to His pleasure resign’d,


No changes of season err place


Would make any change in my mind:


While blest with a sense of His love,


A palace a toy would appear;


And prisons would palaces prove,


If Jesus would dwell with me there. —John Newton










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Thursdays With Oswald—Knowing Evil By Living Good

May 18, 2017 — Craig T. Owens 




Oswald ChambersThis is a weekly series with things I’m reading and pondering from Oswald Chambers. You can read the original seed thought here, or type “Thursdays With Oswald” in the search box to read more entries.


Knowing Evil By Living Good


     There are some things of which we must be ignorant, because knowledge of them comes in no other way than by disobedience to God. In the life originally designed for Adam it was not intended that he should be ignorant of evil, but that he should know evil through understanding good. Instead, he ate of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil and thereby knew evil positively and good negatively. … 


     The only way to find out things in the moral universe is by obedience. … 


     The philosophy of life is based on the topsy-turvy reasoning of going into things in order to find out about them, which is like saying you have to go into the mud before you can know what clean water is. “I must know the world”—if you do, you will only know good by contrast with evil. … Jesus Christ knew good and evil by the life which was in Him, and God intended that man’s knowledge of evil should come in the same way as to our Lord. … 


     The marvel of the Redemption is that Jesus Christ can put into any man His own hereditary disposition of holiness. … 


     Jesus Christ carried out all that Adam failed to do, and He did it in the simple way of obedience to His Father. … Are we humble and obedient, learning as Jesus learned, or are we hurrying into experiences we have no right to? … We grow spiritually by obeying God through the words of Jesus being made spirit and life to us. … 


     “I would have you wise unto that which is good, and simple unto that which is evil” [Romans 16:19]. … When we are born again we have to obey the Spirit of God, and as we draw on the life of Jesus and learn to assimilate and carry out what He speaks to us, we shall grow in ignorance of certain things and be alive and alert only to what is God’s will for us.


From The Soul Of A Christian


I love the fact that Jesus Christ can put into any man His own hereditary disposition of holiness. It doesn’t matter what you’ve done, what you’ve thought or said, or what you’ve seen, Jesus Christ can put His innocence into you.


Ask yourself Chambers’ question: “Are we humble and obedient, learning as Jesus learned, or are we hurrying into experiences we have no right to?”


After asking that question, do you need to make some changes?








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6 Quotes From “Joy To Your World”

May 17, 2017 — Craig T. Owens 




In Joy To Your World, T.M. Moore encourages Christians to view joy as the fuel for their testimony to others about their vibrant relationship with Jesus. Check out my book review by clicking here.


“The Christian life is joy, the joy Jesus glimpsed as He went to the Cross, that sustained Him through all His betrayal and suffering, and in which He now dwells, at the right hand of God.”


“The joy which infects those who receive the gift of eternal life in Jesus Christ causes them to see creation and all culture in an entirely new light. Whereas formally such things were merely taken for granted and used as we saw fit, now they are received as gifts and servants of the joy-giving God, to be redeemed, renewed, and redeployed with joy to the praise of His glorious grace.”


“First, we need to make sure our own lives makes sense, that the way we live supports the reasons we might give for why we live this way. … Second, we must make sure that we know the Gospel. … Finally, we need to make sure we can explain the Gospel’s impact on our own lives. How has the Gospel brought new hope, new purpose, new direction, and new life to us?”


“It is not our task to convert those who ask a reason for the hope that is within us. It is our task to make sure, to the best of our ability, that we have explained the Good News of Jesus as clearly as we can.”


“Joy is not determined by what we can see in our immediate environment. Instead, joy is a condition that attaches to knowing the Lord and being able to see past or through what is seen to engage what is not seen (Hebrews 12:1).”


“When, because of our knowledge of God, the joy that fills our souls comes to expression as joy lived, then our lives will make sense, our salvation will be visible to the watching world, and we can offer any who may ask, sound reasons for how that joy can be theirs as well.”






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Five Women; One Amazing Story!

May 15, 2017 — Craig T. Owens 




For some of you, it’s hard to put the word “happy” in front of Mother’s Day.


One definition of happy is “favored by fortune; lucky.” In other words, we’re happy IF things happen to be going our way. But we don’t know how things are going to turn out?


In the last Super Bowl, the New England Patriots were down by 25 points early in the 3rd quarter. It didn’t appear that things were going the Patriots’ way … except they won!


So don’t judge “happy” or “not happy” by how things are going in the middle of the story! 


To God, all of History is His Story. He knows every move, every hurt, every fumble, every betrayal, every noble deed, every evil deed … nothing escapes His notice. And it all fits into His Story—We are assured and know that God being a partner in their labor ALL THINGS work together and are fitting into a plan for good… (Romans 8:28).


Check out the stories of these five women—


Tamar had to pretend to be a prostitute in order to get her father-in-law to followthrough on his commitment. As a result, she became pregnant by him and was almost burned at the stake.


Rahab didn’t pretend to be a prostitute; she was a prostitute. She lived in an important city that was about to be defeated by the Israelites. Instead of trying to make things easier on herself, she trusted God and put herself in a very dangerous position.


Ruth was a non-Israelite married to an Israelite man. But when her husband, her brother-in-law, and her father-in-law all died, she took a huge risk in staying with her mother-in-law. She could have moved in with her family in a country she knew, but she went where she was an alien, a widow, and dirt poor.


Bathsheba was married to Uriah, who was a member of the king’s inner circle. But the king took advantage of her when Uriah was away at war, impregnated her, killed her husband, and then married her. Their son from that union died shortly after being born, but Bathsheba trusted God to make something good of her tragedy.


Mary was engaged to be married when she was found to be pregnant. Society could have shunned her, her fiancé could have had her killed for her unfaithfulness, but she trusted God to keep His word.


These five mothers are the ONLY women mentioned in the genealogy of Jesus (Matthew 1:1-6, 16)


God used all of these women. Despite the way they were treated or mistreated; despite their own mistakes; despite the injustices committed against them. God used all of them as irreplaceable parts of His Story.


To God, all of History is His Story! He’s doing things through your life that you can’t possibly imagine. Trust Him—if you do, your name will also be recorded in the best “His Story” ever recorded! 


Whenever you don’t know what’s going on, lean into Him, cry out to Him. But then say with Mary, “I am the Lord’s servant. May it be to me as you have said.” And what does God say? “I am working ALL THINGS together to tell My Story through your life!”








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