Craig T. Owens

Whenever I am working on a series of messages, I always end up with way more material than I could possibly share. But it’s still really good stuff! I remember a movie director once remarking that some of his best and favorite scenes ended up on the cutting room floor during the movie’s editing process. So here are some of the quotes and thoughts I really liked, recovered from “the cutting room floor” as I prepared our Love In The Law series.

“True obedience to God (not just to lists of laws) means more than outward performances which can be tallied in percentages (like 80 percent obeyed). Rather, true obedience is to be so transformed that we delight to do God’s will at multiple levels. We delight in His will as the excellent expression of His wisdom and justice and love. We delight in personal, close communion with Him as our guide, which we would lose, at least for a season, if we acted against His counsel. We delight in His gift of a clean conscience. We delight in the smile of His approval. We delight in God Himself whom we see and know more clearly when we walk in unbroken fellowship and obedience. We delight in the prospect of ongoing assurance and hope, which is jeopardized and weakened if we gradually slip away from Him in callous disobedience.” —John Piper

I delight to do Your will, O my God; yes, Your law is with in my heart. —Psalm 40:8

“To detect ourselves thus balancing a transgression here, against many observances there, ought at once to startle us into the conviction that the whole principle of our lives must be faulty. Our aim is, not to love God, or to obey Him, but to get to heaven, or at least escape hell, on the cheapest terms.” —Alfred Plummer

“Our will is morally and spiritually flawed. Nevertheless we are responsible to do the commandments of God. The moral corruption that cripples us does not relieve us of our responsibility to do what is right and good to do.” —John Piper

“I call the love to God the motion of the soul toward the enjoyment of God for His own sake, and the enjoyment of one’s self and of one’s neighbor for the sake of God.” —Augustine

“If thou neglect thy love to thy neighbor, in vain thou professest thy love to God; for by thy love to God, the love to thy neighbor is begotten, and by thy love to thy neighbor, thy love to God is nourished.” —Francis Quarles

“A pennyweight o’ love is worth a pound o’ law.” —Scottish Proverb

It pleased the Lord for the sake of His righteousness to make His law great and glorious. —Isaiah 42:21