quotes | Craig T. Owens

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Augustine On Prayer

April 29, 2015 — Craig T. Owens

Some great quotes from Augustine on prayer…

“O Lord, the house of my soul is narrow; enlarge it that You may enter in. It is ruined, O repair it! It displeases Your sight; I confess it, I know. But who shall cleanse it, or to whom show I cry but unto You? Cleanse me from my secret faults, O Lord, and spare Your servant from strange sins.” —Augustine

“Grant us in all our duties Your help, in all our perplexities Your guidance, in all our dangers Your protection, and in all our sorrows Your peace.” —Augustine

“Grant unto me Your servant: To my God—a heart of flame. To my fellow man—a heart of love. To myself—a heart of steel.” —Augustine

“Hear, Lord, my prayer; let not my soul faint under Your discipline, nor let me faint in confessing unto You all Your mercies, whereby You have drawn me out of all my most evil ways, that You might become a delight to me above all the allurements which I once pursued; that I may most entirely love You, and clasp Your hand with all my affections, and You may yet rescue me from every temptation, even unto the end. O Lord, my King and my God, for Your service be whatever useful thing my childhood learned; for Your service, that I speak, write, read, reckon. For You did grant me Your discipline, while I was learning vanities; and my sin of delighting in those vanities You have forgiven. In them, indeed, I learned many a useful word, but these may as well be learned in things not vain; and that is the safe path for the steps of youth.” —Augustine

“He should be in no doubt that any ability he has and however much he has derives more from his devotion to prayer than his dedication to oratory; and so, by praying for himself and for those he is about to address, he must become a man of prayer before becoming a man of words. As the hour of his address approaches, before he opens his thrusting lips he should lift his thirsting soul to God so that he may utter what he has drunk in and pour out what has filled him.” —Augustine, writing to pastors

“And he [the preacher] should not doubt that [God] is able to do these things, if he is at all able and to the extent that he is able, more through the piety of his prayer than through the skill of his oratory, so that, praying for himself and for those whom he is to address, he is a petitioner before he is a speaker.” —Augustine, writing to pastors

“Breathe in me, O Holy Spirit, that my thoughts may all be holy.

Act in me, O Holy Spirit, that my work, too, may be holy.

Draw my heart, O Holy Spirit, that I love but what is holy.

Strengthen me, O Holy Spirit, to defend all that is holy.

Guard me, then, O Holy Spirit, that I always may be holy.

Amen.” —Augustine

Posted in Uncategorized. Tags: Augustine, confession, discipline, forgiveness, Holy Spirit, pastors, prayer, preaching, quotes, repentance. 1 Comment »

Links & Quotes

April 28, 2015 — Craig T. Owens

“We must be much alone with God, if we would have a clear sense of His love! Let your cries cease, and your eyes will grow dim. Much in prayer, much in heaven; slow in prayer, slow in progress.” —Charles Spurgeon

“There is no doctrine [Hell] which I would more willingly remove from Christianity than this, if it lay in my power. But it has the full support of Scripture and, specially, of Our Lord’s own words; it has always been held by Christendom; and it has the support of reason. If a game is played, it must be possible to lose it. If the happiness of a creature lies in self-surrender, no one can make that surrender but himself (though many can help him to make it) and he may refuse. I would pay any price to be able to say truthfully ‘All will be saved.’ But my reason retorts, ‘Without their will, or with it?’ If I say ‘Without their will’ I at once perceive a contradiction; how can the supreme voluntary act of self-surrender be involuntary? If I say ‘With their will,’ my reason replies ‘How if they will not give in?’” —C.S. Lewis

Here are 8 reasons why the Supreme Court should let the states decide their own marriage policy.

The Daily Signal has other good arguments for this marriage issue as well, including the infographic to the left.

“The nation that forgot God has never been allowed to endure.” —George Washington

“It is not our duty to leave wealth to our children, but it is our duty to leave liberty to them.” — John Dickinson, signer of the Declaration of Independence

Dr. Tim Elmore uses former NFL player Chris Borland as a case study for the benefits of long-term thinking. He writes, “When making a decision… (1) Choosing short-term benefits often leads to long-term consequences. (2) Choosing short-term consequences often leads to long-term benefits.”

Links & Quotes

April 27, 2015 — Craig T. Owens

Now that the Spring weather is here, get outside for some fresh air … listen to the birds, smell the flowers, look at the beauty around you! “A study of rodents, published in Science in 2013, indicated that the brain’s place cells are much less active when animals make their way through computer-generated landscapes than when they navigate the real world.” —Nicholas Carr

“We have men of science, too few men of God. We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the Sermon on the Mount. The world has achieved brilliance without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war than we know about peace, more about killing than we know about living. If we continue to develop our technology without wisdom or prudence, our servant may prove to be our executioner.” —Omar Bradley

“No man who enters upon the office to which I have succeeded can fail to recognize how every president of the United States has placed special reliance upon his faith in God. Every president has taken comfort and courage when told…that the Lord ‘will be with thee. He will not fail thee nor forsake thee. Fear not—neither be thou dismayed.’ … Each of our presidents in his own way has placed a special trust in God. Those who were strongest intellectually were also strongest spiritually.” —John F. Kennedy

Frank Turek has a fascinating post on why the Supreme Court of the United States shouldn’t allow homosexual “marriages” because of our 14th Amendment.

Innovation Adoption Lifecycle “If you want a population to adopt your innovation, you have to create a problem that is solved by adoption. And that problem is almost always related to, ’what about the others?’” Check out this insight from Seth Godin on product adoption.

[VIDEO] Greg Koukl addresses on Christians can demonstrate Christ-like tolerance and Christ-like tolerance—

[VIDEO] Dr. Bobby Conway and Nel Brace discuss a great tool for helping Christians defend their faith—

8 Quotes On Suffering & Overcoming

April 27, 2015 — Craig T. Owens

Earlier today I posted a recap of the message I delivered Sunday morning at Calvary Assembly of God addressing the question on why we have to go through suffering. Here are a few quotes I found during my study time last week.

“By nature, we evaluate nearly every situation according to its immediate impact on our desires, and we make our choices accordingly. Consequently, we often sacrifice that which would bring infinite eternal benefit in exchange for temporary gratification.” —Stephen K. Scott

“In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” —Jesus Christ

“Wherever souls are being tried and ripened, in whatever commonplace and homely way, there God is hewing out the pillars for His temple.” —Phillips Brooks

“Earth has no sorrow that Heaven cannot heal.” —Thomas Moore

“Sorrows remembered sweeten present joy.” —Robert Pollok

“Joys are our wings, sorrows our spurs.” —Jean Paul Richter

“Sorrow is divine. Sorrow is reigning on all the thrones of the universe, and the crown of all crowns has been one of thorns. There have been many books that treat of the sympathy of sorrow, but only one that bids us glory in tribulations, and count it all joy when we fall into divers afflictions, that so we may be associated with that great fellowship of suffering of which the incarnate Son of God is the head, and through which He is carrying a redemptive conflict to the glorious victory over evil. If we suffer with Him, we shall also reign with Him.” —Harriet Beecher Stowe

I walked a mile with Pleasure—

She chattered all the way

But left me none the wiser

For all she had to say.

I walked a mile with Sorrow

And ne’er a word said she,

But, oh, the things I learned from her

When Sorrow walked with me. —Robert Browning Hamilton

Links & Quotes

April 26, 2015 — Craig T. Owens

“We know that God’s being is perfect, His essence infinite, His dominion absolute, His power unlimited, and His glory transcendent.” —Charles Spurgeon

“A great empire, like a great cake, is most easily diminished from its edges.” —Benjamin Franklin

“We will do most good for this world by keeping a steadfast freedom from its beguiling attractions. We will serve our city best by getting our values from the ‘city which is to come’ (Hebrews 13:14). We will do our city most good by calling as many of its citizens as we can to be citizens of the ‘Jerusalem above’ (Galatians 4:26). Let’s live so that the natives will want to meet our King.” —John Piper

Anyone who works with kids (parents, teachers, coaches) should check out Mark Merrill’s list of 9 things not to say to children.

Matt Chandler says, “sex can be about the Gospel, if we’re mindful enough to make it so.” Read more of his post The ‘Good News’ About Sex.

Eric Metaxas shares an alarming statistic: An astonishing 70,000 children are kidnapped by gangs every year in China! Check out the worldview that contributes to this.

Some amazing pro-life news: doctors have discovered how to counteract the effects of RU-486 (the abortion-inducing drug) and save the lives of unborn babies!

[VIDEO] John Piper’s Look At The Book series is a great in-depth Bible study. Here is part 1 in this series about anxiety—

Links & Quotes

April 24, 2015 — Craig T. Owens

“To some Christians today, this world is not a sinking ship or a world reserved for fire. It is an international capitol building overrun with undesirables whom these believers plan to kick out. They will then take their place, renovating and governing it all themselves. Such thinking is symptomatic of a dying love for Jesus and a clinging to this world!” —David Wilkerson

“Some of my best men are women!” —William Booth

Did you know: Babies in the womb have beating hearts at only 21 days gestation, detectable brain waves at roughly 42 days, and can suck their thumbs and yawn?

Frank Turek is exactly right: Sex Is The New Religion.

“For decades social science has found that there is an optimal family structure for a child’s intellectual, emotional and physical flourishing: being raised in a home by her biological, married parents. All other arrangements—cohabiting biological parents, marriage with one step-parent, two adoptive parents or single parents—do not generally provide the same level of benefit.” Read more in this post about children raised by same-sex parents.

Hopefully none of my pastor friends ever do this!

Good reminder from John Maxwell: How Do You Become A Successful Failure?

Important health news: What stress does to your body.

11 More Quotes From “Not Knowing Where”

April 22, 2015 — Craig T. Owens

Here are even more quotes from Oswald Chambers in his book Not Knowing Where, using the life of Abraham as the basis for a great study of our lives of faith. You can read my review of this book by clicking here, and you can see other quotes by clicking here and here.

“By means of intercession we understand more and more the way God solves the problems produced in our minds by the conflict of actual facts and our real faith in God. … Repetition in intercessory importunity is not bargaining, but the joyous insistence of prayer.”

“If I cannot see God in others, it is because He is not in me. If I get on my moral high horse and say it is they who are wrong, I become that last of all spiritual iniquities, a suspicious person, a spiritual devil dressed up as a Christian. Beware of mistaking suspicion for discernment, it is the biggest misunderstanding that ever twisted Christian humility into Pharisaism. When I see in others things that are not of God, it is because the Spirit of God has revealed to me my own meanness and badness; when I am put right with God on the basis of His Redemption and see those things in others, it is in order that God may restore them through my intercession.”

“The tendency to do instead of to devote oneself to God, is nearly always the sign of a smudged purity of relationship to God.”

“The error is putting prudence in competition with God’s will, weighing pros and cons before God when He has spoken. Always beware when you want other people to commend the decision you have made, because it is an indication that you have trusted your wits instead of worshiping God. … We have to watch that we use our wits to assist us in worshiping God and caring out His will, not in carrying out our own will and then asking God very piously to bless the concoction. Put communion with God on the throne and then ask God to direct your common sense to choose according to His will. Worship first and wits after.”

“We have to be careful lest we blind ourselves by putting up our own standards instead of looking at the standard God puts up. If we put a saint up as a standard, we blind ourselves to ourselves; it is personal vanity makes us do it. When we put God’s standard up, viz., Himself, there is no room for personal vanity.”

“The grace of God makes us honest with ourselves.”

“Always beware when you are perfectly certain you are right, so certain that you do not dream of asking God’s counsel.”

“Sanctification is not something our Lord does in me; sanctification is Himself in me.”

“The majority of us know nothing about waiting, we don’t wait, we endure. Waiting means that we go on in the perfect certainty of God’s goodness—no dumps or fear.”

“Your anxiety proves that you do not believe in the goodness of God an atom, and it postpones the time of His performance.”

“God’s ways turn man’s thinking upside down.”

Posted in Uncategorized. Tags: book review, discipleship, God's timing, God's will, grace, Holy Spirit, importunity, intercession, obedience, Oswald Chambers, prayer, quotes, redemption, relationship, sanctification, thought life, worship. 3 Comments »

Links & Quotes

April 20, 2015 — Craig T. Owens

“Bios has, to be sure, a certain shadowy or symbolic resemblance to Zoe: but only the sort of resemblance there is between a photo and a place, or a statue and a man. A man who changed from having Bios to having Zoe would have gone through as big a change as a statue which changed from being a carved stone to being a real man.” ―C.S. Lewis

“True faith embraces Christ in whatever ways the Scriptures hold Him out to poor sinners.” —Jonathan Edwards

Going through difficult times might be beneficial for Christians, says Trevin Wax in his post How Social Ostracism Could Increase Our Love.

“Yet while a race remembers and relives its sufferings and wrongs, it is often unwittingly transformed, often into the very image of its oppressor. Moreover, bitterness anchors the mind in the past and takes the heart with it. There is no future and no sense of the possible. There is only the incessant churning. Soon it becomes an excuse, a room into which the heart can run to find justification for failure and wrongs of its own. The end comes after the isolation and the rage have run their course. Bitterness is the second sting of the wound, and its fruit is death.” ―Booker T. Washington

“Progress is impossible if you only attempt to do the things you have always done.” —Mike Krzyzewski

[VIDEO] Is there evidence for a literal Adam and Eve? Does it matter?

Posted in Uncategorized. Tags: apologetic, Bible, bios, bitterness, Booker T. Washington, C.S. Lewis, Christianity, Creation, Creator, eternal life, faith, forgiveness, Jesus Christ, Jonathan Edwards, love, Mere Christianity, Mike Krzyzewski, persecution, progress, quotes, Scripture, slavery, success, video, zoe. Leave a Comment »

Links & Quotes

April 19, 2015 — Craig T. Owens

“You cannot have seen much of the Savior, unless you desire to let others see Him. Your piety is a mere sham if it does not lead to practical service.” —Charles Spurgeon

“Success is not final; failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.” —Winston Churchill

“Real security is in Heaven and thus earth affords only imitations.” —C.S. Lewis

“One thing I know, if you are free, then you are thinking about setting others free; and if you have no zeal for the emancipation of other men, you are a slave yourself. If you are free you hate all sorts of chains, all sorts of sin, and you will never willingly put on the fetters any more. You live each day, crying unto Him Who made you free at first, to hold you up that you fall not into the snare. If you are free, this is not the world for you; this is the land of slaves; this is the world of bondage. If you are free, your heart has gone to heaven, the land of the free. If you are free today, your spirit is longing for the time when you shall see the Great Liberator face to face.” —Charles Spurgeon

The Hubble Telescope is turning 25 years old. Here are some break-taking pictures that it has captured so far.

Seth Godin has a very intriguing question: What if you stopped doing what you are doing?

Antony Van Leeuwenhoek is the father of microbiology. Here is a very cool short biography about his work.

Parents and grandparents, Mark Merrill has a cool way to use technology to encourage your (grand)kids.

14 More Quotes From “Not Knowing Where”

April 16, 2015 — Craig T. Owens

When I’m reading an Oswald Chambers book, I could practically highlight every line! Even when I restrain myself, I still find so much good material. I’ve already shared some quotes from Not Knowing Where, but I wanted to share a few more with you.

“In seeking the best we soon find that our enemy is our good things, not our bad. The things that keep us back from God’s best are not sin and imperfection, but the things that are right and good and noble from the natural standpoint.”

“Fanaticism is sticking true to my interpretation of my destiny instead of waiting for God to make it clear.”

“God will never have more power than He has now; if He could have, He would cease to be God.”

“Whenever God gives a vision to a saint, he puts the saint, as it were, in the shadow of His hand, and the saint’s duty is to be still and listen. Genesis 16 is an illustration of the danger of listening to good advice when it is dark instead of waiting for God to send the light (cf. Galatians 1:15-16). When God gives a vision and darkness follows, wait; God will bring you into accordance with the vision He has given if you will wait His time.”

“All God’s commands are enablings. Therefore it is a crime to be weak in His strength.”

“God never hastens and He never tarries. He works His plans out in His own way, and we either lie like clogs on His hands or we assist Him by being as clay in the hands of the Potter.”

“Faith is not a bargain with God—I will trust You if you give me money, but not if You don’t. We have to trust in God whether He sends us money or not, whether He gives us health or not. We must have faith in God, not in His gifts.”

“The relation is to be that of a child; fling yourself clean over on to God and wash your hands of the consequences, and John 14:27―‘My peace I give unto you’―becomes true at once. The profound realization of God makes you too unspeakably peaceful to be capable of any self-interest.”

“Faith is not the means whereby we take God to ourselves for our select coterie; faith is the gift of God whereby He expresses His purposes through us.”

“Beware of insulting God by being a pious prude instead of a pure person.”

“It is the attitude of a spiritual prig to go about with a countenance that is a rebuke to others because you have the idea that they are shallower than you.”

“Friendship with God is faith in action in relation to God and to our fellow men.”

“The most amazing evidence of a man’s nature being changed is the way in which he sees God, to say ‘God led me here’; ‘God spoke to me’; is an everyday occurrence to him.”

“It is not that we prepare a palace for God, but that He comes into our mortal flesh and we do our ordinary work, in an ordinary setting, amongst ordinary people, as for Him.”

You can read my review of Not Knowing Where by clicking here.

You can read other quotes from this book by clicking here.