Quotes from Kent Hughes

Our devotion must culminate in a conscious yielding of every part of our personality, every ambition, every relationship, and every hope to Him. This done, we have reached the apex of personal devotion

Givers for God disarm the power of money.

An honest answer is an act of love.

Some fathers exasperate their children by being overly strict and controlling. They need to remember that rearing children is like holding a wet bar of soap — too firm a grasp and it shoots from your hand, too loose a grip and it slides away. A gentle but firm hold keeps you in control.

The true test of a man's spirituality is not his ability to speak, as we are apt to think, but rather his ability to bridle his tongue.

Faith spawns reflexive steps of obedience. It steps out. We must not imagine that we have faith if we do not obey.

So today, at the end of the twentieth century, we have a phenomenon unthinkable in any other century: churchless Christians. There is a vast herd of professed Christians who exist as nomadic hitchhikers without accountability, without discipline, without discipleship, living apart from the regular benefits of the ordinances.

No manliness no maturity! No discipline no discipleship! No sweat no sainthood!

Dietrich Bonhoeffer made the observation that when lust takes control, "At this moment God . . . loses all reality. . . . Satan does not fill us with hatred of God, but with forgetfulness of God.

Among the tragedies of our time is humanity's pursuit of personal peace apart from God's enabling grace. That pursuit takes many forms: material, intellectual, social, even religious; but they all end in futility. When sinners find peace through God's grace, that is beautiful, that is cause for rejoicing! "Grace . . . and peace" is the proper Christian greeting and celebration (v. 2).

Greek mythology tells of a beautiful youth who loved no one until the day he saw his own reflection in the water and fell in love with that reflection. He was so lovesick, he finally wasted away and died, and was turned into a flower that bears his name — Narcissus.

The importance of having our ears dug open comes to us from the lips of Jesus: "He who has an ear, let him hear . . ." (Revelation 2:7, 11, 17, 29; 3:6, 13, 22). We need to read God's Word, but we must also pray that He will blast through our granite-block heads so we truly hear His Word.