Quotes about Renewal

It has been said that sometimes the greatest hope in our lives is just a second chance to do what we should have done right in the first place.

They tried to bury us. They just didn't know we were seeds.

New hopes are a fountain of energy.

Forgiveness is alchemy. To take something so base and ugly that you don't even want to think of it and turn it into something noble and fine. That is true alchemy. Remember that. It's not always easy, but if you can do that, you'll have a happy life.

I wish to be an "I" no longer. I reject my "I." My desire is to be a "He." "When He is revealed, we shall be like Him" (1 John 3:2).

I'm looking for a second reformation. The first reformation of the church 500 years ago was about beliefs. This one is going to be about behavior. The first one was about creeds. This one is going to be about deeds. It is not going to be about what does the church believe, but about what is the church doing.

The same is true when it comes to getting healthy. You look in the mirror and believe that, with God's help, you'll get healthy even though the person staring back at you is exhausted, stressed, out of shape, or overweight.

Get rid of your old self, which made you live as you used to — the old self that was being destroyed by its deceitful desires. Your hearts and minds must be made completely new, and you must put on the new self, which is created in God's likeness" (Ephesians 4:22 — 24

It's in that place that we're reminded that true life comes when we're willing to admit that we've reached the end of ourselves, we've given up, we've let go, we're willing to die to all of our desires to figure it out and be in control. We lose our life, only to find it.

You cannot bring a fresh, new word about human flourishing and expect the old, established systems of oppression and power to stand by passively. Or, as Jesus put it, "You can't put new wine into old wineskins.

When you come to the end of yourself, you are at that exact moment in the kind of place where you can fully experience the God who is for you.

Why didn't they just skip the whole sacrificial system all together? That would have been amazing. Just scrap the whole thing. Announce that the final sacrifice has been offered and there's no more need to do such things. Declare that the temple is going to be torn down. Proclaim that it is finished. Oh wait, we're getting ahead of ourselves, aren't we? (Please tell me you enjoyed that last paragraph.)