Quotes about Perseverance

Getting fit can be an arduous, even painful process; living fit is filled with much joy.

The same conclusion could be made about marriage. Every marriage has sorrows. Every marriage has trials. There isn't a shared bedroom in this country where tension doesn't occasionally or perhaps frequently lift its snarling head. Many a pillow has been a solemn receptacle for soul-felt tears, cried late at night or even all throughout the day. We don't get to choose which sorrows or trials we are called to bear, only that we must endure them.

If we take our faith seriously and make our way through a difficult marriage in pursuit of witnessing God's reconciling love for a sinful world, then a difficult marriage becomes part of our exercise to prepare us for heaven.

2 Thessalonians 3:5: "May the Lord direct your hearts into God's love and Christ's perseverance.

A heavyweight boxing champion who dodges all serious contenders to consistently fight marshmallows is derided and ridiculed—and rightly so. Christians who dodge all serious struggle and consciously seek to put themselves in whatever situations and relationships are easiest are doing the same thing—they are coasting, and eventually that coasting will define them and—even worse—shape them.

You can't use strong-arm tactics against the Church without strengthening it. It's always been that way. Under persecution a man looks at his faith to see if it's worth fighting for, and this is a scrutiny Christianity can always withstand. The real danger comes with an indirect attack, where a person is lured away from the Church before he has a chance to become strong.

I'm just an ordinary person." That, of course, was exactly the appeal of this story. How, indeed, had God been able to use a fellow, with a bad back, a limited education, no sponsorship and no funds, to do things that well-connected, well-endowed people said were impossible? For us and other ordinary people, that was what made Brother Andrew's adventures so intriguing.

The good jihad. It sounds like an oxymoron, until you look in your Bible at 2 Timothy 4:7. Paul says, "I have fought the good fight." In the Arabic translation those last three words are rendered "the good jihad." We

The bigger the darkness, the easier it is to spot your little light.

The enemy is fierce and he would like for you to think that he has on. Don't believe his lie.

Good when He gives, supremely good; Nor less when He denies: Afflictions, from His sovereign hand, Are blessings in disguise. [. . .] That useless thoughts spoil all: that the mischief began there; but that we ought to reject them, as soon as we perceived their impertinence to the matter in hand, or our salvation; and return to our communion with GOD.

That in the winter, seeing a tree stripped of its leaves, and considering that within a little time, the leaves would be renewed, and after that the flowers and fruit appear, he received a high view of the Providence and Power of GOD, which has never since been effaced from his soul. That this view had perfectly set him loose from the world, and kindled in him such a love for GOD, that he could not tell whether it had increased in above forty years that he had lived since.