Quotes about Devotion

in a day spent with him, we can expect to be receiving his strength to do those things that will please him, and avoid those things that bring him pain.

An older Franciscan brother said to Brennan Manning on the day he joined the order, "Once you come to know the love of Jesus Christ, nothing else in the world will seem as beautiful or desirable.

Brother Lawrence, who was a kitchen worker and cook, remarks. Our sanctification does not depend upon changing our works, but in doing that for God's sake which we commonly do for our own…. It is a great delusion to think that the times of prayer ought to differ from other times. We are as strictly obliged to adhere to God by action in the time of action as by prayer in the season of prayer.

Deciding to fill our minds with God is how we keep our hearts. To listen to his Word and nourish our whole beings with it is not a nice thing we might do occasionally. Our very lives depend upon it.

In particular, I had learned that intensity is crucial for any progress in spiritual perception and understanding. To dribble a few verses or chapters of scripture on oneself through the week, in church or out, will not reorder one's mind and spirit—just as one drop of water every five minutes will not get you a shower, no matter how long you keep it up. You need a lot of water at once and for a sufficiently long time. Similarly for the written Word.

Two main things that will block or hinder a life constantly interactive with God and healthy growth in the kingdom. These are the desire to have the approval of others, especially for being devout, and the desire to secure ourselves by means of material wealth.

This is the essence of the death-to-self life: that we should no longer live for ourselves, but for him who died for us and rose again.

The missing note in evangelical life today is not in the first instance spirituality but rather obedience. We have generated a variety of religion to which obedience is not regarded as essential.

We cannot behave "on the spot" as he did and taught if in the rest of our time we live as everybody else does.

Content with beholding His face, My all to His pleasure resigned; No changes of season or place Would make any change in my mind; While blessed with a sense of his love, A palace a toy would appear; And prisons would palaces prove, If Jesus would dwell with me there.

The people who love God with all their heart are those whose will is totally devoted to what is good for God.

Nowhere is it more important to be in a conversational relationship with God than in our prayer life.