Quotes about Devotion

if you will here stop and ask yourself why you are not as pious as the primitive Christians were, your own heart will tell you that it is neither through ignorance nor inability, but purely because you never thoroughly intended it.

The intellect is good. Our natural abilities of perception are good, and they are not opposed to faith. Please hear me: our natural abilities are not opposed to faith. Yes, we live by faith and not by sight, but try not using your sight at all and see how that works. When Jesus walked this earth, he used all of his human powers—all of them—and we are called to devote all of our human powers to God in order that we might live under him as he intended.

Humble yourself. This is your one duty.

You must make the decision to have Jesus with you. A decision is an inward resolve to do whatever is necessary to bring something to pass.

Making sure to leave the evening free as the start of your time with Jesus.

Our challenge is to fill our hours, minutes, and actions from day to day with the appropriate amount of love for God's creation and creating, and then work to produce more of the good he has put in this world. This is every person's calling.

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.