...never go to look on man till you have first looked on your God.
Interpretation
Focus on divine guidance before seeking human advice.
This quote emphasizes the importance of seeking spiritual wisdom and understanding from God before turning to human opinions or perspectives. It suggests that divine insight can provide clarity and direction that human advice may not offer, and that our relationship with the divine should be prioritized in decision-making and understanding life's challenges.
In practice
Using the quote in a sermon about prioritizing faith in life's decisions.
Amusement should be used to do us good “like a medicine”: it must never be used as the food of the man...Many have had all holy thoughts and gracious resolutions stamped out by perpetual trifling. Pleasure so called is the murderer of thought. This is the age of excessive amusement: everybody craves for it, like a babe for its rattle.
When you see no present advantage, walk by faith and not by sight. Do God the honor to trust Him when it comes to matters of loss for the sake of principle.
It is far easier to fight with sin in public than to pray against it in private.
You will never glory in God till first of all God has killed your glorying in yourself.
After faith comes repentance, or, rather, repentance is faith's twin brother and is born at the same time.
["All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth unto such as keep his covenant."] The original Hebrew word that has been translated "paths" means "well-worn roads' or "wheel tracks," such ruts as wagons make when they go down our green roads in wet weather and sink in up to the axles. God's ways are at times like heavy wagon tracks that cut deep into our souls, yet all of them are merciful.
Drink not the third glass, which thou canst not tame, when once it is within thee.
Trust not to your feelings for whatever they might be now, they will quickly be changed towards some other thing.
It is less difficult to bear misfortunes than to remain uncorrupted by pleasure.
I would run into the corner store, the bodega, and just grab a paper bag or buy juice - anything just to get a paper bag. And I'd write the words on the paper bag and stuff these ideas in my pocket until I got back. Then I would transfer them into the notebook.
He pleaded so much that he lost his voice. His bones began to fill with words.
"Don't bother too much about your feelings. When they are humble, loving, brave, give thanks for them; when they are conceited, selfish, cowardly, ask to have them altered. In neither case are they you, but only a thing that happens to you. What matters is your intentions and your behavior
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.