May 14, 2018
The root of all sin is shame.
May 4,2018
“You don’t protect the gospel by denying your own spiritual struggles, and God surely doesn’t need you to defend his reputation. ” Paul Tripp, New Morning Mercies, Nov 9
April 2, 2018
You can buy people’s presence, but you cannot buy their hearts. You have to earn them. You can buy people’s competencies, but you cannot buy their trust. You have to earn it.
January 24, 2018
“I must hearken to the gospel, which teacheth me, not what I ought to do…but what Jesus the Son of God hath done for me.” Luther (Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians)
Monday, March 13, 2017
“The more you fear God’s judgement than delight in His grace the more you will never be honest or confess.” Mark Bates
“If you are not continually confessing, it is not because you are not sinning, but because you don’t believe His grace.” Mark Bates
Monday, March 6, 2017
Somehow a couple of Mondays seemed to slip by. No idea how that happened!! Anyways – here are this weeks quotes…from me!
“Grace is not opposed to effort. It is opposed to earning.” (me)
“As believers, you can stop trying to be close to God because you already are.” In other words, I need to stop confusing my inattention with Him being distant.
“Obedience is never about earning God’s love. It is about experiencing God’s love.”
Monday, February 13, 2017
“Everything about grace rotates around Jesus.” – Darrel Bock
“Forgiveness is more important to the one who forgives than it is to the one forgiven.” – Joan Chittister
“In solitude we remember we are not what anybody thinks of us – we are sheep tended to by the Shepherd.” – John Ortberg
Monday, February 6, 2017
“Christ is not a means to an end for the Christian – he is the end. He is the wealth we long for.” – Jerry Bridges
“…isn’t an attitude of self-righteousness and self-sufficiency in itself an insult to God? Such attitudes represent a quiet insubordination cloaked in good works and self-justification.” – Jerry Bridges
Monday,January 30, 2017
To be right with God the judge is a great thing, but to be loved and cared for by God the Father is greater. —J.I. Packer
“The radical grace of the gospel transforms servanthood into friendship. Only grace can free us to obey Jesus out of friendship and worship, and no longer out of fear or self-interest.” – Scotty Smith on John 15:12-17, Gospel Transformation Bible:
Monday, January 23, 2017
Today’s quotes come from my reading of David Benner’s book, The Gift of Being Yourself. Don’t let the title mislead you, it is a highly gospel-centric book that will make you pause and ponder almost every paragraph. If you journal thoughts from what you read, you’ll probably need a couple of pens. Here are just a few quotes for you to ponder.
- “Coming to know and trust God’s love is a lifelong process…Every time I dare to meet God is the vulnerability of my sin and shame, this knowing is strengthened. Every time I fall back into a self-improvement mode and try to bring God my best self, it is weakened.”
- “As we see how deeply we are loved by God…we dare to allow God more complete access to the dark parts of our soul that most need transformation.”
- “…the dark side of pretending is what begins as a role becomes an identity…Our masks have become our reality, and we have become our lies.”
Monday January 17, 2017
This week I thought I would re-post my Twitter tweets from this past week. I am usually in a quandary as to where to pass on the thoughts I am pondering. Some get posted here, some in my weekly blog, some on Twitter. Most never make it past my journal. You can follow my ponderings on Twitter at @billtell.
- “Our behavior follows our affections.”
- “My willpower cannot change my affections”
- “The gospel is the power of God for my maturing.”
Monday, December 26, 2016
“God receives the “good” works that we offer him not because they are good enough, but because he is.” – Bryan Chapell
“We live in response to his love, not to qualify for it…obedience is…not a bribe for blessings.” – Bryan Chapell
Monday, December 12, 2016
“The size of a problem can be measured by the degree to which one must go to remedy it.” – Steve Brown
“The truth is, each of us owns a false self, and without intervention, it will be the rudder that steers our living…The false self is a facade that we construct in order to gain love and acceptance in the world, a mask of counterfeit adequacy…It is our unreal identity, controlling and defining us.” – Judith Hougen
Monday, December 5, 2016
“The answer to anxiety is awe.” – Bryan Chapell
“The object of my trust is more significant than my effort.” – Bill Thrall
“The battle isn’t just to do differently, but to believe differently…” Bob Flayhart
Monday, November 21, 2016
On Philippians 3:7-8, “But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss…I consider everything as a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ…I consider them rubbish.”
“You have to trash your flesh, but treasure the savior…self worth comes from what Christ has done, not what I have done.” Bryan Chapell – 11.13.16 Sermon
You can never have trust without truth. (from my Twitter this week)
“You are forever freed from the burden of trying your best to earn what Jesus already purchased for you in his life, death, and resurrection.” – P. Tripp
Monday, November 14, 2016
I am limiting this weeks gospel quotes to just one…it is that profound and significant.
“An idol is anything more fundamental than God to your happiness, meaning in life or identity…Jesus must become more beautiful to your imagination, more attractive to your heart than your idol.” – Tim Keller
Monday, November 7, 2016
Here are some quotes from a recent retreat with Dr. Bryan Chapell, president emeritus of Covenant Seminary and Sr. Pastor of Grace Presbyterian Church in Peoria, IL.
“We deal with people according to their identity, not their behavior.”
“We walk in the light as a result of Christ’s work, we don’t walk in the light to overcome the darkness.”
“If you are dead and Christ lives in you, the only identity you have is in Christ.”
Monday, October 17, 2016
Here are some quotes from Scotty Smith’s notes on the Gospel of John:
“When we trust in our own cleverness or obedience or resources or abilities, we abhor God’s grace.”
“Nothing is as disruptive as grace.”
“The gospel is an unrelenting assault on graceless religion, on all the ways we try to avoid grace…Grace confounds our law saturated, self-accomplishing expectations of what activates divine mercy.”
Monday, October 10, 2016
“We live in a world of immense invisibility” – Eugene Peterson
“Grace is not a new concept with Jesus.” Bryan Chapell
“Circumstances do not dictate decisions, convictions do. Without conviction, opportunity will be my greatest enemy.” – Bill Thrall
Monday, October 3, 2016
“God wants the intimacy of our friendship, not our fear.” – D. Benner
“Grace is totally alien to human psychology.” D. Benner
“The soul cries out to be free, but the common perception is that Christianity stands in the way of freedom.” – J. Ortberg
Monday, September 26, 2016
This weeks quotes are coming to you from Singapore as will this weeks blog.
“What God says about me must always overrule my opinion of myself.” – me
“You are forever freed from the burden of trying your best to earn what Jesus already purchased for you…” Paul Tripp
“You are called to take up your cross and follow Jesus, but doing so doesn’t buy you His affection. No, the cross accomplished that.” – Paul Tripp
Monday, September 12, 2016
“Spiritual heroism is not what qualifies us…There is only one hero in the gospel story: Jesus himself.” _Scotty Smith
“Community happens one relationship at a time; therefore it is never beyond your grasp.” – B. Thrall
Being a leader that is trusted and respected, “involves an ever-expanding search for ways to care for and improve the circumstances of others.” – Thrall, McNicol, McElrath
Monday, September 5, 2016
“If is is anything less than a response to love, Christ following isn’t fully Christian.” – D. Benner
“One of the hardest things in the world is to be right and not hurt other people with it.” – D.Willard
“The soul cannot give up its idols by sheer willpower.” – J. Ortberg
PS: You can also follow me on Twitter @billtell
Monday July 18, 2016
“…language has created the word ‘loneliness’ to express the pain of being alone. And it has created the word ‘solitude’ to express the glory of being alone.” – Paul Tillich
Monday, July 11, 2016
“…God has so identified himself with his words that whatever someone does to God’s words…they do to God himself.” Timothy Ward
Monday, July 4, 2016
“We live in a world of immense invisibility.” Eugene Peterson
“Never confuse morality with a changed heart.” Tim Keller
“Possibility is a hint from God…” Soren Kierkegaard
Monday, June 27, 2016
“There is a tremendous relief in knowing that His love for me is utterly realistic, based at every point on prior knowledge of the worst about me, so that no discovery can disillusion Him about me…” J.I. Packer, Knowing God
“I can come to the Father like this, feeling dirty as a pig in mud and He is always glad to see me.” Larry Crabb, Soul Talk
Monday, June 6, 2016
“One of the most horrible distortions of God’s true nature is that which makes God into the kind of person who uses His love and grace as a weapon to force obedience. In other words, grace becomes not so much a fact of His very nature — the way He naturally behaves and in so doing wins my love and obedience; rather it is something He does for me, and then throws it up in my face in order to put me under obligation to do all sorts of things I have neither the inclination nor the resources to do…Grace has tried to compel a response by ceasing to be grace…” – Joseph Cooke in Free for the Taking.
Monday, May 30, 2016
“God is always good and I am always loved.” – Ann Voskamp
“Our relationship with God and relationship with others are two sides of the same coin.” – Peter Scazzero
“Every faith is ‘narrow.’ Even the faith that says all faiths are equal excludes those who disagree.” – Tim Keller
Monday, May 23, 2016
“Christianity is not about our disciplined pursuit of God, but about God’s relentless pursuit of us.” – Peter Scazzero
“Hints of unconditional love from humans makes the possibility of absolutely unconditional divine love imaginable.” – David Benner
“Most of us have large tracts of our inner world that are excluded from God’s transforming love and friendship…It is like going to the doctor for a checkup and denying any problems, focusing only on the parts of oneself that are most healthy. As Christ himself said, the healthy have no need of a physician.” – David Benner
Monday, May 16, 2016
Here is a gospel principle: Our identity (who we are in Christ) is always more significant than our behavior.
“We have become children of an impatient world to such an extent that our behavior often expresses the view that prayer is a waste of time” – Henri Nouwen\
Monday, May 9, 2016
“Ultimately, the gospel is not about us establishing a relationship with Jesus; it is about Jesus establishing a relationship with us…” – Scotty Smith
“The new life that the gospel brings is not a new set of clever strategies, or spiritual rehabilitation, or fresh resolve to live in a new way out of our old resources. It is an utterly new and foreign importation of divine power that changes us at the very core of who we are. We are changed from the inside out. It is a transformation so profound that even our very desires are changed. The Bible calls this regeneration, or new birth (Titus 3:5).” – Greg Gilbert
Monday, May 2, 2016
God’s love for me comes from His character (I John 4:8). My behavior does not change His character and therefor His love for me is steadfast.
[You can follow a lot more of my quotes and thoughts on Twitter. My address is @billtell]
Monday, April 18, 2016
“Being in a hurry. Getting to the next thing without fully entering the thing in front of me. I cannot think of a single advantage I’ve ever gained from being in a hurry. But a thousand broken and missed things, tens of thousands, lie in the wake of all the rushing…Through all that haste I thought I was making up time. It turns out I was throwing it away” – Mark Buchanan
“…hurry and impatience are sure marks of the amateur.” – Evelyn Underhill
“Hurry always empties a soul” – Ann Voskamp
Monday, April 11, 2016
“We have as Christians never had less impact on our culture, because we have become judges of the morality of our culture, rather than lovers of the people in our culture.” – Bill Thrall
The antidote to our sins is not more rules. It is the gospel of grace.
Monday, April 4, 2016
“Spiritual authority depends more on care given than power wielded.” – Dan Doriani
“The objective is not to build communities appearing to have sin under control. The objective is to nurture a place safe enough where people can stop faking they have sin under control.” – John Lynch
“It is impossible to be free as long as your thoughts and attitudes are in agreement with the father of lies.” – Jack Frost
Monday, March 28, 2016
“The gospel is personal, but it is not private.” – Scotty Smith
“Performance is a cracked cistern that can never be filled.” – Cynthia Hagen
“Jesus taught that no asceticism, however well it might be practiced, can be the source of liberation.” – Gerald May
Monday, March 21, 2016
The advance of the gospel requires leaders with passion. Here is a quote from Perry Noble’s new book, The Most Excellent Way to Lead.
“Only leaders who are willing to put all they’ve got on the line to fulfill their passion make a difference.”
“Healing our image of God heals our image of ourselves.” – Brennan Manning
“We attach our wills to the belief that something less than God will satisfy us.” – Peter Scazzero
Monday, March 14, 2016
“Here is a spiritual principle: We cannot exercise love unless we are experiencing grace. You cannot truly love others unless you are convinced that God’s love for you is unconditional, based solely on the merit of Christ, not your performance.” – Jerry Bridges
* * * *
“…the degree of Abba’s love for me is in direct proportion to His love for Jesus.” (John 17:23) – Brennan Manning
* * * *
I plucked this “quote” from google images. I would use a different word than magic, maybe words like dream, vision, mission, etc., but you get the idea.
Monday, March 7, 2016
“It wasn’t that [certain Christians in the book of Acts] didn’t believe in grace at all. They did. They believed in grace a lot. They just didn’t believe in grace alone.” – Max Lucado
“God does not share our low opinion of ourselves…we are not dirt to Him. We are His children, loved, cherished, accepted. We are His.” – Joseph Cooke
Monday, February 29, 2016
“Grace is not a universal solvent to wash away God’s standards.” – Bryan Chapell
“For some reason, in our culture we have swallowed…the lie that busyness equals importance.” – Lance Witt
“The intention not to sin is not the same as the power not to sin. God did not design us to conquer sin on our own.” – Thrall, McNicol and Lynch
Monday, February 22, 2016
“A new heart. A new Spirit. A new start. If God’s people are going to obey…it won’t be by trying harder. It will be by God’s Spirit dwelling in them.” – Darrell Bock
“The gospel is not about death but about a death that leads many into life. It is not about avoiding something but gaining someone precious.” – Darrell Bock
“Lasting service comes when we serve God from his acceptance, not for his acceptance.” – Bryan Chapell
Monday, February 15, 2016
“Grace means undeserved kindness. It is the gift of God to man the moment he sees he is unworthy of God’s favor.” ~ Dwight L. Moody