“And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.”
— The Letter to the Hebrews
God's Grace is Sufficient (Matthew 6:25-34)
“‘Be not anxious for the morrow’: either that is cruel mockery for the poor and wretched, the very people Jesus is talking to who, humanly speaking, really will starve if they do not make provision to-day… or it is the unique proclamation of the gospel of the glorious liberty of the children of God, who have a Father in heaven, a Father who has given his beloved Son. How shall not God with him also freely give us all things?”
— Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship
Ezekiel's Call (Ezekiel 2:1-10, 3:1-15)
“The Bible, all of it, is livable; it is the text for living our lives. It reveals a God-created, God-ordered, God-blessed world in which we find ourselves at home and whole.”
— Eugene H. Peterson, Eat This Book: A Conversation in the Art of Spiritual Reading
Look to the Cross (John 19:16b-42)
“Six days shall you labor
The seventh is the Lord's
In six He made the earth and all the heavens
But He rested on the seventh
God rested
He said that it was finished
And the seventh day, He blessed it
God rested.”
—Andrew Peterson
The Psalm of Jonah (Jonah 2:1-10)
“There’s a wideness in God’s mercy I cannot find in my own,
And He keeps His fire burning, to melt this heart of stone;
Keeps me aching with a yearning, keeps me glad to have been caught,
In the reckless raging fury that they call the love of God.”
—Rich Mullins