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God’s Kingdom: “a sphere of rulership, in which his will is done in the fallen world as it is in the sinless heavens; in which cruelty and disorder and the distortion caused by sin are supplanted by love, order and righteousness. Loving obedience to God produces much more than individual goodness, respectability and the alleviation of suffering. It builds the kingdom of heaven.”
—Richard Lovelace, Renewal as a Way of Life
“All flesh is grass, and all its beauty is like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades when the breath of the LORD blows on it; surely the people are grass. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.”
—Isaiah
“The Church’s one foundation
Is Jesus Christ her Lord;
She is his new creation,
By water and the word;
From Heav’n he came and sought her
To be his holy bride;
With his own blood he bought her,
And for her life he died.”
—Samuel Stone
“It is love who mixed the mortar
And it’s love who stacked these stones
And it’s love who made the stage here
Although it looks like we’re alone
In this scene, set in shadows,
Like the night is here to stay
There is evil cast around us
But it’s love that wrote the play
For in this darkness love can show the way”
—David Wilcox, “Love Will Show the Way”
“The blood, the soil, the faith
These words you can’t forget
Your vow, your holy place
O love, aren’t you tired yet?”
—Leonard Cohen
“Love is not an idea for Paul, not even a ‘motivating factor’ for behavior. It is behavior. To love is to act; anything short of action is not love at all.”
—Gordon Fee, Commentary on 1 Corinthians
“When God sets out to embrace the enemy, the result is the cross. On the cross the dancing circle of self-giving and mutually indwelling divine persons opens up for the enemy; in the agony of the passion the movement stops for a brief moment and a fissure appears so that sinful humanity can join in. We, the others—we, the enemies—are embraced by the divine persons who love us with the same love with which they love each other and therefore make space within their own eternal embrace.”
—Miroslav Volf
“Thy mercy, my God, is the theme of my song,
The joy of my heart, and the boast of my tongue.
Thy free grace alone, from the first to the last
Has won my affections and bound my soul fast.”
— John Stocker, 1776
“What riches of kindness he lavished on us.
His blood was the payment, his life was the cost.
We stood ‘neath a debt we could never afford.
Our sins, they are many, his mercy is more.”
— “His Mercy Is More,” Matt Papa and Matt Boswell
“Malice will never drive out malice. But if someone does evil to you, you should do good to him, so that by your good work you will destroy his malice.”
— The Wisdom of the Desert, Thomas Merton
“Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”
— Romans 12:21