This Sunday’s readings: James 2:14-26

Reflections

Just as our love for God begins with listening to God’s Word, the beginning of love for other Christians is learning to listen to them.
~ Dietrich Bonhöffer

What God said to Abraham was not ‘Obey this law and I will bless you’, but ‘I will bless you; believe my promise’
~ John Stott, 1921-2011, Anglican Priest/Theologian

Faith is not the belief that God will do what you want. It is the belief that God will do what is right.
~ Max Lucado, 1955- , American Author/Minister

I find your lack of faith … disturbing.
~ Darth Vader, Cyborg Sith Lord

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Hope has two beautiful daughters Their names are anger and courage; anger at the way things are, and courage to see that they do not remain the way they are.
~ Augustine of Hippo, 354-430, Theologian/Philosopher

The paradox of courage is that a man must be a little careless of his life even in order to keep it.
~ G.K. Chesterton, 1874-1936, Writer/Apologist

God will not have his work made manifest by cowards.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Those who have been justified are now being sanctified; those who have no experience of present sanctification have no reason to suppose they have been justified.
~ F.F. Bruce, 1910-1990, British Scholar/Theologian

“When we are securely rooted in personal intimacy with the source of life, it will be possible to remain flexible without being relativistic, convinced without being rigid, willing to confront without being offensive, gentle and forgiving without being soft, and true witnesses without being manipulative.”
~ Henri Nouwen, 1932-1996, Dutch Catholic priest

What are you doing right now that requires faith?
~ Francis Chan, Crazy Love

This Sunday’s readings: James 2:5-17

Reflections

Just as our love for God begins with listening to God’s Word, the beginning of love for other Christians is learning to listen to them.
~ Dietrich Bonhöffer

The woman says to herself and to anyone who will listen, “I thank you God that you didn’t make me and my husband Claude black. But if the choice was between making me black and making me white trash, God, I would rather you make me black. I couldn’t bear to be white trash.”

The book struck her directly, over her left eye. It struck almost at the same instant that she realized the girl was about to hurl it. Before she could utter a sound, the raw face came crashing across the table toward her, howling. The girl’s fingers sank like clamps around the soft flesh of her neck. (The Girl is ‘Mary Grace’)
~ Flannery O’Connor, Revelation

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The really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad petty little unsexy ways, every day. That is real freedom. The alternative is unconsciousness, the default-setting, the ‘rat race’ — the constant gnawing sense of having had and lost some infinite thing.
~ David Foster Wallace, 1962-2008, American author and professor

The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it’s indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it’s indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it’s indifference.
~ Elie Wiesel, 1928-2016, Romanian-American Writer and Professor

Justice is for those who deserve it; mercy is for those who don’t.
~ Woodrow Kroll, 1944- , Preacher/Radio Host

Evil begins when you begin to treat people as things.
~ Terry Pratchett, 1948-2016, I Shall Wear Midnight

Nothing is easier than to denounce the evildoer; nothing is more difficult than to understand him.
~ Fyodor Dostoevsky, 1821-1881, Russian Novelist