Reading is from James 5:13-18
The primary use of prayer, … is not for expressing ourselves but in becoming ourselves, and we cannot do that alone. In praying the Psalms with others, then, we learn to become more and more ourselves in the company of the faithful.
~ W. David O. Taylor, 1972- , Professor of Theology, The Open and Unafraid
There are only two kinds of people: the righteous who think they are sinners and the sinners who think they are righteous. ~ Blaise Pascal, 1623-1662, Pensées
Faith, if you like, can be defined like this: It is a man insisting upon thinking when everything seems determined to bludgeon and knock him down in an intellectual sense. The trouble with the person of little faith is that, instead of controlling his own thought, his thought is being controlled by something else [circumstances, for example], and, as we put it, he goes round and round in circles. That is the essence of worry. . . . That is not thought; that is the absence of thought, a failure to think. ~ D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, 1899-1981, Studies in the Sermon on the Mount
Christian hope rests upon the fact not that evil can be ignored, or that it will simply fade away, but that it has been judged at the cross.
~ David F. Wells, 1939- , (Zimbabwe) theologian, professor and author
As a pastor, I’ve had people come to me and confess that they struggle with almost every kind of sin. Almost. I cannot recall anyone ever coming to me and saying, “I spend too much money on myself. I think my greedy lust for money is harming my family, my soul, and people around me.
~ Timothy Keller, ‘We Can’t See Our Own Greed’, Preaching Today
Every day God patiently bears with us, and every day we are tempted to become impatient with our friends, neighbors, and loved ones. And our faults and failures before God are so much more serious than the petty actions of others that tend to irritate us! God calls us to graciously bear with the weaknesses of others, tolerating them and forgiving them even as He has forgiven us.
~ Jerry Bridges, 1929-2016, The Practice of Godliness (NavPress, 1996).