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d162914
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Fallen man is not simply an imperfect creature who needs improvement: he is a rebel who must lay down his arms." --C. S. Lewis" --
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Randy Alcorn |
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37cdc02
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The vigor of our spiritual life will be in exact proportion to the place held by the Bible in our life and thoughts." --George Muller"
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Randy Alcorn |
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2d03137
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Andrew Carnegie said, "The almighty dollar bequeathed to a child is an almighty curse. No man has the right to handicap his son with such a burden as great wealth."
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Randy Alcorn |
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75a156a
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All your life an unattainable ecstasy has hovered just beyond the grasp of your consciousness. The day is coming when you will wake to find, beyond all hope, that you have attained it, or else, that it was within your reach and you have lost it forever.
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Randy Alcorn |
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1ef1aa7
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The people who change lives are the ones who point us away from the world's short-term perspective to God's long-term perspective. Life on earth is a dot, a brief window of opportunity; life in Heaven (and ultimately on the New Earth) is a line going out from that dot for eternity. If we're smart, we'll live not for the dot, but for the line.
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Randy Alcorn |
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94394b1
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If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world." --C. S. Lewis"
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Randy Alcorn |
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22f7c38
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Forgiveness is a matter of choice, not feelings. We demonstrate true forgiveness when we refuse to brood over the sins committed against us.
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Randy Alcorn |
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f541bb6
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Ever seen that bumper sticker "He who dies with the most toys wins"? Millions of people act as if it were true. The more accurate saying is "He who dies with the most toys still dies--and never takes his toys with him." When we die after devoting our lives to acquiring things, we don't win--we lose. We move into eternity, but our toys stay behind, filling junkyards. The bumper sticker couldn't be more wrong."
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Randy Alcorn |
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9c42967
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The average American shops six hours a week while spending forty minutes playing with his children.
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Randy Alcorn |
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72db432
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He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose." --Jim Elliot"
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Randy Alcorn |
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9aafd0a
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If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were precisely those who thought most of the next." --C. S. Lewis"
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Randy Alcorn |
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e516daa
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Religion professor Albert Wolters, in Creation Regained, writes, "[God] hangs on to his fallen original creation and salvages it. He refuses to abandon the work of his hands--in fact, he sacrifices his own Son to save his original project. Humankind, which has botched its original mandate and the whole creation along with it, is given another chance in Christ; we are reinstated as God's managers on earth. The original good creation is to be..
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Randy Alcorn |
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dff0ce7
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The Spirit's work is not to make us holy, in order that we may be pardoned; but to show us the cross, where the pardon is to be found by the unholy; so that having found the pardon there, we may begin the life of holiness to which we are called." --Horatius Bonar"
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Randy Alcorn |
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63419d1
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To be truly happy--a man must have sources of gladness which are not dependent on anything in this world." --J. C. Ryle"
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Randy Alcorn |
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5f5fa91
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God could have created us without loving us, but He would not have gone to the Cross without loving us.
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Randy Alcorn |
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083c636
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When our sin reached its full horror, God's love was displayed in all its glory. If you doubt God's love for you, look at the cross.
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Randy Alcorn |
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ea66139
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God does something to us as well as for us through the cross. He persuades us that He loves us." --Sinclair Ferguson"
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Randy Alcorn |
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76ea0fd
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When we become proud, we operate outside the grace God only gives to the humble. Humility preserves us; pride destroys us.
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Randy Alcorn |
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007f650
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When I believe ultimate happiness is found only in God, then I will shut out distractions and open His Word.
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Randy Alcorn |
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b273fe9
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The kingdom of God . . . does not mean merely the salvation of certain individuals nor even the salvation of a chosen group of people. It means nothing less than the complete renewal of the entire cosmos, culminating in the new heaven and the new earth. Anthony Hoekema
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Randy Alcorn |
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7ad720e
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The Bible tells us we are pilgrims, strangers, aliens and ambassadors working far from home. Our citizenship is in Heaven. But we've become so attached to this world that we live for the wrong kingdom. We forget our true home, built for us by our Bridegroom. Nothing is more often misdiagnosed than our homesickness for Heaven. We think that what we want is money, sex, drugs, alcohol, a new job, a raise, a doctorate, a spouse, a large-screen ..
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Randy Alcorn |
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2c5517a
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You will be enriched in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion" (2 Corinthians 9:11)."
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Randy Alcorn |
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ba7fbe0
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Whether or not the tithe is still the minimal measure of those firstfruits, I ask myself, Does God expect His New Covenant children to give less or more? Jesus raised the spiritual bar; He never lowered it (Matthew 5:27-28).
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Randy Alcorn |
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f0870c1
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Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted" (Matthew 23:12)."
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Randy Alcorn |
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9f324b1
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For anyone who knows what it is to weep over sin or loss or pain, Heaven offers a beautiful promise: one day God himself will wipe the tears from our eyes. And even better, one day he will transform those tears into laughter. The Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Revelation 7:17
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Randy Alcorn |
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acf410b
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God alone is the Fountain of Life. Without Him there could be neither life nor joy, neither abundance nor delights.
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Randy Alcorn |
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7b1d58a
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C. S. Lewis put it this way: We are halfhearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at sea. We are far too easily pleased.5 Even many Christians have settled for a life of unsatisfying material acquisitions, like making mud pies in a slum.
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Randy Alcorn |
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fb8a5ef
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So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.
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Randy Alcorn |
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8f12bb0
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Whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him" (Hebrews 11:6, emphasis added). Call that payoff contentment, satisfaction, peace, or excitement--it all adds up to one word: happiness"
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Randy Alcorn |
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6b141e6
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When I speak elsewhere in the book of the multifaceted joys of the resurrected life in the new universe, some readers may think, But our eyes should be on the giver, not the gift; we must focus on God, not on Heaven. This approach sounds spiritual, but it erroneously divorces our experience of God from life, relationships, and the world--all of which God graciously gives us. It sees the material realm and other people as God's competitors r..
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Randy Alcorn |
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90f83b1
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In the silence punctuated only by their footsteps, both men thought not of themselves but of a Man who once made a long,lonely march up a hill, who in the world's worst hour did the most courageous thing ever done. At the end of His climb,He spread out His arms and permitted guilty men to drive nails into His hands and feet. He endured untold agony to give undeserving men- like Mike Hollis, Derrick Freeman, Nathan Hayes, and Adam Mitchell- ..
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Randy Alcorn |
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9a26d2c
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the video Homesick for Heaven:
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Randy Alcorn |
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ec543ac
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C. S. Lewis depicts another source of our misconceptions about Heaven: naturalism, the belief that the world can be understood in scientific terms, without recourse to spiritual or supernatural explanations.
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Randy Alcorn |
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d1781dd
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So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. (NIV)
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Randy Alcorn |
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863e128
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Our degree of happiness in life largely depends on: the amount of happiness we believe should be rightfully ours our ability to find delight in a fallen world God will redeem our ability to see the little things--the ten thousand reasons for happiness that surround us that we easily ignore
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Randy Alcorn |
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a837609
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Tozer wrote, When the followers of Jesus Christ lose their interest in heaven they will no longer be happy Christians, and when they are no longer happy Christians they cannot be a powerful force in a sad and sinful world.
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Randy Alcorn |
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adc8b18
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We see that the world seeks happiness instead of holiness. Therefore, we assume we should do the opposite. But we're wrong.
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Randy Alcorn |
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4f3c883
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Octavius Winslow was a prominent evangelical preacher in the 1800s. He said of the Holy Spirit, "It is his aim . . . to increase our happiness by making us more holy."[717]"
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Randy Alcorn |
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8de8bbc
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Thomas Watson (1620-1686), a Puritan preacher and author, said, "He has no design upon us, but to make us happy. . . . Who should be cheerful, if not the people of God?"
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Randy Alcorn |
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ca87693
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SCRIVEN (1820-1886) wrote "What a Friend We Have in Jesus" after his fiancee drowned. George Matheson (1842-1906) wrote "O Love That Wilt Not Let Me Go" after his fiancee rejected him because he was going blind."
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Randy Alcorn |
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6370207
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Sinclair Ferguson writes, "Christian contentment is the direct fruit of having no higher ambition than to belong to the Lord and to be totally at His disposal in the place He appoints, at the time He chooses, with the provision He is pleased to make."
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Randy Alcorn |
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3ee2dee
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If you know you can fall, you make wise choices to keep yourself from falling.
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Randy Alcorn |
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e3c1a50
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It's possible for someone to act sacrificially and selflessly in the best interests of others while enjoying the fruit: feeling good about having done well and receiving God's approval and reward.
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Randy Alcorn |
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c99a869
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We should thank God for every stream of joy in our lives while recognizing that Christ is the ocean from which every stream flows.
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Randy Alcorn |