This Sunday’s readings: James 1:9-15
Reflections
No evil dooms us hopelessly except the evil we love, and desire to continue in, and make no effort to escape from.
~ George Eliot, Daniel Deronda
The greatest temptations are not those that solicit our consent to obvious sin, but those that offer us great evils masking as the greatest goods.
~ Thomas Merton, No Man Is an Island
There is something deeper than obedience because of duty, and that is obedience because of devotion.
~ W. W. Wiersbe, 1929-2019, American pastor
For you will certainly carry out God’s purpose, however you act, but it makes a difference to you whether you serve like Judas or like John.
~ C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain
Laws and principles are not for the times when there is no temptation: they are for such moments as this, when body and soul rise in mutiny against their rigour … If at my convenience I might break them, what would be their worth?
~ Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre
There’s too much tendency to attribute to God the evils that man does of his own free will.
~ Agatha Christie
Ultimately, it is the desire, not the desired, that we love.
~ Friedrich Nietzsche
[T]he Will is always determined by the strongest motive…
~ Jonathan Edwards, 1703-1758, Freedom Of The Will
No one can get Joy by merely asking for it. It is one of the ripest fruits of the Christian life, and, like all fruits, must be grown.
~ Henry Drummond, 1851-1897, Evangelist, Biologist, Writer