Memorable quotations from what I've read over Lent

All of the books I read over Lent pertained to spiritual growth of some kind. While it was difficult to get myself to read so many "informational" books all at once, I think I learned a lot. Here are some of my favorite quotes. (Sadly, I did not start recording them until I was a few books into the project, but the ones I do have I think are very helpful :) )

-From Dallas Willard's "The Spirit of the Disciplines"

"The secret to the easy yoke is immersing and persisting in the overall style of life that characterized Jesus"

"A close look at Jesus' great acts of humility, faith, and compassion recorded in the gospel narratives finds them to be moments in a life more pervasively and deeply characterized by solitude, fasting, prayer, and service. Surely, then, the lives of his followers must be just as deeply characterized by those same practices"

"We must to the root of the poisonous assumption that normal acts are excluded from our life in God"

"The human body was made to be the vehicle of human personality ruling the earth for God and through his power. Withdrawn from that function by loss of it's connection with God, the body is caught in the inevitable state of corruption in which we find it now. "

"In that desert solitude (Jesus 40 days of fasting), Jesus fasted for more than a month. Then, and not before was Satan allowed to approach Him with his glittering proposals of notoriety and power. Only then was Jesus at the height of His strength. The desert was his fortress, His place of power." (This particular quote presents the temptation of Jesus in a different way than I had thought of before, and will probably get it's own blog post)

"A discipline for the spiritual life cannot be identified merely by the externals of the associated action. It, like the circumcision of the Jews, is a matter of a meeting of external and internal conditions; that is, outward manifestation and inward motivation must both be right. Rejection of spiritual disciplines because of an identification of them wit the outward acts alone simply does not go the heart of the matter."

"The spiritual life is a life of interaction with a personal God"

"Christianity is not, at it's heart, a collection of dogmas or practices of ideas or confessions; it is a life, and more particularly, it is Christ's life into which the faithful are joined and have their share. Christians are those who live their lives "in Christ" as participants in his life of self-sacrificial glory."


-From a collection of essays on Baptism from different denominations:

(From the essay by an Epispocal priest)"Some signs, like $5 bills, actually are what they represent; but other signs, such as Mcdonald's stylized M, point beyond themselves to something else." (Maybe this is a little bit obvious, but given that the context was the discussion of baptism, he was arguing that while everyone agrees that baptism is a sign, some think it is more than that, and some think it is only that)

"(On the process that is followed after baptism) When [the child] comes to the years of discretion, which might be anywhere from 7-14 years of age, the child makes a personal commitment to Christ in the rite of confirmation and receives the laying on of hands from the Bishop with prayer for the strengthening gifts of the Holy Spirit."

From the essay on Baptism by a Baptist pastor:

"Baptists have tended to spiritualize becoming a Christian so that Spirit and Water Baptism have become separated in a way that is untrue to the new testament...Baptists would do better to avoid the danger of over-spiritualizing and internalizing conversion and Christian faith."

"Baptism is in the name of the Triune God, and Baptists often use this as a formula spoken at the moment of immersion. It means this, but it also means more than this. It is a semitic phrase that means that in baptism, a person is brought into an existence that is fundamentally determined and ruled by God-Father, Son, and Holy Spirit."

"To separate baptism from conversion is to depart from New Testament baptism. If [the children] are old enough to believe in Christ, then they are old enough to be baptized."

(This is a summarization of what I read, not an exact quote. As such, I will probably expound on my thoughts in another post)The rejection of infant baptism is tied directly to the rejection of Original sin. Instead of believing that infants are born in sin and should therefore be baptized, infants are believed to be born in innocence and therefore lack the need to be baptized.

-From "Beginning to Pray by Anthony Bloom:

"Too often, the kind of thanksgiving we offer is too much a general thanksgiving and the kind of repentance we bring to God is too much a general repentance."

"We can't live a life of prayer, we can't go ahead Godwards, unless we are free from possession in order to have two hands to offer, and heart absolutely open...and an intelligence completely open to the unknown and the unexpected. This is the way in which we are rich, and yet totally free from richness."

"Unless the prayer we offer to God is important and meaningful to you first, you will not be able to present it to the Lord. If you are inattentive to the words you pronounce, if your heart does not respond to them, or if your life is not turned in the same direction as your prayer, it will not reach out Godwards."

"It is not enough to learn prayers by heart. Unless they are "lived" unless life and prayer become completely interwoven, prayers become a sort of polite madrigalwhich you offer to God at moments when you are giving time to Him."

"If, in your morning prayer, you have said a phrase, you must live up to this phrase in the course of a day...if you can keep to one sentence for one hour without breaking it, you will be lucky, but do it!...however, you may say 'I don't feel very strongly about these words.' If these words express a basic conviction, but you feel nothing at the moment, turn to God in repentance...you can express to God your misery, your sorrow, your disgust, with yourself, and come back with the determined will to tell God what is true and that your will is united with His."

"It is a curious fact that many today who that in the period of the judges, all did 'what was right in their own eyes' think that something terrible was covered by that phrase. Indeed, the people of this time went wrong in many ways. But to do as one pleases is the ideal condition of humanity, what is often called 'freedom' and does not imply wrongdoing at all. In the book of judges doing what was right in ones own eyes was not opposed to doing what was right in God's eyes, but opposed to doing what some government official saw as right. God has all along intended that we walk with him on a personal basis, be pleased by the right things, and then do what is right in our own eyes.This is why we were made, and what constitutes our individuality."

"The future, whatever you do about it, will become the present, and so there is no need to try to jump out of the present into the future."

"You may say 'shall I have time to do it at all?'...if you do not die first, you will have time to do it. If you die before it is done, you don't need to do it."

"What can prevent you from praying is that you allow yourself to be in the storm, or you allow the storm to come inside you instead of raging all around you."

"The feebleness of infant limbs is innocent, not the infants mind."