Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything - all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.- Steve jobs 2005

Christ is He who has the keys of death and hell. Christ is the anointed Priest, who alone can absolve sinners. Christ is the fountain of living waters, in whom alone we can be cleansed. Christ is the Prince and Savior, who alone can give repentance and remission of sins. In Him all fullness dwells. He is the way, the door, the light, the life, the Shepherd, the altar of refuge. He that has the Son has life--and he that has not the Son has not life. May we all strive to understand this. No doubt men may easily think too little of God the Father, and God the Spirit, but no man ever thought too much of Christ.~ J.C. Ryle, Expository Thoughts on the Gospels: Matthew, [Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1986], 409.

The plain truth is, that "sincerity and earnestness" are becoming the idol of many Christians in these latter days. People seem to think it matters little what opinions a man holds in religion, so long as he is "earnest and sincere", and you are thought uncharitable if you doubt his soundness in the faith! Against this idolatry of mere "earnestness" I enter my solemn protest. I charge every reader to remember that God's written Word is the only rule of faith, and to believe nothing to be true and soul-saving in religion which cannot be proved by plain texts of Scripture. I entreat him to read the Bible and make it his only test of truth and error, right and wrong.~ J.C. Ryle, The Upper Room, “Our Profession”, [Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1970], 232, 233.

Church greatness consists in being greatly serviceable.- Richard Baxter

Assuredly there is but one way in which to achieve what is

not merely difficult but utterly against human nature: to love

those who hate us, to repay their evil deeds with benefits, to

return blessings for reproaches. It is that we remember not to

consider men's evil intention but to look upon the image of God

in them, which cancels and effaces their transgressions, and

with its beauty and dignity allures us to love and embrace

them.- John Calvin (1509-1564), The Institutes of the Christian Religion, v. I [1559], tr. John Allen,Presbyterian Board of Publication and Sabbath-School Work, 1921, III.vii.6, p. 625