Beware of manufacturing a God of your own: a God who is all mercy, but not just; a God who is all love, but not holy; a God who as a heaven for every body, but a hell for none; a God who can allow good and bad to be side by side in time, but will make no distinction between good and broad in eternity. Such a God is an idol of your own, as truly an idol as any snake or crocodile in an Egyptian temple. The hands of your own fancy and sentimentality have made him. He is not the God of the Bible, and beside the God of the Bible there is no God at all.
J.C. Ryle
Related How can we love a holy God? The simplest answer I can give to this vital question is that we can’t... R.C. SPROUL Don't be more serious than God. God invented dog farts. God designed your body's plumbing system. Go... PETER KREEFT 'God' is a relative word and has a respect to servants, and 'Deity' is the dominion ... ISAAC NEWTON Empathy is the new measurement of everything. It doesn't matter what religion you have, what God you... C. JOYBELL C. To make the State your god is to worship an idol, for the State is a man-made creation arising natur... EDEN PHILLPOTTS Plunging in “truths” about God is like walking on the bottom of a sea that is not there, searchi... MARIANA FULGER It is not a God, just and good, but a devil, under the name of God, that the Bible describes THOMAS PAINE You do not need to go to any temple or church to worship God. The whole existence is God’s temple.... BANANI RAY 35. God is entitled to a portion of our income—not because He needs it but because we need to give... JAMES C. DOBSON A man may go into the field and say his prayer and be aware of God, or he may be in Church and be aw... MEISTER ECKHART God is the only being who is good, and the standards are set by Him. Because God hates sin, He has t... FRANCIS CHAN In reality, the damned are in the same place as the saved—in reality! But they hate it; it is thei... PETER KREEFT A man of God would never burn or harm a temple of any kind - regardless of religion. A true man of G... SUZY KASSEM Feast of John Coleridge Patteson, First Bishop of Melanesia, & his Companions, Martyrs, 1871 Devo... WILLIAM LAW Feast of Willibrord of York, Archbishop of Utrecht, Apostle of Frisia, 739 Whoso goes seeking God... MEISTER ECKHART Our motive for obedience is just as important, probably more so, to God than the level of our perfor... JERRY BRIDGES The god of the Christians, as we have seen, is the god who makes promises only to break them; who se... JOHANN MOST The belief in God is not therefore based on the perception of design in nature. Belief in design in ... CHAPMAN COHEN He who doesn’t believe that God can do everything believes in a god who can do something! He who k... ERNEST AGYEMANG YEBOAH We're always taught that God wants us to always only say "I can't do this without You God" , "Whatev... C. JOYBELL C. A man of God would never burn or harm a temple of any kind -- regardless of religion. A true man of ... SUZY KASSEM Their Bibles had become an idol before God. That the cross, as a symbol, was an idol, even their own... TREVOR D. RICHARDSON Feast of John Coleridge Patteson, First Bishop of Melanesia, & his Companions, Martyrs, 1871 Bu... MILFORD C. OLSON Our calling is not primarily to be holy women, but to work for God and for others with Him. Our holi... FLORENCE ALLSHORN God does not lead all His servants by one road, nor in one way, nor at one time; for God is in all t... JOHN TAULER A few years ago the Deists denied the inspiration of the Bible on account of its cruelty. At the sam... ROBERT G. INGERSOLL While the bible is GOD because the word of GOD is GOD, please understand that GOD cannot be containe... TEMITOPE IBRAHIM Because the Christian God is not a lonely God, but rather a communion of three persons, faith leads ... MIROSLAV VOLF (All the grief she had suffered over her lifetime had moulded her face into a mask of eternal sadnes... JEAN SASSON Sound Bible exposition is an imperative must in the Church of the Living God. Without it no church c... A. W. TOZER What preoccupies us, then, is not God as a fact of nature, but as a fabrication useful for a God-fea... DANIEL J. BOORSTIN The fear of God is the only cure for the fear of people. CRAIG GROESCHEL I am deeply distressed by what I only can call in our Christian culture the idolatry of the Scriptur... BRENNAN MANNING To the spiritual perplexity which exercised so many of the rarest souls of the nineteenth century, G... JOHN BAILLIE I reject the notion of talking about God as a person, but there's a difference between talking about... MATTHEW FOX Do you know who the upright of heart are? They are those who wish what God wishes. Therefore, do not... AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO God is looking for a willing heart. He is searching for few like Easther....who will say if I perish... PATIENCE JOHNSON Who is the first farmer? The good book says: God planted a garden. So God is the first, then Adam, a... SOTONYE ANGA If your relationship is draining your energy, making you lose yourself and taking your attention awa... KEMI SOGUNLE The more God is glorified the more man is energic and the more satan is weak. INDONESIA123 Christ is not God, not the saviour of the world, but a mere man, a sinful man and an abominable idol... MATTHEW HAMMOND Once God gives you an idea; if it is not against the written word of God, if it is good for God and ... SUNDAY ADELAJA "Who hates his neighbor has not the rights of a child." And not only has he no rights as a child, he... SØREN KIERKEGAARD An idol of the mind is as offensive to God as an idol of the hand. AIDEN WILSON TOZER An idol of the mind is as offensive to God as an idol of the hand AIDEN TOZER An idol of the mind is as offensive to God as an idol of the hand AIDEN WILSON TOZER Life is not a game. Still, in this life, we choose the games we live to play. J.R. RIM Then this God does exist according to you?" "He does not exist, but He is. In the stone there i... FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY Belief in immortality for us does not depend on a story, however well attested, in an ancient book..... T. R. GLOVER Do all things without grumbling. Why? You have a sovereign God who is on your side, who works everyt... JOHN PIPER The man who fears to be alone will never be anything but lonely, no matter how much he may surround ... THOMAS MERTON We cannot attain to the understanding of Scripture either by study or by the intellect. Your first d... MARTIN LUTHER Prayer is the movement of trust, of gratitude, of adoration, or of sorrow, that places us before God... THOMAS MERTON Everyone has faith in God though everyone does not know it. For everyone has faith in himself and th... MOHANDAS GANDHI Commemoration of John Mason Neale, Priest, Poet, 1866 The word "carnal" is ambiguous. "Flesh" mea... ADOLPH SAPHIR He is not truly patient who will only suffer as far as seems right to him and from whom he pleases. ... THOMAS à KEMPIS That a good man may have his back to the wall is no more than we knew already, but that God could ha... G.K. CHESTERTON Feast of Patrick, Bishop of Armagh, Missionary, Patron of Ireland, c.460 Some people want to see ... MEISTER ECKHART A choice from the gods is as useless as the gods themselves! KRATOS - GOD OF WAR God is not an alternative to science as an explanation, he is not to be understood merely as a God o... JOHN C. LENNOX To me, many of what seemed to be Bible contradictions only pointed to the grace of Christ. It is not... CRISS JAMI We must face the recognition that what the early Christians saw in Jesus Christ, and what we must ac... H. RICHARD NIEBUHR I suddenly saw that all the time it was not I who had been seeking God, but God who had been seeking... BEDE GRIFFITHS A Christian's faith in Christ is not of their own but given to the Christian by an Almighty God. NORM TOMLINSON Don’t let the enemy try to keep you bound with fear. The devil is a liar. Stay in faith and trust ... GERMANY KENT God is concerned with nations, but nations also need to be concerned with God. No nation can have a ... JOHN HAGGAI God is infinite and without end, but the soul's desire is an abyss which cannot be filled except by ... JOHANNES TAULER There is no injustice in the grace of God. God is as just when He forgives a believer as when He cas... CHARLES SPURGEON Who but the sports-mad [Norman] Mailer would liken the battle between God and the Devil to a game of... CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS "There is no God," the foolish saith, But none, "There is no sorrow." And nature oft the cry of ... ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING Christ did not die to forgive sinners who go on treasuring anything above seeing and savoring God. A... JOHN PIPER It is Christ Himself, not the Bible, who is the true word of God. The Bible, read in the right spiri... C.S. LEWIS Lament is a cry of belief in a good God, a God who has His ear to our hearts, a God who transfigures... ANN VOSKAMP Never again are we to look at the stars, as we did when we were children, and wonder how far it is t... JOSEPH E. MCCABE The yogi can relate to his Beloved in the form of a personal relationship-as a friend, a child, a sp... PREM PRAKASH You are free to reject God. Make sure that you're really rejecting God, not some caricature of G... PHILIP YANCEY I handed them a script and they turned it down. It was too controversial. It talked about concepts l... GENE RODDENBERRY Have you heard of that madman who lit a lantern in the bright morning hours, ran to the market place... FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE The will is that which has all power; it makes heaven and it makes hell: for there is no hell but wh... WILLIAM LAW Although God loves us unconditionally, He does get angry at sin, wickedness and evil. But He is not ... JOYCE MEYER Commemoration of Caroline Chisholm, Social Reformer, 1877 In saying God is there, we are saying Go... FRANCIS A. SCHAEFFER Anytime someone says your God is ugly and you release your God and join their God, there is no hope ... JOHN HENRIK CLARKE Place yourself as an instrument in the hands of God, who does his own work in his own way. SWAMI RAMDAS If you don’t delight in the fact that your Father is holy, holy, holy, then you are spiritually de... R.C. SPROUL Why is it that it is often easier for us to confess our sins to God than to a brother? God is holy a... DIETRICH BONHOEFFER As the enjoyment of God is the heaven of the Saints, so the loss of God is the hell of the ungodly. ... RICHARD BAXTER Love does not inquire into the character of the recipient but it asks what he needs. It does not lov... EMIL BRUNNER God is not a God of the emotions but the God of truth. DIETRICH BONHOEFFER But, as I understand it, your God is a universal God; He is God on all suns and all planets. Surely,... JOHN WYNDHAM It is fashionable in some academic circles to exercise scholarly criticism of the Bible. In so doing... R.C. SPROUL If I were not an atheist, I would believe in a God who would choose to save people on the basis of t... ISAAC ASIMOV In all His acts God orders all things, whether good or evil, for the good of those who know Him and ... THOMAS MERTON We should know that faith is a gift of God, and that it may not be given to men, except it be gracio... JOHN WYCLIFFE She was scarcely a year older than I was, dark-haired, slender, with a face that would break your he... GEORGE R.R. MARTIN When you go through difficult times, make sure you pass the test. Don’t be stubborn and hardheaded... JOEL OSTEEN I’m not as Catholic as I used to be. I find that I can’t believe in a God who would punish anyon... MARSHALL THORNTON Feast of John, Apostle & Evangelist The why of natural law is the living Voice of God immanent in... A. W. TOZER The soul at its highest is found like God, but an angel gives a closer idea of Him. That is all an a... MEISTER ECKHART At this day... the earth sustains on her bosom many monster minds, minds which are not afraid to emp... JOHN CALVIN There is joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons, ... KARL BARTH
More J.C. Ryle
The heart of a man can never be satisfied with the things of this world. It is always empty, and hun... J.C. RYLE A true Christian is one who has not only peace of conscience, but war within. He may be known by his... J.C. RYLE Another real danger to young men is thoughtlessness and lack of consideration. Lack of thought is on... J.C. RYLE A zealous man in religion is pre-eminently a man of one thing. It is not enough to say that he is ea... J.C. RYLE Do nothing that you would not like God to see. Say nothing you would not like God to hear. Write not... J.C. RYLE Hell is truth known too late. J.C. RYLE Be wise in time. What youth sows, old age must reap....Sow to yourself rather in righteousness: brea... J.C. RYLE Christ's death is the Christian's life. Christ's cross is the Christian's title to heaven. Christ "l... J.C. RYLE The greater are our affections the deeper are our afflictions, and the more we love the more we have... J.C. RYLE It is bad enough to be unconverted and going to hell. It is even worse to say, “I know it and will... J.C. RYLE Small men command the letter of the law. Great men serve its spirit. For the spirit of the law is ju... J.C. MARINO In every journey comes a moment... one like no other. And in that moment, you must decide between wh... J.C. MARINO Repentance may be old-fashioned, but it is not outdated so long as there is sin. J.C. MACAULAY I notice being noticed immediately – I’m a freeway goddess! In the past five minutes of gridlock... J.C. PATRICK Professional is an apt definition for me, professional slouch, that is. I can be very professional a... J.C. PATRICK I'm overweight, despise change, and rarely, if ever, initiate anything. Unlike my friends, I’ve ha... J.C. PATRICK After a few more minutes of daydreaming about how fabulous I could become, I look down at the headin... J.C. PATRICK Terror is an artery. Running unfailing channels of bloodied thoroughfares by dint of the wilds... J.C. WHITFIELD Never saw a point in showing up for jury duty. I already know I’m going to vote guilty.” Ari’s... J.C. NELSON The highest goodness is like water. Water is beneficial to all things but not contend. It stays... J.C. COOPER The threat of failure shouldn't kill the fun of dreaming. J.C. LILLIS Character is doing the right thing when nobody's looking. There are too many people who think that ... J.C. WATTS In 1947 I married Rowena Palmer, and we have two daughters, Alison and Claire, and a son, John. MARTIN RYLE Philosophy is the replacement of category-habits by
category-disciplines. GILBERT RYLE A myth is, of course, not a fairy story. It is the presentation of facts belonging to one category... GILBERT RYLE So too Plato was, in my view, a very unreliable Platonist. He was too much of a philosopher to think... GILBERT RYLE To explode a myth is accordingly not to deny the facts but to re-allocate them. GILBERT RYLE Philosophy is the replacement of category-habits by category-disciplines. GILBERT RYLE The dogma of the Ghost in the Machine GILBERT RYLE A myth is, of course, not a fairy story. It is the presentation of facts belonging to one category i... GILBERT RYLE Such in outline is the official theory. I shall often speak of it, with deliberate abusiveness, as '... GILBERT RYLE Character is doing the right thing when nobody’s looking. There are too many people who think that... J.C. WATTS JR. Any well-read man knows that the moral difference between the condition of the world before Christia... J. C. RYLE If Christianity is a mere invention of man, and the Bible is of no more authority than any other uni... J. C. RYLE All men ought to think of Christ, because of what Christ will yet do to all men. He shall come again... J. C. RYLE There are many things which swallow up men's thoughts while they live, which they will think lit... J. C. RYLE There is a vast quantity of religion current in the world which is not true, genuine Christianity. I... J. C. RYLE What could an unsanctified man do in Heaven, if by any chance he got there? Let that question be fai... J. C. RYLE Christmas is a season which almost all Christians observe in one way or another. Some keep it as a r... J. C. RYLE The 'means of grace' are such as Bible reading, private prayer, and regularly worshiping God... J. C. RYLE If Christianity is a mere invention of man, and the Bible is not from God, how can infidels explain ... J. C. RYLE All men ought to think of Christ because of the office Christ fills between God and man. He is the e... J. C. RYLE The true Christian is called to be a soldier and must behave as such from the day of his conversion ... J. C. RYLE If Christianity is a mere invention of man, and not a supernatural, divine revelation, how is it tha... J. C. RYLE Sanctification is the outcome and inseparable consequence of regeneration. He who is born again and ... J. C. RYLE Necessity is laid upon us. We must fight. There are no promises in the Lord Jesus Christ's epist... J. C. RYLE Commemoration of Johann Sebastian Bach, musician, 1750 Humility and love are precisely the graces... J. C. RYLE Commemoration of Charles de Foucauld, Hermit, Servant of the Poor, 1916 Faith is to the soul wh... J. C. RYLE Bibles read without prayer; sermons heard without prayer; marriages contracted without prayer; journ... J. C. RYLE Feast of Benedict of Nursia, Father of Western Monasticism, c.550 To be prayerless is to be with... J. C. RYLE Give me a stock clerk with a goal and I'll give you a man who will make history.
Give me a man with ... J.C. (JAMES CASH) PENNEY In darkness there is no choice. It is light that enables us to
see the difference between things; ... A.W. HARE AND J.C. HARE The craving for sympathy is the common boundary-line between joy
and sorrow. A.W. HARE AND J.C. HARE Do you wish to find out a person's weak points? Note the
failings he has the quickest eye for in o... A.W. HARE AND J.C. HARE Jealousy is said to be the offspring of Love. Yet, unless the
parent makes haste to strangle the c... A.W. HARE AND J.C. HARE Everybody has his own theatre, in which he is manager, actor,
prompter, playwright, sceneshifter, b... A.W. HARE AND J.C. HARE Men are the cause of women not loving one another.
[Fr., Les hommes sont la cause que les femmes n... A.W. HARE AND J.C. HARE The only way of setting the will free is to deliver it from
wilfulness. A.W. HARE AND J.C. HARE Reviewers are forever telling authors they can't understand them.
The author might often reply: I... A.W. HARE AND J.C. HARE Few persons have courage enough to appear as good as they really
are. A.W. HARE AND J.C. HARE A Christian is God Almighty's gentleman. A.W. HARE AND J.C. HARE Our poetry in the eighteenth century was prose; our prose in the
seventeenth, poetry. A.W. HARE AND J.C. HARE Every Irishman has a potatoe in his head. A.W. HARE AND J.C. HARE