Steven James
Here is the paradox of the thing we call freedom: the farther we wander from God and the more we try to break free from him, the more enchained we become. Every step we take away from Him leads us farther from the freedom of Jesus and closer to the cruelty of Cain.Collection: Jesus
Change is not always a good thing. What I need is not change from one thing to another but transformation from who I am into who I was meant to become. Only when God's transforming power touches me can I begin to live the simpler, freer, fresher, more creative, more patient, more passionate, more sacrificial, riskier, rawer, more real, more love-driven life God intended for me all along. That transformation is what awaits all who dare to enter the story of God. As Paul wrote, 'Let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think' (Romans 12:2)Collection: Real
The gifts of the Master are these: freedom, life, hope, new direction, transformation, and intimacy with God. If the cross was the end of the story, we would have no hope. But the cross isn't the end. Jesus didn't escape from death; he conquered it and opened the way to heaven for all who will dare to believe. The truth of this moment, if we let it sweep over us, is stunning. It means Jesus really is who he claimed to be, we are really as lost as he said we are, and he really is the only way for us to intimately and spiritually connect with God again.Collection: Jesus
Follow the evidence to where it leads, even if the conclusion is uncomfortable.Collection: Uncomfortable
The true nature of man left to himself without restraint is not nobility but savagery.Collection: Men
God dances with the outcast.Collection: Encouragement
So you think the best way to prepare kids for the real world is to bus them to a government institution where they're forced to spend all day isolated with children of their own age and adults who are paid to be with them, placed in classes that are too big to allow more than a few minutes of personal interaction with the teacher-then spend probably an hour or more everyday waiting in lunch lines, car lines, bathroom lines, recess lines, classroom lines, and are forced to progress at the speed of the slowest child in class?Collection: Teacher
If you go out and have unprotected sex with lots of people, that behavior puts you at risk. Similarly, violent behavior can spread. One violent act can elicit a response. It can spread to people in a peer group so that they feel that they have to respond. It can pass generation to generation almost like a genetic disease.Collection: Sex
Plastic people flashing fake smiles at a pretend world.Collection: People
Christianity is wild. It’s intimate. It’s heartbreaking and soul-mending. It’s the wings to rise above the everyday and hope of a honeymoon with the God who has loved you forever. The party has just begun, and the best is yet to come.Collection: Party
God can only be of service to me and I to him, not in the past, nor in the future, but only right now in this moment.Collection: Appreciation
For people in neighborhoods where violence is prevalent, violence becomes a way of dealing and coping with their lives. No matter how wrong it is, violence doesn't necessarily mean they're bad people.Collection: Mean
Even if you know you're sleeping, you're still at the mercy of your dreams. People who are asleep can't simply decide to wake up. Nightmares don't let you off that easily. They hold you in their clutches until they decided, in their own good time, to let you go.Collection: Dream
Violence can behave like a disease. That insight gives a different frame of reference that is designed to take the judgment out of it, to take the good-versus-bad-people view out of it.Collection: Views
My point is that the social forces liberals like to point to are real - I absolutely agree - but, at the same time, a good grounding from a family can make a huge difference.Collection: Real
I'm not someone who gives prescriptives at the end of my films.Collection: Giving