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81 " To complain is to say in effect; “God, You blew it! You had a chance to meet my expectations, but You couldn’t handle it! Nice try, God, close—but not close enough.” So complaining definitely injures you and the Lord. "
― James MacDonald , Lord, Change My Attitude
82 " More of anything other than God will never fill that longing for fulfillment He has placed within you and me. "
83 " With God, we can be satisfied and fulfilled with very little, but without Him, all that we have will always be dry and deeply disappointing. "
84 " Thankfulness is the attitude that perfectly displaces my sinful tendency to complain and thereby release joy and blessing into my life. "
85 " Too often, we think of sin as self-contained, point-in-time choices with no interconnection or momentum. But sin refuses to remain contained in the moment it is conceived. "
― James MacDonald , Christ-Centered Biblical Counseling: Changing Lives with God's Changeless Truth
86 " Yet those who wait for the LORD will gain new strength; they will mount up with wings like eagles, they will run and not get tired. "
― James MacDonald , Gripped by the Greatness of God
87 " Whenever you are in a critical temper, it is impossible to enter into communion with God. "
88 " Repentance is shockingly beautiful when we see it not as "I sinned again, I need to repent," but as "I sinned against my God again, but He is calling me back so He can lavish me with His love and forgiveness. "
89 " Gratitude is the attitude that sets the altitude for living! "
90 " The people sang to the Lord, not about Him. "
― James MacDonald , Vertical Church: What Every Heart Longs For. What Every Church Can Be.
91 " If we believe God is present in our worship as He promises to be,20 then we must frame all language of worship as to Him and not merely about Him. "
92 " Churches closing at a rate of six thousand per year in North America are not doing so because of worship style or form of government or methodology. They are failing because regardless of your preference on those points, it’s pointless to deny the true cause behind debates and divisions—a failure to love. "
― James MacDonald , Act Like Men: 40 Days to Biblical Manhood
93 " Church was never intended to be a place where we serve God to the exclusion of meeting with Him. "
94 " Like David we have a number of self-destructive options we use to avoid repenting and admitting sin. I’ll list them and let you come up with personal examples for each: deny, avoid, blame shift, rationalize, and give excuses. If you can’t think of how you’ve used these, you may be stuck in denial! "
95 " Where is there a systematic theology class that helps students realize that when you unpack the inclination or the nature of the Trinity or the two natures of Christ or the substitutionary atonement, you commune with the Lord as you defend and contend for the doctrine, or else you are not doing it right? No wonder people often don't want to be around doctrinally driven individuals! They are not doing doctrine right. They are not emotionally in touch with the truths they are teaching. "
96 " Given the impossibility of not failing one another, when the Bible says, “We all stumble in many ways,”7 the only way forward in loving community with one another is forgiveness. "
97 " While the culture is constantly focused on fluff and positivity, God’s Word offers not just a competing worldview but a contrary one. The Bible is not some retouched photo of the human condition, sanitized to save everyone the heartache of reality. The Bible brings far more than a smiley preacher with platitudes that fade before sunset. The Scriptures bring stark reality, the depravity of the human heart apart from God. His Word declares the dangers of sin using the lives of men and women who needed a front-row seat to learn that all sin brings suffering. These real people are not presented to us as perfect but as those whom God was working on. "
98 " But extraordinary life is possible—find it. There’s a better, higher, eternal life that can begin during this earthly life. It is an awesome life found in Christ! And we can live it now! "
99 " in spite of how we know the story unfolded, God included mankind in His conclusion that all He created was good. "
100 " Isn’t it awesome that God’s Word says ordinary life can be beautiful? However, there’s just one thing—not ten things, not fifteen things—that brings meaning to everything else. Don’t set your life up. Don’t think, “When I get my family, or my house, or my finances, then I’ll have everything set up for me and life will rock!” It will not! It doesn’t. The harder you try to set up satisfaction for yourself apart from God, the less you’ll have it. Only a central focus on Jesus Christ and all He said and did (and dwelling in His presence) can be the one thing that puts everything else in order. Even when it seems like it’s falling apart. "