If you are going to live by faith, then expect your faith to be tested. A faith that can't be tested can't be trusted.
Interpretation
True faith is proven through challenges and tests.
This quote emphasizes that genuine faith must endure trials to be considered reliable. When one lives by faith, it's inevitable that they will face challenges that test their beliefs, and overcoming these obstacles is what strengthens and validates one's faith.
In practice
This quote is perfect for a sermon on the importance of faith in difficult times.
Nothing paralyzes our lives like the attitude that things can never change. We need to remind ourselves that God can change things. Outlook determines outcome. If we see only the problems, we will be defeated; but if we see the possibilities in the problems, we can have victory.
The ability to calm your soul and wait before God is one of the most difficult things in the Christian life. Our old nature is restless... the world around us is frantically in a hurry. But a restless heart usually leads to a reckless life.
People who walk by faith don't see obstacles, they see opportunities.
Hypocrisy means deliberately pretending. None of us lives up to his ideals; none of us is all that he would like to be or all that he could be in Christ. But that is not hypocrisy. Falling short of our ideals is not hypocrisy. Pretending we have reached our ideals when we have not - that is hypocrisy.
We have little control over the circumstances of life. We can't control the weather or the economy, and we can't control what other people say about or do to us. There is only one area where we have control--we can rule the kingdom inside. The heart of every problem is the problem in the heart.
When you and I hurt deeply, what we really need is not an explanation from God but a revelation of God. We need to see how great God is; we need to recover our lost perspective on life. Things get out of proportion when we are suffering, and it takes a vision of something bigger than ourselves to get life's dimensions adjusted again
It's been a constant struggle with my athletic career to identify myself as a child of God and understand that His love is unconditional for us; it's not conditional like fans, or coaches, or even myself.
...I don't have to worry about not meeting His expectations. God will ensure my success in accordance with His plan, not mine.
A man with God is always in the majority.
Experience had quickly taught her that she could not survive the storms without the anchor of the constraining love of Christ and what she called the "Rock-counsciousness" of the promise given her, "He goeth before.
When we go before Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament we represent the one in the world who is in most need of God's Mercy." We "Stand in behalf of the one in the world who does not know Christ and who is farthest away from God and we bring down upon their soul the Precious Blood of The Lamb.
Do not be afraid. Open wide the doors to Christ.
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