If God had perceived that our greatest need was economic, he would have sent an economist. If he had perceived that our greatest need was entertainment, he would have sent us a comedian or an artist. If God had perceived that our greatest need was political stability, he would have sent us a politician. If he had perceived that our greatest need was health, he would have sent us a doctor. But he perceived that our greatest need involved our sin, our alienation from him, our profound rebellion, our death; and he sent us a Savior.

D. A. Carson

Categorized in : Profound Artist Doctors

People do not drift toward Holiness. Apart from grace-driven effort, people do not gravitate toward godliness, prayer, obedience to Scripture, faith, and delight in the Lord. We drift toward compromise and call it tolerance; we drift toward disobedience and call it freedom; we drift toward superstition and call it faith. We cherish the indiscipline of lost self-control and call it relaxation; we slouch toward prayerlessness and delude ourselves into thinking we have escaped legalism; we slide toward godlessness and convince ourselves we have been liberated.

D. A. Carson

self prayer thinking

All of us would be wiser if we would resolve never to put people down, except on our prayer lists.

D. A. Carson

prayer would-be people

If you want to see what judgment looks like, go to the cross. If you want to see what love looks like, go to the cross.

D. A. Carson

judgment want looks

What binds us together is not common education, common race, common income levels, common politics, common nationality, common accents, common jobs, or anything else of that sort. Christians come together because they have all been loved by Jesus himself. They are a band of natural enemies who love one another for Jesus' sake.

D. A. Carson

christian jobs jesus

Some Christians want enough of Christ to be identified with him but not enough to be seriously inconvenienced; they genuinely cling to basic Christian orthodoxy but do not want to engage in serious Bible study; they value moral probity, especially of the public sort, but do not engage in war against inner corruptions; they fret over the quality of the preacher's sermon but do not worry much over the quality of their own prayer life. Such Christians are content with mediocrity.

D. A. Carson

prayer christian war

The aim is never to become a master of the Word, but to be mastered by it.

D. A. Carson

aim masters

The cliché, God hates the sin but love the sinner, is false on the face of it and should be abandoned. Fourteen times in the first fifty Psalms alone, we are told that God hates the sinner, His wrath is on the liar, and so forth. In the Bible, the wrath of God rests both on the sin (Romans 1:18ff) and on the sinner (John 3:36).

D. A. Carson

wrath hate liars

Effective prayer is the fruit of a relationship with God, not a technique for acquiring blessings.

D. A. Carson

technique prayer blessing

The way to be anxious about nothing is to be prayerful about everything.

D. A. Carson

prayerful anxious way

Jesus is hungry but feeds others; He grows weary but offers others rest; He is the King Messiah but pays tribute; He is called the devil but casts out demons; He dies the death of a sinner but comes to save His people from their sins; He is sold for thirty pieces of silver but gives His life a ransom for many; He will not turn stones to bread for Himself but gives His own body as bread for people.

D. A. Carson

kings people jesus

We are lost when human opinion means more to us than God’s.

D. A. Carson

opinion lost mean

Some Christians want enough of Christ to be identified with him but not enough to be seriously inconvenienced.

D. A. Carson

christian want christ

When you are converted, you want to do what you didn't want to do before, and you don't want to do what you wanted to do before. There's a change in the heart; there's a cleaning up, a change in orientation, and holiness becomes attractive, instead of something you have to put up with to figure out what you can get away with. As long as young people are asking, 'Can I get away with this?' or 'Can I get away with that?' I wonder if they're regenerate. If they're asking, instead, 'How can I grow in holiness?' then I suspect they've begun to understand.

D. A. Carson

heart long people

To know God is to be transformed, and thus to be introduced to a life that could not otherwise be experienced.

D. A. Carson

loving-god knowing-god knows

...sometimes God chooses to bless us and make us people of integrity in the midst of abominable circumstances, rather than change our circumstances.

D. A. Carson

integrity sometimes people

We overcome the accuser of our brothers and sisters, we overcome our consciences, we overcome our bad tempers, we overcome our defeats, we overcome our lusts, we overcome our fears, we overcome our pettiness on the basis of the blood of the Lamb.

D. A. Carson

brother lust blood

Sin defies God, utterly corrupts each individual, corrodes all social relationships, and issues in death.

D. A. Carson

individual issues sin

Many of us in our praying are like nasty little boys who ring front door bells and run away before anyone answers.

D. A. Carson

running doors boys

Despite the protestations, one sometimes wonders if we are beginning to worship, worship rather than worship God.

D. A. Carson

conceited worship sometimes

The Bible is endlessly interesting because it is God's story, and God by nature is himself endlessly interesting. The Bible is an ever-flowing fountain. The more you read it, the more you find its truth and beauty to be inexhaustible.

D. A. Carson

fountain stories interesting