01c. 1954 ADIf we were to gain God's perspective, even for a moment, and were to look at the way we go through life accumulating and hoarding and displaying our things, we would have the same feelings of horror and pity that any sane person has when he views people in an asylum endlessly beating their heads against the wall.Randy Alcorn / quote ↗
02c. 1954 ADAfter his wife died, in great pain C. S. Lewis realized, “If I had really cared, as I thought I did, about the sorrows of the world, I should not have been so overwhelmed when my own sorrow came.”3 Our own suffering is often our wake-up call. But even if you aren’t now facing it, look around and you’ll see many who are....Suffering and evil exert a force that either pushes us away from God or pulls us toward him....Unfortunately, most evangelical churches—whether traditional, liturgical, or emergent—have failed to teach people to think biblically about the realities of evil and suffering. A pastor’s daughter told me, “I was never taught the Christian life was going to be difficult. I’ve discovered it is, and I wasn’t ready.”...On the other side of death, the Bible promises that all who know him will fall into the open arms of a holy, loving, and gracious God—the greatest miracle, the answer to the problem of evil and suffering. He promises us an eternal kingdom on the New Earth, where he says of those who come to trust him in this present world of evil and suffering, “They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain” (Revelation 21:3–4)Randy Alcorn / quote ↗
03c. 1954 ADChristians are God's delivery people, through whom he does his giving to a needy world. We are conduits of God's grace to others. Our eternal investment portfolio should be full of the most strategic kingdom-building projects to which we can disburse God's funds.Randy Alcorn / quote ↗
04c. 1954 ADWe can't surrender to the culture. We've minimized the role of fathers, so we've created a generation of barbarians, children who become men without growing up. They stay in boyhood through their 20s and 30s, sometimes their whole lives. They think of themselves first, indulge in pornography, do what they feel like, leave their wives, and culture, and churches to raise their children.Randy Alcorn / quote ↗
05c. 1954 ADGood-hearted laughter is a tribute to the happy God, who created laughter and delights to enter into it with us.Randy Alcorn / quote ↗
06c. 1954 ADUnless we learn how to humbly tell each other our giving stories, our churches will not learn to give.Randy Alcorn / quote ↗
07c. 1954 ADShe was home (in Heaven). She was with the Person she was made for, in the place that was made for her.Randy Alcorn / quote ↗
08c. 1954 ADIf Miss Watson had told Huck what the Bible says about living in a resurrected body and being with people we love on a resurrected Earth with gardens and rivers and mountains and untold adventures--now that would have gotten his attention.Randy Alcorn / quote ↗
09c. 1954 ADBecause satan hates us, he's determined to rob us of the joy we'd have if we believed what God tells us about the magnificent world to come.Randy Alcorn / quote ↗
10c. 1954 ADThe most tragic strain in human existence lies in the fact that the pleasure which we find in the things of this life, however good that pleasure may be in itself, is always taken away from us. The things for which men strive hardly ever turn out to be as satisfying as they expected, and in the rare cases in which they do, sooner or later they are snatched away.... For the Christians, all those partial, broken and fleeting perfections which he glimpses in the world around him, which wither in his grasp and he snatches away from him even while the wither, are found again, perfect, complete and lasting in the absolute beauty of God.Randy Alcorn / quote ↗
11c. 1954 ADFor the Christian, death is not the end of adventure but a doorway from a wold where dreams and adventures shrink, to a world where dreams and adventures forever expand.Randy Alcorn / quote ↗
12c. 1954 ADIf you're a child of God, you do not just "go around once" on Earth. You don't get just one earthly life. You get another-one far better and without end. You'll inhabit the New Earth! You'll live with the God you cherish and the people you love as an undying person on an undying Earth.Randy Alcorn / quote ↗
13c. 1954 ADEvery kingdom work, whether publicly performed or privately endeavored, partakes of the kingdom's imperishable character. Every honest intention, every stumbling word of witness, every resistance of temptation, every motion of repentance, every gesture of concern, every routine engagement, every motion of worship, every struggle towards obedience, every mumbled prayer, everything, literally, which flows out of our faith-relationship with the Ever-Living One, will find its place in the ever-living heavenly order which will dawn at his coming.Randy Alcorn / quote ↗
14c. 1954 ADLord Foulgrin: "You must not let him see Charis as a place of learning, exploration, duties, travel, companionship, banquets, celebrations, and productive work. A low view of heaven is our ace in the hole." (conspiring to bring Fletcher down after salvation)Randy Alcorn / quote ↗
15c. 1954 ADHe opened the first letter, No "Dear Mr. Woods." It was a page full of profanities. There was something oddly refreshing about honest, to-the-point hate mail. No hypocrisy and forced politeness. Too many letters ripped you to shreds, then closed off 'Sincerely yours.Randy Alcorn / quote ↗
16c. 1954 ADWe are all theologians, either good ones or bad ones. I'd rather be a good one. Wouldn't you?Randy Alcorn / quote ↗
17c. 1954 ADYanked out of the present, Adam discovered the richness of the past in people's stories.Randy Alcorn / quote ↗
18c. 1954 ADGiving up everything must mean giving over everything to kingdom purposes, surrendering everything to further the one central cause, loosening our grip on everything. For some of us, this may mean ridding ourselves of most of our possessions. But for all of us it should mean dedicating everything we retain to further the kingdom. (For true disciples, however, it cannot mean hoarding or using kingdom assets self-indulgently.)Randy Alcorn / quote ↗
19c. 1954 ADWe should remember Christ's words, 'Let nothing be wasted,' when we look in our refrigerators and garbage cans and garages.Randy Alcorn / quote ↗
20c. 1954 ADWhenever we have excess, giving should be our natural response. It should be the automatic decision, the obvious thing to do in light of Scripture and human need.Randy Alcorn / quote ↗
21c. 1954 ADMany [Western Christians] habitually think and act as if there is no eternity. . . . We major in the momentary and minor in the momentous.Randy Alcorn / quote ↗
22c. 1954 ADSomeday this upside-down world will be turned right side up. Nothing in all eternity will turn it back again. If we are wise, we will use our brief lives on earth positioning ourselves for the turn.Randy Alcorn / quote ↗
23c. 1954 ADJesus' miracles provide us with a sample of the meaning of redemption: a freeing of creation from the shackles of sin and evil and a reinstatement of creaturely living as intended by God.Randy Alcorn / quote ↗
24c. 1954 ADImagine you're alive at the end of the Civil War. You're living in the South, but you're a Northerner. You plan to move home as soon as the war's over. While in the South you've accumulated lots of Confederate currency. Now, suppose you know for a fact the North's going to win the war, and the end is imminent. What will you do with your Confederate money? If you're smart, there's only one answer. You should immediately cash in your Confederate currency for U. S. currency - the only money that will have value once the war's over. Keep only enough Confederate currency to meet your short-term needs. Kingdom currency, backed by the eternal treasury, is the only medium of exchange recognized by the Son of God, whose government will last forever. The currency of his kingdom is our present faithful service and sacrificial use of our resources for him. The payoff in eternity will be what Paul called 'a firm foundation' consisting of treasures beyond our wildest dreams.Randy Alcorn / quote ↗
