An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered; an adventure is an inconvenience rightly considered.
- Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936)
- Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936)
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Starting today August 7th, 2024, in order to post in the Married Couples, Courting Couples, or Singles forums, you will not be allowed to post if you have your Marital status designated as private. Announcements will be made in the respective forums as well but please note that if yours is currently listed as Private, you will need to submit a ticket in the Support Area to have yours changed.
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CF has always been a site that welcomes people from different backgrounds and beliefs to participate in discussion and even debate. That is the nature of its ministry. In view of recent events emotions are running very high. We need to remind people of some basic principles in debating on this site. We need to be civil when we express differences in opinion. No personal attacks. Avoid you, your statements. Don't characterize an entire political party with comparisons to Fascism or Communism or other extreme movements that committed atrocities. CF is not the place for broad brush or blanket statements about groups and political parties. Put the broad brushes and blankets away when you come to CF, better yet, put them in the incinerator. Debate had no place for them. We need to remember that people that commit acts of violence represent themselves or a small extreme faction.
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Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than going to the garage makes you a car.
Laurence J. Peter
Laurence J. Peter
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Andy Broadley
quam pulchra es amica mea quam pulchra
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These days men learn only from books and doctors hope to remember what man has learned. I pray to remember what man has forgotten....
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St. Augustine of Hippo to a student: "I wouldn't have you prepare for yourself any way of grasping and holding the truth other than the one prepared by him who, as God, saw how faltering were our steps. That way is, first, humility; second, humility; third, humility; and as often as you ask, I'll tell you, humility."
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freespirit2001
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Thomas Brooks
Legacy 17
"Eye more, mind more, and lay to heart more, the spiritual and eternal workings of God in your souls, than the external providences of God in the world. Beloved, God looks that we should consider the operations of his hand; and despising the works of his hands is so provoking to Him that He threatens to lead them to captivity for not considering them. But above all look to the work that God is carrying on in your souls. Not a soul but He is carrying on some work or other in it, either blinding or enlightening, bettering or worsening; therefore look to what God is doing to thy soul. All the motions of God within you are steps to eternity, and every soul shall be blessed or cursed, saved or lost to all eternity, not according to outward dispensations, but according to the inward operations of God in your souls. Observe what humblng work, what reforming work, what sanctifying work, He is about in thy spirit; what He is doing in that little world within thee. If God should carry on never so glorious a work in the world, as a conquest of the nations to Christ, what would it advantage thee if sin, and the world should triumph in they soul, and carry the day there."
Legacy 17
"Eye more, mind more, and lay to heart more, the spiritual and eternal workings of God in your souls, than the external providences of God in the world. Beloved, God looks that we should consider the operations of his hand; and despising the works of his hands is so provoking to Him that He threatens to lead them to captivity for not considering them. But above all look to the work that God is carrying on in your souls. Not a soul but He is carrying on some work or other in it, either blinding or enlightening, bettering or worsening; therefore look to what God is doing to thy soul. All the motions of God within you are steps to eternity, and every soul shall be blessed or cursed, saved or lost to all eternity, not according to outward dispensations, but according to the inward operations of God in your souls. Observe what humblng work, what reforming work, what sanctifying work, He is about in thy spirit; what He is doing in that little world within thee. If God should carry on never so glorious a work in the world, as a conquest of the nations to Christ, what would it advantage thee if sin, and the world should triumph in they soul, and carry the day there."
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Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work: you don't give up.
-Anne Lamott
-Anne Lamott
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If I find in myself desires which nothing in this world can satisfy, the only logical explanation is that I was made for another world.
<LI>C.S. Lewis
<LI>C.S. Lewis
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Me donner une bonne raison pourquoi je ne dois pas vous battre solidement avec un lama qui flambe !
- Me... it's my favourite answer to any less-than-serious conflict.
- Me... it's my favourite answer to any less-than-serious conflict.
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freespirit2001
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William Plummer
"Faith lives in a broken heart. 'He cried out with tear, Lord, I believe.' True faith is always in a heart bruised for sin. They, therefore, whose hearts were never touched for sin, have no faith. If a physician should tell us there was a herb that would help us against all infections, but it always grows in a watery place; if we should see the herb like it in colour, leaf, smell, blossom, but growing upon a rock, we should conclude that it was the wrong herb. So saving faith always grows in a heart humbled for sin, in a weeping eye and a tearful conscience."
"Faith lives in a broken heart. 'He cried out with tear, Lord, I believe.' True faith is always in a heart bruised for sin. They, therefore, whose hearts were never touched for sin, have no faith. If a physician should tell us there was a herb that would help us against all infections, but it always grows in a watery place; if we should see the herb like it in colour, leaf, smell, blossom, but growing upon a rock, we should conclude that it was the wrong herb. So saving faith always grows in a heart humbled for sin, in a weeping eye and a tearful conscience."
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freespirit2001
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Thomas Brooks
Legacy 22
"Record all special favors, mercies, providences, and experiences. It is true, a man should do nothing else, should he record all the favors and experiences of God towards him; and thertefore my legacy is, record all special favors, peculiar experiences. Little do you know the advantage that will increase to your soul upon this account by recording all the experiences of the shining of his face, of the leadings of His Spirit. Many a Christian loseth much by neglecting this duty."
Legacy 22
"Record all special favors, mercies, providences, and experiences. It is true, a man should do nothing else, should he record all the favors and experiences of God towards him; and thertefore my legacy is, record all special favors, peculiar experiences. Little do you know the advantage that will increase to your soul upon this account by recording all the experiences of the shining of his face, of the leadings of His Spirit. Many a Christian loseth much by neglecting this duty."
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freespirit2001
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Thomas Brooks
Legacy 25
"Make much conscience of making good the terms on which you closed with Christ. You know the terms, how that you would deny yourselves, take up the cross, and follow the Lamb wheresoever He should go. Now you are put to take up the cross, to deny yourselves, to follow the Lamb over hedge and ditch, through thick and thin. Do not turn your backs on Christ; the worst of Christ is better than the best of the world. Make conscience of making good your terms, to deny yourself, your natural self, your sinful self, your religious self, to follow Him; and if you do so, oh! what an honor will it be to Christ, and advantage toyour souls, and a joy to the upright!"
Legacy 25
"Make much conscience of making good the terms on which you closed with Christ. You know the terms, how that you would deny yourselves, take up the cross, and follow the Lamb wheresoever He should go. Now you are put to take up the cross, to deny yourselves, to follow the Lamb over hedge and ditch, through thick and thin. Do not turn your backs on Christ; the worst of Christ is better than the best of the world. Make conscience of making good your terms, to deny yourself, your natural self, your sinful self, your religious self, to follow Him; and if you do so, oh! what an honor will it be to Christ, and advantage toyour souls, and a joy to the upright!"
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freespirit2001
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Thomas Brooks
"Everything that a man leans upon but God, will be a dart that will certainly pierce his heart through and through. He who leans only upon Christ, lives the highest, choicest, safest, and sweetest life."
"Everything that a man leans upon but God, will be a dart that will certainly pierce his heart through and through. He who leans only upon Christ, lives the highest, choicest, safest, and sweetest life."
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freespirit2001
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Paul Tillich
YOU ARE ACCEPTED
"Grace strikes us when we are in great pain and restlessness. It strikes us when we walk through the dark valley of meaningless and empty life. It strikes us when we feel that our separation is deeper than ususal, because we have violated another life, a life which we loved, or from which we are estranged. It strikes us when our disgust for our own being, our indifference, our weakness our hostility, and our lack of direction and composure have become intolerable to us. It strikes us when, year after year, the longed-for perfection of life does not appear, when the old compulsions reign within us as they have for decades, when despair destroys all joy and courage. Sometimes at that moment a wave of light breaks into our darkness, and it is as though a voice were saying, "You are accepted. You are accepted, accepted by that which is greater than you, and the name of which you do not know. Do no ask for the name now; perhaps you will find it later. Do not try to do anything now; perhaps later you will do much. Do not seek anything ; do not perform anything; do not intend anything. Simply accept the fact that you are accepted." In that moment....reconciliation bridges the gulf of estranglement. And nothing is demnded of this experience, no religious or moral or intellectual presupposition, nothing but acceptance."
YOU ARE ACCEPTED
"Grace strikes us when we are in great pain and restlessness. It strikes us when we walk through the dark valley of meaningless and empty life. It strikes us when we feel that our separation is deeper than ususal, because we have violated another life, a life which we loved, or from which we are estranged. It strikes us when our disgust for our own being, our indifference, our weakness our hostility, and our lack of direction and composure have become intolerable to us. It strikes us when, year after year, the longed-for perfection of life does not appear, when the old compulsions reign within us as they have for decades, when despair destroys all joy and courage. Sometimes at that moment a wave of light breaks into our darkness, and it is as though a voice were saying, "You are accepted. You are accepted, accepted by that which is greater than you, and the name of which you do not know. Do no ask for the name now; perhaps you will find it later. Do not try to do anything now; perhaps later you will do much. Do not seek anything ; do not perform anything; do not intend anything. Simply accept the fact that you are accepted." In that moment....reconciliation bridges the gulf of estranglement. And nothing is demnded of this experience, no religious or moral or intellectual presupposition, nothing but acceptance."
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freespirit2001
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FROM THE BOOK:FREEDOM AND DESTINY
THE NATURE OF JOY
"Happiness is a fulfillment of the past patterns, hopes, aims....Happiness is mediated, so far as we can tell, by the parasympathetic nervous system, which has to do with eating, contentment, resting, placidity. Joy is mediated by the opposing system, the sympathetic, which does not make one to eat, but stimulates one for exploration. Happiness relaxes one; joy challenges one with new levels of experience. Happiness depends generally on one's outer state; joy is an over flowing of inner energies and leads to awe and wonderment. Joy is a release, and opening up; it is what comes when one is able genuinely to "Let Go." Happiness is associated with contentment; joy with freedom and an abundance of human spirit....Joy is new possibilites; it points toward the future. Joy is living on the razor's edge, happiness promises satisfaction of one's present state, a fulfillment of old longings. Joy is the thrill of new continents to explore; it is the unfolding of life.
Happiness is related to security, to be reassured, to doing things as one is used to and as our fathers did them. Joy is a revelation of what was unknown before. Happiness often ends up in a placidity on the edge of boredom. Happiness is success. But joy is stimulating....
Happiness is the absence of discord; joy is the welcoming of discord as the basis of higher harmonies. Happiness is finding a system of rules which solves our problems; joy is taking risks that are necessary to break new frontiers....
The good life, obviously, includes both joy and happiness at different times. What I am emphasizing is the joy that follows rightly confronted despair. Joy is the experience of possibility, the consciousness of one's freedom as one confronts one's destiny. In this sense despair, when it is directly faced, can lead to joy."
Rollo May
THE NATURE OF JOY
"Happiness is a fulfillment of the past patterns, hopes, aims....Happiness is mediated, so far as we can tell, by the parasympathetic nervous system, which has to do with eating, contentment, resting, placidity. Joy is mediated by the opposing system, the sympathetic, which does not make one to eat, but stimulates one for exploration. Happiness relaxes one; joy challenges one with new levels of experience. Happiness depends generally on one's outer state; joy is an over flowing of inner energies and leads to awe and wonderment. Joy is a release, and opening up; it is what comes when one is able genuinely to "Let Go." Happiness is associated with contentment; joy with freedom and an abundance of human spirit....Joy is new possibilites; it points toward the future. Joy is living on the razor's edge, happiness promises satisfaction of one's present state, a fulfillment of old longings. Joy is the thrill of new continents to explore; it is the unfolding of life.
Happiness is related to security, to be reassured, to doing things as one is used to and as our fathers did them. Joy is a revelation of what was unknown before. Happiness often ends up in a placidity on the edge of boredom. Happiness is success. But joy is stimulating....
Happiness is the absence of discord; joy is the welcoming of discord as the basis of higher harmonies. Happiness is finding a system of rules which solves our problems; joy is taking risks that are necessary to break new frontiers....
The good life, obviously, includes both joy and happiness at different times. What I am emphasizing is the joy that follows rightly confronted despair. Joy is the experience of possibility, the consciousness of one's freedom as one confronts one's destiny. In this sense despair, when it is directly faced, can lead to joy."
Rollo May
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freespirit2001
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Thomas Brooks
Legacy 14
"Walk in those ways that are directly cross and contrary to the vain, sinful, and superstitious ways that men of formal, carnal, lukewarm spirit walk in; this is the great concerment of Christians. But more of that by and by."
Legacy 14
"Walk in those ways that are directly cross and contrary to the vain, sinful, and superstitious ways that men of formal, carnal, lukewarm spirit walk in; this is the great concerment of Christians. But more of that by and by."
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freespirit2001
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Thomas Brooks
Legacy 10
"Labor mightily for a healing spirit. This legacy I would leave with you as a matter of great concernment. To repeat: LABOR MIGHTILY FOR A HEALING SPIRIT. Away with all discriminating names whatever that may hinder the applying of balm to heal your wounds. Labour for a healing spirit. Discord and division become no Christian. For wolves to worry the lambs, is no wonder; but for one lamb to worry another, this is unnatural and monstrous. God hath made His wrath to smoke against us for the divisions and heart-burnings that have been amongest us. Labour for a oneness in love and affection with every one that is one with Christ. Let their forms be what they will, that which wins most upon Christ's heart, should win most upon ours, and that is His own grace and holiness.
THE QUESTION SHOULD BE: WHAT OF THE FATHER, WHAT OF THE SON, WHAT OF THE SPIRIT SHINES IN THIS OR THAT PERSON? and accordingly let your love and affections run out"
Legacy 10
"Labor mightily for a healing spirit. This legacy I would leave with you as a matter of great concernment. To repeat: LABOR MIGHTILY FOR A HEALING SPIRIT. Away with all discriminating names whatever that may hinder the applying of balm to heal your wounds. Labour for a healing spirit. Discord and division become no Christian. For wolves to worry the lambs, is no wonder; but for one lamb to worry another, this is unnatural and monstrous. God hath made His wrath to smoke against us for the divisions and heart-burnings that have been amongest us. Labour for a oneness in love and affection with every one that is one with Christ. Let their forms be what they will, that which wins most upon Christ's heart, should win most upon ours, and that is His own grace and holiness.
THE QUESTION SHOULD BE: WHAT OF THE FATHER, WHAT OF THE SON, WHAT OF THE SPIRIT SHINES IN THIS OR THAT PERSON? and accordingly let your love and affections run out"
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