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(Stowell) Perhaps the greatest self-deceit is to tell ourselves that we can be self-sufficient. We keep searching for something that  can only be found in a restored relationship with God, but the very thing we are searching for we refuse to find

(Stowell) There is a haunting sense inside us that there is Someone somewhere who could finally show us a more fulfilling, more meaningful life

 (JoeStowell) relates the story of John Herman interviewing Clarence Darrow toward the end of  Darrow's life and asking him how he would sum up his life.Darrow, an athiest who had spent much of his life ridiculing the Bible, walked over to a coffee table, without hesitation,  picked up a Bible,  and said that Luke 5:5 summed up his life. " I have toiled all the night and have taken nothing". He then closed the Bible, put it back on the table, looked Herman straight in the face, and said : " I have lived a life without purpose, without meaning, without direction. I don't know where I came from and I don't know what I am doing here. And worst of all,I don't know what's going to happen to me when I push out of here "

( Wiersbe) If I thought baptism saved people, I would soak them all night

(Wiersbe) The death of Christ was vicarious,violent, vile, voluntary, and victorious

(Kenneth Tynan) A critic is a man who knows the way but can't drive the car

( Stowell) No one yet who has followed Christ without compromise has become disillusioned or found His ways to be disappointing

(Stowell) We are too easily seduced by the external qualities of charisma,competence , and credentials. When God chooses leaders, He chooses those who  have a heart to follow Him( I Sam 16:6-7)

( Stowell) All of us will spend our whole life following: the issue is who or what we will follow

(Stowell) tells the story of a friend who asked him if he had tried the garlic diet. Stowell asked him how much weight could be lost on this diet. His friend replied,:"Not much. But your friends just stay farther away, and you look smaller from a distance.

( Old saying)  After all is said and done, there's usually a lot more said than done