Max anders quotes

Celebration is best done in the company of others who can rejoice with us over God's goodness.

Prosperity is often the enemy of spiritual development.

Discouragement is contagious and is easily transmitted to others.

Common sense religion emphasizes the human contributions that are supposed to move the deity. Valid worship always begins with recognition of what God has already done.

Grace is always given freely by God, but grace received should always issue in a joyous delight in Him.

God's loving discipline brings us face-to-face with our pride.

The fear of God does not come naturally to human beings; it must be learned through Scripture, worship, and the hard knocks of experience.

Some duties exist simply because we are part of a larger family or community.

Every demonstration of God's faithfulness to us is an opportunity for us to testify of Him to others.

A healthy relationship with God is built on the internal changes He brings about through Christ.

God is concerned that Christians live consistent with their profession even in the seemingly small and insignificant areas of life.

Although their parents died in the wilderness for their stubbornness, Israel could profit from the older generation's failure by remembering that God had used adversity to train them.

Giving to God should come from the firstfruits of a person's labor rather than from what is left after the bills are paid.

God leads His people whether they are obedient or rebellious, but His leading is far more pleasant when they obey.

God chooses people not for what He can do for them, but for the good they can do for others.

If Israel is to please the Lord fully, they will live lives that are as distinctive among the nations as their Lord is different from pagan deities.

God demonstrates generosity, then asks it from His people.

God warned Israel, "And if thou wilt make me an altar of stone, thou shalt not build it of hewn stone: for if thou lift up thy tool upon it, thou hast polluted it" (Ex. 20:25). To pollute something is to make it ordinary. God insists that any approach crafted by human ingenuity will produce a worship system just like all the pagan systems in the world. In other words, it will be common or profane - just like everyone else's paganism.

Compassion for victims is sometimes forgotten in a misapplied concern for their oppressors and murderers.

Compassion is easily forsaken in the midst of prosperity, even when this prosperity is God given.

Many people find spiritual growth possible only when times are hard; prosperity tends to promote complacency.

A life that is lived without regard to God cannot be called living.

No amount of temporal success can compensate for the loss of God's approval.

God is enough like us to understand our problems and enough above us to be able to solve them.

To know God and to find one's full satisfaction in that knowledge is the ultimate goal of Christian experience. The Lord's greatest delight comes when His people discover the ultimate value lies in the knowledge of God. Nothing in the material world can complete with the delights that are present in His Person.

There is a kind of misguided pity that deals gently with false teachers at the expense of their victims.

God realizes His people need protection from the pains and heartaches of the world.

God wants us to have love. We must be careful not to settle for sex.

Rejoicing is the essence of genuine worship. A sad face (apart from remorse for sin or regret concerning the pain of others) is an affront to a gracious and generous God.

Only people of proven character should be placed in positions of spiritual leadership.

God wants believers to take an interest in the well-being of the society in which they live.

While catastrophes do enter the lives of godly people, they attach themselves far more to people who reject Him.

Worship is accomplished with the life as well as with the words and attitudes of people. Changed and transformed lives testify to the character and supernatural power of the God of heaven. Closeness to Him produces changes in character and holiness.

God wanted Israel, as He wants Christians, to learn to utterly abhor and detest anything that had the potential of coming between them and their God. The believer's enemies are typically internal rather than external, and they pose a powerful threat to spiritual health and progress.

Theological error is the most pernicious of errors; it strikes at man's center and separates him from his Creator and Redeemer. God insisted not only that Israelites should judge their own hearts and cast aside falsehood about Him but that they should also confront it wherever it emerged.

In God's pattern of justice, He takes the risk of the guilty going free but not the innocent being punished.

A good memory is one of the most precious assets of spiritual living.

Those who serve God in vocational ministry must learn to trust Him for their daily needs before they can encourage others to do so.

In Deuteronomy 11, God offers Israel a choice; either a life of productivity and enjoyment made possible by obedience to Him, or a life of difficulty and opposition made necessary by disobedience. The happiness Israel desires can only be theirs by being properly related to Him.

When shame is missing from corporate life, society, quickly becomes uncivilized.

Fear of God and love for God coexist happily in the heart of people who are rightly related to Him.

God's Word calls His people to adore Him exclusively and completely and to love people as themselves.

We dare not trim stones to make God an altar, for if we do we ruin everything. We would spend time bringing people to the altar and saying, "Look at those beautiful stones we trimmed!" We merely need to accept the work that God has done for us in Christ. The object of His restrictions is to help us see how wonderful He is and to spend the rest of our lives rendering true worship to Him.

The believer who feels the agony caused by rebellion will grow to become the best intercessor.

What we do in public determines our reputation; what we do in private determines our character.

Error is most painful when it is found inside the family.

The person who believes he must earn the right to go through the door of eternal life will miss the mark.

Moses warned them [Israelites] that the leading spiritual danger they would face on entering the [promise] land would be forgetting the Lord. What adversity would not do, prosperity and satisfaction could. They were to be on their guard against spiritual lethargy.

By definition, if man contributes anything toward acceptance by God, he loses everything. God expects man to be the recipient, not the originator. Jesus paid it all, not 99% of it. Paul wrote, "For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast"

Spiritual strength is connected to faithful obedience to God's commands.

The worship of false gods is always an outgrowth of spiritual deception.

God is always near His people, but their sinful behavior may cause His presence to be grievous.

Fear of the right type can be beneficial to the people of God (see Prov. 1:7), but the fear of man's hostile intentions seldom fits that category.

No amount of human willfulness can overcome God's determined love.

Individual believers are not to usurp the role of civil government and judge people who are offensive.

Even the wisest people learn little from their successes; God warns His people against allowing their victories (which He will grant) to lead them into pride and spiritual indifference. Instead, they should pay close attention to God's Word.

Conversion is essential, but it is a beginning, not an end. The believer in Jesus Christ is not simply rescued from the penalty of his sin; he is redeemed to love God and his neighbor so that others might come to know him.

God's commandments not only reflect His holiness, they promote our happiness.

Although God's people find many successes in the world, they must not fall prey to a spirit of pride. We succeed not because of our moral superiority but because of the faithfulness of our divine intercessor and because of the great mercy of God.

The health of marriage and the health of society are bound together; as one goes, so goes the other.

A concern for doctrinal purity should always be based on love of the Lord, not a desire to express spiritual pride.

The concept of freedom in Scripture differs from modern notions. Freedom is not a life lived free of restraints but a life that recognizes healthy limits, those that are concern to produce prosperity and order for the person who observes them.

Religious truth is not false for being narrow any more than mathematical or scientific truth is false for the same reason.

The heart that delights in God and longs only to see His glory advance will seldom be conscious of sacrifice. God in His wisdom asks that we first love Him and then live in keeping with that core value. He does not want His people to think of what they do as sacrificial, even though from the world's point of view it may be just that. Gratitude for grace of God will always be found near the center of the Biblical Christian's most powerful motivations.

Wisdom lies in recognizing the dangers that lie within us and doing battle with them daily.

Since the success of believers is tied to our knowledge of and obedience to God's Word, the memorizing of portions of the Bible is advisable.

Demons lie behind much of the world's pagan worship systems.

Our lives will last as long as God has something for us to do.

God chose Israel not because they were superior but because of what He could do through them for others.

Believers have just as much to fear from legalism as from waywardness. The first detracts from the beauty of the message, while the second mars it content.

The wise Christian will learn from the spiritual blunders of others.

Some believers tend to forget God's persistent faithfulness in the face of the spectacular and showy.

God is able to transform the hostile intentions of wicked people into blessings for His people.

The opposite of love is indifference to the genuine needs of others.

Nothing should be considered outside the scope of God's authority.

Believers should be more concerned for God's opinion of them than for what human opponents might do to their bodies.

God delights in providing His people with material gain and comfort, although prosperity can pose a threat to spiritual well-being.

The Lord longs to exalt His people as trophies of His work in them.

An enriched capacity for rejoicing is an expanded capacity for worship.

Spiritual leadership ought to be given to those who have proven themselves under stress.

Christians should be among those who speak loudest in defense of civil liberties and the protection of the weak.

God ought to be given the choice portion of our wealth and not its dregs.

When believers neglect the revealed Word of God, they are likely to turn to silly and unprofitable methods of insight.

The agonies of those who are falsely accused are of great concern to the living God, and He acts as their defender.

Before we can pray for God's blessing, we should ask ourselves if our disobedience could hinder his blessing.

Believers are inclined to attribute their spiritual successes to their godliness when it would be more accurate to connect them with God's faithfulness.

Persistence in prayer brings results that casual prayer does not.

Equal justice under law is a spiritual as well as a civic principle.

Although spiritual growth puts our wills to the test, after the battle has been won, we recognize that the Lord is the true victor in the struggle.

There is no substitute for a firsthand encounter with the Word of God.

God is not naïve in the giving of His laws; He anticipates our disobedience even as He commands our obedience.

God delights to see His people rejoice in what He has provided.

Kindness that allows barriers to one's relationship with God to spring up is self-destructive.

The choice of a mate is crucial because no one has a greater influence on our spiritual lives.

God never forgets a promise.

A worshiper's gift makes a statement about the worshiper and his God.

God not only allowed for joyful worship but also commanded it.

Christians must allow no unclean thing to interfere with a harmonious relationship with Christ.

The most blessed gift that God can give any person is a knowledge of Himself.

Exposure to false doctrine places a person at risk not just for theological errors but for moral failure.

One of the greatest testimonials to God's love is His provision of His Word.

Hearing alone is less effective in learning God's truth than hearing combined with reading.

Curiosity is an enormous challenge to godly living.

Intimacy with God is to be preferred above material wealth.

People are not free to violate law or convention to satisfy their wants and cravings.

God is glorified when His people find satisfaction in Him and in His provisions for them.

God's love does not depend on the current spiritual condition of those He loves.

Recalling what our lives were like before Jesus Christ entered them will help keep our daily problems in perspective.

Mental confusion can be the product of divine discipline.

Giving works best when the Lord's portion is removed first and believers learn to live within the remainder.

Chastening is a mark of affection, not a sign of rejection.

God supplies the needs of His people according to their needs but does not ordinarily allow stockpiling.

Truth can be attested by the supernatural, but so can falsehood.

Our identity as the people of God is marked primarily by our faithfulness in obedience to Him.

The spiritual heritage of the godly lives on after they are gone.

People sometimes punish to exact judgment for past actions. God disciplines in order to teach and always in the interest of those whom he disciplines.

Love is one factor - but not the only on - that God uses to promote the permanence of the marriage bond.

Sometimes believers are hampered in their public effectiveness by limitations that are no fault of their own.

The thoughtful believer recalls God's faithfulness in the past when confronted by any new threat. Part of spiritual maturity is strong sense of one's own history.

Conversion engages the mind as well as the emotions.

All believers can increase their commitment to God by reflecting on His faithfulness and by considering the forms such commitment should assume in their experience.

Although the world places a premium on the latest things, some realities are discovered by looking into the past.

Moses simplifies the whole duty of Israel (and of humanity) by crystalizing the moral law into a single command to love God supremely.

In a world of constant change, God alone is the Rock upon which to build a life.

Protection of human life can be costly; but so is the neglect of that protection.