Quotes from Gary Thomas

I am called to love her out of reverence for God. Any other motivation is less than Christian.

You may think you're merely raising children, but during this process, God is also raising you to become a stronger and more capable servant of his kingdom.

Your heavenly Father-in-Law never takes his eyes off his beloved child. He hears every word uttered in anger toward his children. He sees every act of violence; he witnesses every act of denial, manipulation, and control. Never imagine that he witnesses such assaults with a dispassionate apathy; on the contrary, he feels each slight as though you were persecuting Christ himself.

The best gift you can give your spouse is to fear the God who made him or her. That's a gift that truly keeps on giving.

In the end, I found that physical fitness offered to God, surrendered to God, pursued in cooperation with God has enormous spiritual, emotional, and physical benefits.

When I first began spending daily time in prayer, I often grew frustrated at how I could forget about God's presence by lunchtime, even after praying for an hour in the morning. Shorter but more frequent times of prayer may actually help us to live with an increasing awareness of God's presence in our lives. How difficult would it be for us to set aside five minutes in the morning, five minutes at noon, and five minutes before or after dinnertime to meet God in prayer?

We realize it's not about what we get out of our marriage but about what we become in our marriage.

spend much of their time and effort trying to bring people down to their level of misery rather than blessing others with joy and encouragement.

Marriage helps us to develop the character of God himself as we stick with our spouses through good times and bad.

What's so fascinating about all of this is that what we need to develop to enjoy an intimate marriage — commitment, tenacity, perseverance — is exactly what Scripture says we need to develop as faithful servants of God. This isn't a coincidence. It makes sense that God would design the fundamental human relationship — that between a husband and wife — as a relationship that complements our spiritual walk.

The wife smiled and added, "Never forget that your twenty- or thirty- or even forty-something husband is still a little boy inside who used to say to his mom, 'Watch me! Watch me!' They never completely get over that.

Incarnational spirituality — the living, reigning, and ascended Jesus living through us and transforming us into different people — does not exist to uphold a few rules but rather speaks of a process that creates an entirely new person who sees with new eyes, feels with a new heart, hears with renewed ears, and lives with a new passion. It is, I believe, the only life worth living.