Sin says, “Do you have a relationship with God, the gods, or a emulate something in the fashion of a god (nature, science, etc.? I use religion as a pacifier to make people think that they are safe. When the baby cries, I insert it, and distract her.

Pride had a very similar character with Lust. He was difficult to satisfy, but rather than desiring tasty foods, Pride desired valuable possessions. Man clung to Pride more than the other two because he was the firstborn son. Pride had a very sensitive sense of touch and an attention-grabbing voice. Even when Pride was not...

My disadvantages will tire him as they would any reasonable man of small expectations.” – Jane Adams

When the devil comes knocking on your door simply say “Jesus, it’s for you.

She feared God may not deliver her out of this mess, especially if He had a greater plan.

I believe that all things happen under the watchful eye of God and the lessons we learn along the way only serve to make us stronger.

People were never meant to be idols. We aren’t supposed to be worshipped. Only God deserves that kind of praise.

I’ve never minded finding out what others thought I didn’t know. Titus Ray, Chapter 3

Her mind returned to Dr. Chaturvedi’s testimony. He had turned to Christianity because he had discovered that he was not special. He seemed happy enough, but was he really happy? Was Christianity just a club for people who had managed to lose their specialness?

My gut feeling says he needs a second chance. Like we all do.” WINTER’S PAST

faith” as an excuse for their failure? They could pretend that their Christian convictions were all that was standing between them and success, and they could declare that they would be on top of the world if they had not chosen to willingly give it all up to follow Jesus.

We had given in to our vulnerability and cast down any pretenses that we were too strong to be weak.

Maybe that was the best part. The beautiful peace that came with living her own story, knowing every turn of the page and tug of the heart was a new beginning.

The truth was, I yearned, in a soul-deep way, to be Sarra. To ‘feel’ that God was so very close, so very concerned with my particular life, so very ready to protect and to love. Always nearby. Always listening. Always leading.

You need time for the grief to heal, for the memories to fade in sharpness, time to adjust your expectation for the future. Be gentle with yourself, you’ll make it.

Tal was looking at Hank when he said, “Just a moment. I want to hear it one more time.”As they watched, Bernice found her way to Hank and Mary. She began to week openly, and spoke some quiet but impassioned words to them. Hank and Mary listened, as did the others nearby, and as they...

When sex was something godlike, Lust was the profane curiosity that killed many a straying cat. Now, having removed mystery, Lust is less a long-standing, overpowering yearning, more a sudden craving of the appetite. Less quest, more impulse buy.

In general, Americans would walk a mile uphill in the rain to avoid pain, unless the walk could be shorter and level and the day sunny, which they’d prefer.

An imagined pleasure is never really the pleasure, but an imagined pain, in a very real sense, is the pain, because so much of pain is the consciousness of it. It makes itself objective. Whereas to think about pleasure is to step outside of it; to think about a presently felt pain is to step...

They want explanation, not faith; God gives them faith as the explanation.

It fits my experience of Him.

When young, the humans are all Imagination because Memory is so much smaller a part of their experience, so little of them is grounded in it. As they grow older, however, Memory overtakes their Imagination, outweighs it. But when they pray with ever increasing confidence, they see with an ever-increasing and youthful Imagination and such...

Though I despise it, I do not doubt His Love for the creatures. I have seen it —His ever-reaching outward for any hand that might reach back. At His love, I tremble yet believe.

They think that if they had more belief they would pray more, so keep them lacking. Never let them realize that the opposite is true: If they prayed more, they would have more belief.

Properly understood, Imagination and Prayer are directly proportional —the more they pray beyond their bounds, they expand their vision beyond their resources, their experiences, their expectations.

I shouldn’t need to remind you that it was words that created the universe and The Word that now holds it together. While your man was simply reading one little book, something not unlike Genesis was stirring in his skull, and you didn’t think to stop it?

That’s where thinking started, where thinking stopped, where all her prayers so long ago had dried up. She no longer prayed, nor even dreamed of changing her father. Her dreams now played variations on the theme of escape. And they were nothing more than that —just dreams, just play. She’d been alone at the end...

With addiction, a client’s fears can be ripened into some very pleasing fruit: Irritability, suspiciousness, isolation, paranoia, and finally on to that grand banana —the fear of Fear itself.

Consumerism, the new black. I want my burger my way. Shaken not stirred. Sauce on the side and rare but not rare rare. Venti, two-pump, sugar-free vanilla, non-fat, two Splenda, extra-hot, extra-whip, extra-mocha Mocha and can you put the Splenda in before you pour the milk? (See, this is where it gets positively delicious!) Under...

Remember, this type doesn’t really believe He’ll forgive them, by repenting they are trying to earn what they do not think, in any case, He will pay.

I don’t even like the phrase ‘opportunity to sin’ because it implies the opportunity to obey.

But here I’d like to add to what the Tempter’s Manual suggests. Depression, at its finest, is not a Future that they cannot hopefully construct, nor a shamed Past that hounds them, but an agonizing Present that they cannot escape. We want to disable their Present so that they cannot use it to look Heavenward.

illusion” of choice because, in many cases, the nature of their choices hardly reaches the level of will, but of merely perfunctory activity. For the most part, their desires are not too strong, they are too weak, apathetic and easily placated. They often can be tempted into doing Nothing.

Guilt, if cultivated in a Christian client, can render their Christianity worthless to themselves and others.

If we can keep the Christians thinking of themselves as sinners not sons and daughters, we can make them view their relationship to The Adversary as a negative-sum-game: They fall in a hole, He pulls them out, they fall back in, etc… That way they never get anywhere; they’re always either standing next to a...

I have witnessed the pleasant result of producing a human who faithfully claims to be a Christian, but who on some fundamental level does not think Christianity actually works. And just one Christian of this type turns off dozens from trying out Christianity for themselves.

They think virtues are man-made, only exist because they exist, but if no human had ever existed, The Virtues would persist for they hold their being from the very Presence of the Adversary Himself.

If they ever envision Goodness as a thing that exists outside them, some real thing they’ve been called to participate in by their actions, well then, we’re headed right back toward The Virtues.

Once a man discovers that his obedience is primarily for others’ sake, that every miracle that ever amazed happened because of someone’s obedience somewhere, that properly understood, his obedience prepares the way for His visitation, well, then we run up against the appalling result of attentive servants gladly going about His bidding without the slightest...

If I didn’t think of it, it has no bearing on my life.

They forget that for a Creator to create, He must be greater than His creation, thus He must be by definition not less than emotional.

And I’m glad to see that all three clients are male. Not that the females can’t be corrupted, I’ve just always found the males more amenable to temptation. The males have always had all the power, so that does much to explain it. As they say: Easy pickings.

But as I say, if you look to the state of their souls you’ll find the situation nowhere near as grave as polls suggest. There’s more to being a servant of The Adversary than signing up.

Where faith costs nothing, faith loses respect, even to those who possess it.

The Americans want a surplus stocked up to supply their every whim. And their appeals are much less requests, more demands. Indeed, the phrase might be more aptly put: Demand and Surplus.

Everyone needs to calm down! Okay, you got a weird cookie. So what? I don’t mean to swat your ego here, buddy, but this smacks a little narcissistic for me. God is not trying to communicate to you through a cookie. It doesn’t work that way. God’s not all Jack-and-the-magic-beans and tooth-beneath-the pillow voodoo. You...

Trust becomes the only road home, back to love.

He’d sacrifice even his sanity for her. If it came down to it, he’d let her break his heart.Because he loved her.

I’ve got a lot of homework to do, and none of it has anything to do with school.

I’m sixteen with what I hope will be a long life ahead, but I’m willing to give it up, to give anything to let her live, to let her make it through the night.