A Quote by Greg Koukl

Though it's hard to be completely certain about things like this, I have a suspicion that only someone with deep freedom (one who makes decisions for reasons that are his own) and who's also a moral being (can experience goodness) can have a meaningful friendship with God. If friendship with God and sharing in His happiness are good things (and it seems they are), then making a creature who could enjoy these things is also a good thing, even if it comes with a liability. There's a risk.

Greg Koukl

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About Also Being Certain Could Creature Decisions Deep Enjoy Even Experience Freedom Friendship Friendship With God God Good Good Thing Good Things Goodness Happiness Hard His Liability Like Makes Making Meaningful Meaningful Friendship Moral Only Own Reasons Risk Seems Sharing Someone Suspicion Then Thing Things Though

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Greg Koukl
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Born: June 10, 1950

We do three things, three things, friendship with God, friendship with one another, and open friendship for the sake of the world. Here's what we mean when we say fiendship with God: We believe that all of this relationship with God starts with God, with his choice of us. We believe that salvation happens as soon as we say "yes" to God. "God I receive you, I receive your choice" and we respond with our entire lives. Welcome to salvation at that point.

John Middendorf

God has created all things for good; all things for their greatest good; everything for its own good. What is the good of one is not the good of another; what makes one man happy would make another unhappy. God has determined, unless I interfere with His plan, that I should reach that which will be my greatest happiness. He looks on me individually, He calls me by my name, He knows what I can do, what I can best be, what is my greatest happiness, and He means to give it me.

John Henry Newman

One of the presidents we could have done without.... There are some things I admire about Tyler, but there were also plenty of things that weren't so admirable.... The reason I have a certain amount of grudging respect for John Tyler is that he knew his own mind and stuck to his decisions.

Harry S. Truman

In all His acts God orders all things, whether good or evil, for the good of those who know Him and seek Him and who strive to bring their own freedom under obedience to His divine purpose. All that is done by the will of God in secret is done for His glory and for the good of those whom He has chosen to share in His glory.

Thomas Merton

Now if there is any gift of the gods to men, it is reasonable that happiness should be god-given, and most surely god-given of all human things inasmuch as it is the best. But this question would perhaps be more appropriate to another inquiry; happiness seems, however, even if it is not god-sent but comes as a result of virtue and some process of learning and training, to be among the most god-like things; for that which is the prize and end of virtue seems to be the best thing in the world, and something god-like and blessed.

Aristotle

Do you know why Satan is so angry all the time? Because whenever he works a particularly clever bit of mischief God uses it to serve his own Rigteous purposes." "So God uses wicked people as his tools?" "God gives us the freedom to to do great evil, if we choose, then He uses his own freedom to create goodness out of that evil, for that is what He chooses." "So, in the long run, God always wins?" "Yes, in the short run though it can be uncomfortable.

Orson Scott Card

If a thing is free to be good it is also free to be bad. And free will is what has made evil possible. Why, then, did God give them free will? Because free will, though it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having.

C. S. Lewis

It seems to be a general belief that the will of God is to make things distasteful for us, like taking bad-tasting medicine when we are sick, or going to the dentist. Somebody needs to tell us that the sunrise is also God's will. There is the time of harvest, the harvest which will provide food and clothes for us, without which life could not be sustained on earth. God ordered the seasons-they are his will. In fact, the good things in life far outweigh the bad. There are more sunrises than cyclones.

Charles L. Allen

God is goodness itself, in whom all goodness is involved. If therefore we love other things for the goodness which we see in them, why do we not love God, in whom is all goodness? All other things are but sparks of that fire, and drops of that sea. If you see any good in the creature, remember there is much more in the Creator. Leave therefore the streams, and go to the fountainhead of comfort.

Richard Sibbes

Nobody ever got anything from God on the grounds that he deserved it. Haven fallen, man deserves only punishment and death. So if God answers prayer it's because God is good. From His goodness, His lovingkindness, His good-natured benevolence, God does it! That's the source of everything.

Aiden Wilson Tozer

We are women. We believe in love and goodness and the kindness of others above all things. We are hard-wired to blame ourselves for things that other people do, even the bad, evil ones. That's why we're so good at compassion. It's also why we're our own worst enemies sometimes.

Elle Casey

If you are determined not to risk pain, then you must do without many things: having children, getting married, the ecstasy of sex, the hope of ambition, friendship-all that makes life alive, meaningful and significant.

M. Scott Peck

Sometimes life is hard. Things go wrong—in life and in love and in business and in friendship and in health and in all the other ways that life can go wrong. And when things get tough, this is what you should do: make good art. . . . Someone on the internet thinks what you’re doing is stupid or evil or it’s all been done before: make good art. Probably things will work out somehow, eventually time will take the sting away, and it doesn’t even matter. Do what only you can do best: make good art.

Neil Gaiman

It was the same with friendship. Disagreement between friends and spouses, too had to be carefully handled. If the time you spent with friends was consumed by disagreement, then there was no room for the essence of friendship, which was a sharing of the world. And that sharing involved seeing things the same way, or at least seeing things through the eyes of the friend.

Alexander McCall Smith

How my eyes see, perspective, is my key to enter into His gates. I can only do so with thanksgiving. If my inner eye has God seeping up through all things, then can't I give thanks for anything? And if I can give thanks for the good things, the hard things, the absolute everything, I can enter the gates to glory. Living in His presence is fullness of joy- and seeing shows the way in.

Ann Voskamp

God isn't about making good things happen to you, or bad things happen to you. He's all about you making choices--exercising the gift of free will. God wants you to have good things and a good life, but He won't gift wrap them for you. You have to choose the actions that lead you to that life.

Jim Butcher

A Quote by Greg Koukl

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