My dad doesn't like religion much, but I grew up very close to the Baptist tradition. God isn't this distant thing. God is right here with you all the time. He's your buddy, and you can talk about everything.
My heroes were people like Jim Jarmusch. Scorsese was my god. Spike Lee was exciting, doing exactly what we thought we were going to do: personal movies based in, and about, New York. My heroes were all participating in an economic model that was collapsing as I was finishing film school.
I don't want to cancel the South out in my life. I carry my Southernness with me. God knows, it's a great place to come from. It's also a place I had to get away from. It is just an endless world for me, so much culture and eccentricity.
I am a nuclear physicist by training and a deeply committed Christian. I don't have any doubt in my own mind about God who created the entire universe. But I don't adhere to passages that so and so was created 4,000 years before Christ, and things of that kind.
The age of the Earth makes no difference with respect to Christ's atoning sacrifice for humanity's sin or to the nature and character of God, Earth's age has no bearing on any of the historic Christian doctrines. No mention of Earth's age appears in even the most detailed creedal statements.
No one perfectly loves God who does not perfectly love some of his creatures.
I'm not afraid to have a character say, 'I am a Christian,' or, 'I believe in God,' because I think they represent real people on this Earth.
I hated being in a convent. It's another form of power. Manipulation. Because who can say - one God for the whole universe? I think there must be millions of gods! And they're not all of them very nice.
God bless the roots! Body and soul are one.
Fear is present when we forget that we are a part of God's divine design. Learning to experience authentic love means abandoning ego's insistence that you have much to fear and that you are in an unfriendly world. You can make the decision to be free from fear and doubt and return to the brilliant light of love that is always with you.
As a pastor, I have a deep desire to lead people to God and encourage people to pray, read the Bible, and carry their faith into every part of their lives.
It is always encouraging and kind when people say nice things about my work but I know that it is not me that did it then and it is not me that is doing it now. It is God living in me and for that I will always be grateful.
My feeling, of course, is that it's ludicrous to try to prove God's existence by science. God has nothing to do with science. God has all to do with soul, and who can explain that?
You have the women sitting on the left and the men sitting on the right. Everything is to keep your mind focused on God... To me the most beautiful thing anyone on earth can experience, other than maybe marriage and child-bearing, would be the Orthodox Liturgy.
Looking back over the years, I realize the Bible isn't magic, but it is corrective; it isn't an answer book, it is a living book; it isn't a fix-it book, it is relationship book. When I confront God's word, I am confronted; when I read God's word, it reads me; when I seek God's presence, He seeks me.
I do not concern myself much with reading long commentary volumes designed to enlarge at length upon that which is found in the scriptures. Rather, I prefer to dwell with the source, tasting of the unadulterated waters of the fountain of truth - the word of God as he gave it and as it has been recorded in the books we accept as scripture.
The wisdom of God is so great that He also knows exactly what I would think and do under every possible circumstance and situation, and he placed me in that state of life and situation best suited for my salvation.
I have fun with it and I am honest and open about the way I lead my life and don't mislead anyone. I've had the time of my life and thank God for that, it would be such a waste otherwise.
I don't want to compare my city to Zurich; thank God we're not that boring. Rio is advancing fast, but we're at a different phase in our civilization.
If you will do what God tells you to do, there's no person on Earth and no devil in Hell that can keep you from having what God wants you to have.
The Book of Mormon is another testament of Jesus Christ, and we learn about Him in its pages. We know that it has great power. It has the power to change lives. It has the power to convert. If you read it with an open heart, you will know that it is the word of God and that it is true.
God has blessed me with a certain amount of presence and a certain amount of charisma.
When I decided to write 'The God of Small Things', I had been working in cinema. It was almost a decision to downshift from there. I thought that 300 people would read it. But it created a platform of trust.
We're often ashamed of asking for so much help because it seems selfish or petty or narcissistic, but I think, if there's a God - and I believe there is - that God is there to help. That's what God's job is.
I believe God gives you the grace to do what you need to do.
The most important thing a pastor does is stand in a pulpit every Sunday and say, 'Let us worship God.' If that ceases to be the primary thing I do in terms of my energy, my imagination, and the way I structure my life, then I no longer function as a pastor.
You are God's own masterpiece! That means you are not ordinary or average; you are a one-of-a-kind original.
Give yourself entirely to God, enter and hide in the hidden ground of your soul.
Themes of redemption, temptation, and faith don't necessarily apply directly to religion. A lot of people find faith in their lives outside of God and still deal with notions of temptation and redemption that aren't religious.
Well, I - you know, the scripture says that God works by faith. And you have to have faith. You have to have trust in God so that God can work.
Oh God, I'm going to get in trouble for saying this, but I grew up falling asleep in church because I was tired from watching horror movies late at night.
Every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God.
I believe many people feel like God is mad at them.
Everything we see, everything that exists, is part of God.
Those who set out to serve both God and Mammon soon discover that there isn't a God.
The community in which one hears the voice of God structures how one hears that voice and interprets what it says.
