"I want to know one thing, the way to heaven: how to land safe on that happy shore."

"I meditate theron [Scripture], with all the attention and earnestness of which my mind is capable. If any doubt sill remains, I consult those who are experienced in the things of God; and then, the writings whereby, being dead, they yet speak. And what I thus learn, that I teach."
-John Wesley

I have come to love this man. Over the past few months I have been reading selections of Wesley as a pre-quiet time ritual if you will. It has been incredible. His writing is very lyrical and God-centered, so of course, I like it. I cannot pretend to know everything about him, but I do know that Wesley was the father of the Methodist Church movement. From his writings, he seems to be an incredible man of God, so I'll just let him speak for himself.

"If we consider boundless space, or boudless duration, we shrink inot nothing before it. But God is not a man. A day, and millions of ages, are the same with him. Therefore, there si the same disproportion between him and any finite being, as between him and the creature of a day. Therefore, whenever that thought recurs, whenever you are tempted to fear lest you should be forgotten before the immense, the eternal GOd, remember that nothing is little or great, that no duration is long or short, before him. "

"Surely you did not imagine that Christianity was no more than such a system of opinions as is vulgarly called faith; or a strict and regular attendance on any kind of external worship. O no! Were this all that it implied, Christianity were indeed a poor, empty, shallow thing; such as none but half-thinkers could admire, and all who think freely and generously must despise."

"Let your religion be the religion of the heart."

"So that the end of your praying is not to inform God, as though he knew not your wants already; but rather to inform yourselvs; to fix the sense of those wants more deeply in your hearts, and the sense of your continual dependence on him, who only is able to supply all your wants. It is not so much to move God, who is always more ready to give than you ask, as to move yourselves, that you may be willing and ready to receive the good things he has prepared for you."

"In love over all things--of the dead and the absent speaking nothing but good; believe all things which may any way tend to clear you neighbor's character; hope all things, in his favor; and endure all things triumphing over all opposition: for true love never faileth, in time or in eternity."

"Let but the eye of the sould be constantly fixed, not on the things which are temporal, but on those which are eternal, and our affections are more and more loosened from earth, and fixed on things above."

"Let love not visit you as a transient guest, but be the constant temper of your soul. See that your heart be filled at all times, and on al ocasions, with real, undissembled benevolence; not to those only that love you, but to every soul of man. Let it pant in your heart; let it sparkle in your eyes; let it shine on all your actions. Whenever you open your lips, let it be with love; and let there be in your tongue the law of kindness. Your word will then distill as the rain, and as the dew upon the tender herb. Be not straitened or limited in your affection, but let it embrace every child of man. Everyone born of a woman has a claim to your goodwill. You owe this, not to some, but to all. And let all men know that you desire both their temporal and eternal happiness, as sincerely as you do your own."

And my favorite:

"Religion does not consist in negatives, in bare harmlessness of any kind; nor merely in externals, in doing good, or using the means of grace, in works of piety (so-called) or of charity. It is nothing short of, or different from "the mind that was in Christ"; the image of God stamped upon the heart; inward righteousness, atteneded with the peace of God; and "joy in the Holy Ghost."

I think he sounds a lot like Piper.

My sister is playing high school summer basketball now. I'm a little sad that I can't play with her. But I'm pretty freaking proud. I wanted the blogging community to know.