Book Quotes: Sunday Best by Matthew Woodley

I read Sunday Best by Matthew Woodley back in 2012 and I found it inspiring. Here are the highlights I made while reading the book. 

We must be people of courage, with faith in our mighty God.

Revelation 21 says that those who conquer are the ones God is going to bring with him in the end.

We’ve got to be bold, courageous people.

God requires us to be courageous

Whatever steps of faith God is calling you to take, I promise you that forty-five years from now you won’t regret it.

We sinners sin, we sinners hide, and then we sinners confess. And when we confess, God extends his shalom to us. Shalom is richer than just peace; shalom is fullness, health, prosperity, and blessing. When we confess, God forgives.

We can walk in the light as he is in the light and can receive the peace of God.

Psalm 77 Even in the depths where questions loom large, remember that God is at work.

Sometimes God has to knock us down before he can pick us up. Sometimes God has to let our lives unravel before he can put them back together again. Sometimes God has to wound us before he can heal us.

We serve a God who came into the very depths of our human condition and, according to the Book of Hebrews, was put to the test in every conceivable way that we can be put to the test—with the exception that he never sinned.

We often don’t immediately and obviously see how God is at work in the circumstances that are swirling about us when we’re in the pit, sinking in the depths and wondering where God is. But the witness of the Holy Scriptures and the people of God through the ages is that God has never left his people alone and that he guides us through all the torturous pathways of life even though his footprints are frequently unseen.

You can see the devil’s footprints, but the footprints of our God are unseen. They lead through the sea, through the depths where we know he goes before us, where he walks beside us, where he lives within us, where he has promised never to leave us nor forsake us.

He leads his people to that land where there will be no more tears, no more sorrow, no more death. There will be no more pits. There will be no more mire and muck to sink into. But we shall forever bask in the presence of our great and living God.

Psalm 107:1 God’s answer to our suffering is himself.

God is more concerned about conforming me and you to the image of Jesus Christ than he is about our comfort zones. God is more interested in my inward character than my outward circumstances—things like refining my faith, humbling my heart, strengthening my character, cleaning up my thought life.

God must be at the center of things. He must be at the center of our suffering. What’s more, he must be warm and personal and compassionate.

And God, like a father, does not always give advice. He does not always give reasons or answers. He goes one better. More often, God gives himself.

In Isaiah 54:5–6 God becomes the husband to the divorced woman. In Psalm 68:5 he becomes a father to the fatherless. In Zechariah 2:5 he becomes the wall of fire to those who need protection. In Isaiah 62:5 he becomes the bridegroom to the person grieving that she’ll never marry. In Psalm 103:3 he becomes the healer to the sick. In Isaiah 9:6 he becomes the Wonderful Counselor to the confused and the depressed. In John 4:13–14 he becomes living water to those who are thirsty. In John 6:35 he is the bread of life to those who are hungry for more than this world can give.

God gives us tiny little tastes of hell on earth so that we might be awakened out of our spiritual slumber with an ice cold splash of eternal realities in our face.

Suffering reveals who we are. That is its best benefit to you and me. When we suffer, when the pressure confines, when limitations crowd in, then evil begins to fizzle. All the things within us God wants to remove like dross begin to rise to the surface where they hit the bright clear light of day and the cleansing light of the Lord Jesus. As C. S. Lewis once said, “God whispers to us in our pleasures, but he shouts to us in our pain.”

And so God allows suffering between him and us so that nothing will come between him and us.

If you feel like the world has passed you by, remember it passed by Christ first.

You can endure almost anything if you know God is sitting next to you.

God allows tragedy and chaos in our lives—for a couple of reasons. Tragedy reveals that we aren’t in control. Sometimes the best we can do with life is to manage it. But when it comes to control, we don’t have any, even with the best-laid plans. Tragedy also reveals how much we have to trust him. Sometimes we misplace our trust. We put it in our bank accounts or our abilities. We put our hopes in a relationship. Isaiah shows us that the only security we have in life, the only constant is the One who gives life—God himself. The only place we can place our trust in the midst of unpredictability is in God.

All of life belongs to God.

The power of the Word is the power of God himself.

 “God permits storms. He permits difficulties. He permits the winds to blow and the billows to roll, and everything may seem to be going wrong and we ourselves to be in jeopardy.” God’s guidance in our lives does not always steer us away from the storm. Sometimes he sends us into it. That’s the time to remember it’s not you who charts the course but Christ.

Christ’s ability to sleep in the midst of the storm helps us see a new dimension to the “peace of God.” We usually think of the peace of God primarily as something we experience. We think of a peace that we receive—the peace that passes all understanding. But our experience of peace must ultimately have its origin in God’s own peace. God is not anxious. God is not afraid. God is certain of the future. The wind and waves that are so troubling to us cannot reach him. And though he may be removed from them, he is not unmoved by them.

It’s interesting to note that sixteen of the thirty-eight parables of Jesus deal with money, possessions, their use, and their relationship to us.

Everything that goes well is a miracle of grace.

The promise is that God will take the bad things, and he’ll work them for good in the totality.