Jeff Ragan > Recent Status Updates

"Who may ascend into the hill of the Lord? And who may stand in His holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart, Who has not lifted up his soul to falsehood, and has not sworn deceitfully. He shall receive a blessing from the Lord and righteousness from the God of his salvation. This is the generation of those who seek Him. Who seek Thy face- even Jacob." - Psalm 24:3-6

"I gave Him my life in a new way at that moment because He had given me His life in a new way. With a great struggle, everything was once again all His. I then could finally take in death itself, contain it, and not be destroyed by it nor become destructive because of it. I had overcome the world. I had overcome every evil emotion that destroys souls" (347).

"Why are the nations in an uproar, and the peoples devising a vain thing? The kings of the earth take their stand, and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against His Anointed. 'Let us tear their fetters apart, and cast away their cords from us!' He who sits in the heavens laughs, The Lord scoffs at them. Then He will speak to them in His anger and terrify them in His fury." - Psalm 2:1-5

"In recommending an increase in the number of chaplains, my reason was that I regarded recognition of the value of religious influence among our troops during the war as of special importance. Many temptations confronted our soldiers abroad &...the presence, the example, & the counsel of chaplains of the right sort would exert an excellent moral effect, especially among men without experience away from home" (284).

"Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? Now gird up your loins like a man, And I will ask you, and you instruct Me! Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth! Tell me, if you have understanding. Who set its measurements, since you know? Or who stretched the line on it? On what were its bases sunk? Or who laid its cornerstone, When the morning stars sang together..." - Job 38:1-7

"On March 3, 1897, the second session of the fifty-fourth Congress introduced 'An act to allow the bottling of distilled spirits in bond,' becoming known as the Bottled-in-Bond Act of 1897. President Grover Cleveland signed the act into law, and bourbon distillers celebrated while the liquor dealers were relieved that they could continue to rectify bourbon whiskey" (58).

"Look at the heavens and see; And behold the clouds - they are higher than you. If you have sinned, what do you accomplish against Him? And if your transgressions are many, what do you do to Him? If you are righteous, what do you give to Him? Or what does He receive from your hand? Your wickedness is for a man like yourself, and your righteousness is for a son of man." - Job 35:5-8

"...the desire of unnecessary knowledge, under the mistaken notion of wisdom, proves hurtful and destructive to many" (24).

"But where can wisdom be found? And where is the place of understanding? Man does not know its value, Nor is it found in the land of the living. The deep says 'It is not in me': & the sea says, 'It is not with me.' Pure gold cannot be given in exchange for it, Nor can silver be weighed as its price...God understand its way; & He knows its place. For He looks to the ends of the earth..." - Job 28:12-24

"People do not live by reason alone. They cannot calculate and act rationally in pursuit of their self-interest until they define their self. Interest politics presupposes identity. In times of rapid social change established identities dissolve, the self must be redefined, and new identities created. For people facing the need to determine Who am I?...religion provides compelling answers..." (97).

"The charge that the 'social gospel" is 'another gospel'...and is therefore contrary to the true gospel of salvation by the grace of God will not stand biblical scrutiny...Amos was not the first to stress social justice - nor the last. Responsibility to other persons is part of biblical religion - from the story of Can and Abel to the closing chapters of Revelation" (249).

"With Him are wisdom and might; To Him belong counsel and understanding. Behold, He tears down, and it cannot be rebuilt; He imprisons a man, and there can be no release. Behold, He restrains the waters, and they dry up; And He sends them out, and they inundate the earth. With Him are strength and sound wisdom, The misled and the misleader belong to Him." - Job 12:13-16

"If indeed [Jesus] had to grow in 'wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man,' then certainly on this his last night as 'just a man,' he was in full bloom - 'Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.' He had become all of what man was meant to be - the perfect blend between a man of faith and a man of authority. He was the only true man" (330-1).

Unhappily, and quite naturally, the last of Darwin's good-humoured giants has long since been extinguished. As Mark Twain said: 'Soap and education are not so sudden as a massacre, but they are equally deadly in the long run'" (556).

"Who alone stretches out the heavens, & tramples down the waves of the sea; Who makes the Bear, Orion, & the Pleiades, & the chambers of the south; Who does great things, unfathomable, & wondrous works without number. Were He to pass by me, I would not see Him; Were He to move past me, I would not perceive Him. Were He to snatch away, who could restrain Him? Who could say to Him, 'What art Thou doing?'" - Job 9:8-12

"Though Adam was a very great man, a very good man, and a very happy man, yet the Lord God commanded him; & the command was no disparagement to his greatness, no reproach to his goodness, nor any diminution at all to his happiness. Let us acknowledge God's right to rule us, & our own obligations to be ruled by him; & never allow any will of our own in contradiction to, or competition with, the holy will of God" (17).

"Then Mordecai told them to reply to Esther, 'Do not imagine that you in the king's palace can escape any more than all of the Jews. For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance will arise for the Jews from another place and you and your father's house will perish. And who knows whether you have not attained royalty for such a time as this?" - Esther 4:13-14

"The true fruits of successful living are not material. They are contentment, the joy of usefulness, growth through the fulfillment of our particular talent. Viewed this way God is always on the side of success for he objective is fulfilling a talent He gave, and which He will support and maintain" (279).

"...our fathers, acted arrogantly; They became stubborn & would not listen to Thy commandments... & did not remember Thy wondrous deeds which Thou hadst performed among them; So they became stubborn & appointed a leader to return to their slavery in Egypt. But Thou art a God of forgiveness, Gracious & compassionate, Slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness; & Thou didst not forsake them." - Neh 9:16-17

"He put [Adam in Eden], not like Leviathan into the waters, to play therein, but to dress the garden and to keep it. Paradise itself was not a place of exemption from work...We were none of us sent into the world to be idle" (16).

"...let Thine ear now be attentive & Thine eyes open to hear the prayer of Thy servant which I am praying before Thee now, day & night, on behalf of the sons of Israel Thy servants, confessing the sins of the sons of Israel which we have sinned against Thee; I & my father's house have sinned. We have acted very corruptly against Thee & have not kept the commandments, nor the statues...Thou didst command" - Neh 1:6-7

"Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, in order to fulfill the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah, the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus...so that he sent a proclamation throughout all his kingdom...saying, 'Thus says Cyrus... "The Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and He has appointed me to build Him a house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah."'" - Ezra 1:1-

"Parallelism focuses the message on itself but its vision is binocular. Like human vision it superimposes two slightly different views of the same object and from their convergence it produces a sense of depth" (232).

"Be strong and courageous, do not fear or be dismayed because of the king of Assyria, nor because of all the multitude which is with him; for the one with us is greater than the one with him. 'With him is only an arm of flesh, but with us is the Lord our God to help us and to fight our battles.' And the people relied on the words of Hezekiah king of Judah." - 2 Chronicles 32:7-8

"Military security throughout the world increasingly depends not on the global distribution of power and the actions of superpowers but on the distribution of power within each region of the world and the actions of the core states of civilizations" (90).

"Now do not stiffen your neck like your fathers, but yield to the Lord,,,and serve the Lord your God, that His burning anger may turn away...For if you return to the Lord, your brothers and your sons will find compassion before those who led them captive, and will return to this land. For the Lord your God is gracious and compassionate, and will not turn His face away from you if you return to Him." - 2 Chr. 30:8-9

"'A new command I give you. Love one another. As I have loved you.' This was their heritage. This was to be our power that would conquer the world. Not the power of might. Or of material wealth or political office. Not the power of fear. But the power of love. This was to be our calling card. A new day was dawning for all people everywhere" (326).

"...we were occasioned much embarrassment in facing the Allies with such a poor showing of accomplishment...The War Department General Staff...must take the greater part of the blame...it has always been difficult for me to understand why our General Staff clung so long to the antiquated systems...which had guided its activities previous to our entry into the war" (278).