An unexamined Christian stands like an unattended garden. Let your garden go unattended for a few months, and you will not have roses and tomatoes but weeds. … It takes examination, teaching, instruction, discipline, caring, tending, weeding and cultivating to keep the life right. —A. W. Tozer

Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. (Psalm 139:23-24, NIV)

The unexamined life is not worth living. — Socrates

Examine me, God, from head to foot, order your battery of tests. Make sure I’m fit inside and out so I never lose sight of your love, but keep in step with you, never missing a beat. (Psalm 26:2-3, MSG)

Pride cannot stand the bright light of self-study. Pride has a fear of seeing what ego really looks like. Pride is a generous self-portrait. … Humility shuns such portraiture. It separates us from our grasping egos. It is stepping back and looking at ourselves. It is being so rebuked at what we see that we yield to a better self. — Calvin Miller

Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you? (2 Corinthians 13:5, ESV)

In prayer it is better to have a heart without words, than words without heart.

                                                                    —John Bunyan

My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart you, God, will not despise. (Psalm 51:17, NIV)

The ideal man is not a perfect man by any means. Rather, he’s a maturing man, a striving man, a studying man—but most of all he’s a man who seeks the Father with all his heart, soul, mind, and strength. — Charles Stanley

Now, therefore, fear the Lord and serve Him in sincerity and truth. (Joshua 24:14, NASB)

Be an ardent seeker . . . —John Henry Jowett

From here on, worshiping the Father will not be a matter of the right place but with the right heart. For God is a Spirit, and he longs to have sincere worshipers who worship and adore him in the realm of the Spirit and in truth. (John 4:23-24, TPT)

Happy Birthday Dad!

Humility is not a sign of weakness. It never has been. It never will be. It ever has been and always will be a sign of strength and deep-rooted courage. All through history the strong men—strong from the standpoint of morality and righteousness—have been humble men. And in human relationships humility is a powerful thing; for it not only rebukes an enemy; it also reclaims, wins, the enemy. —David Dawson

I thank God for you. Your life is a blessing. Thank you for your ceaseless prayers and your unwavering support of me. Thanks for your “strong” life of humility as you live for Jesus Christ. It is my privilege to be your son. I celebrate you and your 76 years of life today.

With love, Ryan

Be sure to get your steps in today.

Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him. (Colossians 2:6, ESV)

 The glory of God is man fully alive. —Saint Irenaeus

I am the bread of life. (John 6:48, NIV)

Life is full of unexpected moments. But when we enter each day in rhythm with God, every step is an arrival. —Eugene Peterson

I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. (John 10:10, NIV)

But one life, ’twill soon be past;
Only what’s done for Christ will last.
And when I am dying how glad I will be,
That the lamp of my life has blazed out for Thee.
— C.T. Studd

Your old life is dead. Your new life, which is your real life—even though invisible to spectators—is with Christ in God. He is your life. (Colossians 3:3, MSG)

The more talk, the less truth; the wise measure their words. (Proverbs 10:19, MSG)

Whenever anything disagreeable happens to you, remember Christ crucified and keep silent. —St. John of the Cross

Set a guard over my mouth, Lord; keep watch over the door of my lips. (Psalm 141:3, NIV)

Keep silent. Give rest to your tongue more often than to your hands. You will never regret that you have kept silent, but you will often regret that you spoke too much.

                                                                        —Leo Tolstoy

Careful words make for a careful life; careless talk may ruin everything. (Proverbs 13:3, MSG)

A word spoken by you when your conscience is clear and your heart is full of God’s spirit is worth ten-thousand words spoken in unbelief and sin.

                                                                        —Robert Murray M’Cheyne

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight,
O Lord, my rock and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14, ESV)

Tell me to what you pay attention and I will tell you who you are.

                                                —José Ortega y Gasset

Oh, how I love your law! I meditate on it all day long. Your commands are always with me and make me wiser than my enemies. I have more insight than all my teachers, for I meditate on your statutes. (Psalm 119:97-99, NIV)

The men of the Bible were dwelling on the Person of Christ, not on their misfortunes . . . The emphasis all the time was “walk in Christ.” —Samuel Rees Howells

Since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. (Hebrews 12:1-2, NIV)

We are to be totally absorbed with Jesus. He is to fill our skies like the morning sunrise. He is to be our high noon and our sunset. — R. Kent Hughes

Search for the Lord and for his strength; continually seek him. (Psalm 105:4, NLT)

God of all grace, teach me the way of continual penitence and holy trust. May there be no gaps in my consecration! May my life be all of one piece! May sin make no rent! May my devotion be complete, including even the things that are least! —J. H. Jowett

Be very careful to observe the commandment and the law that Moses the servant of the Lord commanded you, to love the Lord your God, and to walk in all his ways and to keep his commandments and to cling to him and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul. (Joshua 22:5, ESV)

When I invite God into every task, seek his wisdom, trust him for help when I get stuck, the work itself becomes a sacrament. —Luci Shaw

Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 3:12-14, NIV)

An easy-going, non-self-denying life will never be one of power. — Hudson Taylor

And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. (Matthew 6:12, NIV)

However important justice is—and it is important—forgiveness is more important. The Christian at prayer, even as Jesus as prayer, is not first of all an impersonal agent of justice but a personal conveyer of forgiveness and a witness to the resurrection. Such forgiveness is not soft sentimentality. It is hard-edged gospel. Such forgiveness is not a moral shrug of the shoulders. It is a white-hot flame of resurrection love forged in the furnace of the cross. Assuming that the criminal crucified next to Jesus was receiving a just death sentence (he said as much himself), the sentence was not revoked in Jesus’ prayer. The criminal died for his crime. But forgiveness trumped justice. It always does. —Eugene Peterson

And when they came to the place which is called The Skull, there they crucified him, and the criminals, one on the right and one on the left. And Jesus said, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do. (Luke 23:33-34, NIV)

Everyone thinks forgiveness is a lovely idea until he has something to forgive.

                                                                    ― C.S. Lewis

Be kind to each other, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God through Christ has forgiven you. (Ephesians 4:32, NLT)

“Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.” (Luke 23:43, ESV)