couple good quotes for thought

"all the saving events and all the saving blessings of the gospel are means of getting obstacles out of the way so that we might know and enjoy God most fully. propitiation, redemption, forgiveness, imputation, sanctification, liberation, healing, heaven - none of these is good news except for one reason: they bring us to God for our everlasting enjoyment of Him. if we believe all these things have happened to us, but do not embrace them for the sake of getting to God, they have not happened to us. Christ did not die to forgive sinners who go on treasuring anything above seeing and savoring God. and people who would be happy in heaven if Christ were not there, will not be there. the gospel is not a way to get people to heaven; it is a way to get people to God. if we don't want God above all things, we have not been converted by the gospel." john piper

"i am progressing along the path of life in my ordinary contentedly fallen and godless condition, absorbed in a merry meeting with my friends for the morrow or a bit of work that tickles my vanity today, a holiday or a new book, when suddenly a stab of abdominal pain that threatens serious disease, or a headline in the newspapers that threatens us all with destruction, sends this whole pack of cards tumbling down. at first i am overwhelmed, and all my little happinesses look like broken toys. then, slowly and reluctantly, bit by bit, i try to bring myself into the frame of mind that i should be in at all times. i remind myself that all these toys were never intended to possess my heart, that my true good is in another world and my only real treasure is Christ." c.s. lewis quoted by mark talbot