We have to remember, when we forgive we're not doing it just for the other person, we're doing it for our own good. When we hold on to unforgiveness and we live with grudges in our hearts, all we're doing is building walls of separation.
A lot of psychological principles and even medical principles, you see them coming around to what the Bible said hundreds of years ago: a merry heart is good like a medicine.
We think when God speaks to us, there's going to be a boom out of Heaven or we're going to get some chill bumps, but I really believe God's talking to us all the time. He's talking to us right in here. I call it our heart, our conscience, but it's the Holy Spirit talking to us.
We minister the Word of God. The proclamation of the Gospel comes after individuals have opened their hearts to God and turned from themselves to others. Only then are they truly ready to hear and benefit fully from the Word of the Lord.
I've always been an encourager at heart.
It seems like when I was growing up there was more compromise, wanting to work with each other, and I think all of them - all of the lawmakers - have hearts to do what's right, and they all are passionate about it.
I always try to put a seed of hope into people's hearts. I'm not there to teach them doctrine necessarily, but to let them know that God is a good God, and has a plan for their lives. Hopefully, that will restore their faith, or draw them into faith.
I like to take every day just searching my own heart, making sure that I'm on course, and I'm doing what God wants me to do. I'm real good with not looking to the critics and looking straight ahead.
I just think that only God will judge a person's heart.
I just wanted to get the message that God had put into my heart into another form, because I knew the print media would reach a different group of people.
When I took over from my father, he came from the Southern Baptist background, and back 40-50 years ago, there was a lot more of that.I don't believe - maybe it was for a time. But I don't have it in my heart to condemn people. I'm there to encourage them.
I like to start my day off every morning, take the first half hour and just search my own heart, see if I'm on the right course, try to be honest with myself - am I doing this for the right reasons?
