We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light. — Attributed to Plato

Come on home, home to me And I will hold you in my arms And joyful be There will always, always be A place for you at my table Return to me — Josh Garrels

The world behind me, the cross before me; The world behind me, the cross before me, The world behind me, the cross before me; No turning back, no turning back. — Anonymous

John wants to show us something more than the mere satisfaction of hunger. He wants us to look beyond the obvious fulfillment of Passover motifs that the feeding supplies. The climax of the story is unsettling and perverse: The crowd fits Jesus into their religious categories (“This is the prophet!”) and decide that they can control, promote, and fashion something religiously constructive out of this event. They want Jesus for their own ends; they want to pursue a political agenda (revolution? social upheaval? dissent?), and Jesus must flee. In the end the picture is penetratingly clear: They have no clue what they have just witnessed. In their arrogance they wish to exploit it like a marketing company exploits a new household invention. — Gary Burge

O come, O come, Emmanuel, And ransom captive Israel, That mourns in lonely exile here Until the Son of God appear. Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel! — Latin Hymn, 12th Century

Missions is not the ultimate goal of the church. Worship is. Missions exists because worship doesn’t. God’s passion is to be known and honored and worshipped among all the peoples. To worship him is to share that passion for his supremacy among the nations. —John Piper

Now, Brothers and Sisters, the food of your faith is to be found in the death of the Lord Jesus for you and, oh, what blessed food it is! . . . I, for one, bear my testimony that under such circumstances, nothing revives me like a sight of my Master on the accursed tree! Unless He died for me, I, for one, am eternally lost. I can see no merits of my own which I dare present to God, for I am a mass of sin, and I should be a mass of misery, were it not for those dear wounds of His, and that bloody sweat, that Cross and passion! —C. H. Spurgeon

The cost of food in the kingdom is hunger for the Bread of Life. —John Piper

He and his son took the initiative. On terms of grace and grace alone. In defiance of what we deserved. When we, despite our smiles and civility, were running from God as fast as we could, building our own kingdoms and loving our own glory, lapping up the fraudulent pleasures of the world, repulsed by the beauty of God and shutting up our ears at his calls to come home – it was then, in the hollowed out horror of that revolting existence, that the prince of heaven bade his adoring angels farewell. — Dane Ortlund

The physical world is full of many glories, but the pursuit of these glories must not rule my heart because they have no ability whatsoever to offer me the life that I so desperately need. Life is only ever found in what all those earth-bound glories point to — a God of awesome glory who is the Source and Giver of life; life that satisfies and remains forever. Because he is a God of grace, he showers glories on me so that those glories would lead me to him. — Paul David Tripp