sacrifice

Sacrifice is a sacred service.

We know many among ourselves who have given themselves up to bonds, in order that they might ransom others. Many, too, have surrendered themselves to slavery, that with the price which they received for themselves, they might provide food for others.

SCORPIUS: The world changes and we change with it. I am better off in this world. But the world is not better. And I don't want that.

To pretend is to do nothing more than imagine life as something wonderful so that we don__ have to incur the pain that it takes to actually make life wonderful.

We might not return from this voyage. None of us. We might all lay down our lives when we reach the end, and not ever know whether our sacrifice changed anything for the better.___t will be for the better,_ Magiano replies. __e cannot just die, not without trying. Not without fighting.___o you really believe that?_ I ask. __hy are we doing this, anyway? To preserve my own life, and yours__ut what has the world ever done for us in order to deserve our sacrifice?__agiano__ brows furrow for a moment, then he leans in closer. __e exist because this world exists. It__ a responsibility of ours, whether or not anyone will remember it._ He nods at me. __nd they will. Because we will return and make sure of it.

Change is a difficult process. It can truly take place in an environment of support, structure, and sacrifice. Support comes from asking for help, seeking professional coaching, and surrounding yourself with the right people. Structure requires accountability, a follow-up system, and action. Sacrifice requires paying the price and getting out of your comfort zone but staying in your strength zone.

I am thankful that there are those among us who have sacrificed dearly on behalf of us. And I ardently pray to God that I might be less like myself and more like them.

Jane, will you marry me?""Yes sir.""A poor blind man, whom you will have to lead about by the hand?""Yes, sir.""A crippled man, twenty years older older than you, whom you will have to wait on?""Yes, sir.""Truly, Jane?""Most truly, sir.

It is often argued that religion is valuable because it makes men good, but even if this were true it would not be a proof that religion is true. That would be an extension of pragmatism beyond endurance. Santa Claus makes children good in precisely the same way, and yet no one would argue seriously that the fact proves his existence. The defense of religion is full of such logical imbecilities. The theologians, taking one with another, are adept logicians, but every now and then they have to resort to sophistries so obvious that their whole case takes on an air of the ridiculous. Even the most logical religion starts out with patently false assumptions. It is often argued in support of this or that one that men are so devoted to it that they are willing to die for it. That, of course, is as silly as the Santa Claus proof. Other men are just as devoted to manifestly false religions, and just as willing to die for them. Every theologian spends a large part of his time and energy trying to prove that religions for which multitudes of honest men have fought and died are false, wicked, and against God.

[A]s though mindful of the wife of Lot, who looked back from behind him, thou deliveredst me first to the sacred garments and monastic profession before thou gavest thyself to God. And for that in this one thing thou shouldst have had little trust in me I vehemently grieved and was ashamed. For I (God [knows]) would without hesitation precede or follow thee to the Vulcanian fires according to thy word. For not with me was my heart, but with thee. But now, more than ever, if it be not with thee, it is nowhere. For without thee it cannot anywhere exist.

It's unfortunate to be bitten by political ambition. The deadly disease causes a man to want to access power by all means either by sacrificing others to its altar or by sacrificing himself when he fails.

The sacrifice __f_ self for the greater good is the greatest calling imaginable, and it is the bedrock of the greatest nations. The sacrifice __or_ self is the most pathetic calling imaginable, and it is the quicksand within which nations perish.

Discerning the difference between a dictator and a leader is quite easy. The former cannot help but see __eading_ and __erving_ as stark contradictions that by their very nature are utterly incompatible. The latter can__ tell the difference

The Golds have everything, yet they demand sacrifices even from their own. This place is sick. This empire broken. It eats its kings, its queens, as hungrily as it does the paupers who mill its earth.

Compassion without discipline is egregious self-sabotage.

Of course, if one does not fully trust the promise of God's Kingdom, he will have a hard time taking risks and making sacrifices in this life. A gospel centered around the temporal self - fleeting happiness, earthly success, vain prosperity, things such as these - is the primary ambition of the half-hearted Christian; the one who somewhat believes he is subject to an eternal death; the one who just might believe in men before God, who morbidly fears seeming less than anyone else. The man of this school feels deeply that he has but one life to live, that this must be his only chance, and therefore must have it all in his favor - from glory to comfort to riches - and have it right this instant. He is but hinting that he is overcome because he insists always that he must overcome, that his judgment comes now and by the persons around him. The point is, however, in this sense, that by grace the Christian is indeed free, but only for as long as he wants to be free - the practicality of true freedom: that of God which offers not so much freedom to be like the world as it does freedom from the pressures of having to be like the world. For Divine Law is based solely on love and freedom; whereas secular law, pressure and imitation.

If I have become so pathetically dulled that I hold freedom as my right and the privileges of liberty as my due, I can stand beside the stilled graves of a thousand soldiers fallen in defense of freedom and not feel a thing. And my most solemn prayer is that I will never be this.

Rare are the handful of principles that incessantly drive us to stand even when we face the stark realization that we will likely perish in the standing. And rarer still is the person who will surrender all to protect such principles. Yet, the rudimentary principles of freedom and liberty pristinely untarnished by greed and selfishness took captive the hearts of simple people and raised this nation up from untamed wilderness and unchecked tyranny. And let us all be warned that without renewed adherence to these principles, we will rapidly return this nation to untamed wilderness and unchecked tyranny.