Best 4545 quotes in «christianity quotes» category

I’m Temple Claybourne, an upright, warm-blooded hairy mammal, Caucasian, skidding into my fourth decade of existence, the progeny of meat-eating Anglo-Saxon tribal chieftains, left-handed, flat of foot, with low cholesterol and a predictably receding hairline, carrying a zero debt load, a nervous driver, nervous in crowds, nervous around women, hungry with curiosity, a collector of comforting, unnecessary things.

I must strive to see only God in my friends, and God in my cats.

In a culture where image is more important than information, style more important than substance it is not enough to possess the truth. [Christian] case makers must also master the media.

In 303 CE, the Roman emperor Diocletian declared war on the Christian church and instigated the most massive persecution it ever endured. In 312 CE, the emperor Constantine himself converted to become a Christian. In 391 to 392 CE, the vehemently orthodox Christian Theodosius declared all pagan practices illegal and in effect made Christianity the state religion of Rome. With the growth of Christianity came moments of heightened intolerance. Sometimes this intolerance erupted in ugly acts of violence, suppression, and coercion. Christians were not, of course, the only intolerant people on the planet. They themselves had been the victims of violent coercion early in the century.

In Acts, every believer was living in a direct relationship with Him (Christ) and each one functioned normally as a member of His body in oneness with all believers.

In all of this, pray diligently. Pray long and hard every day. Pray for your relationship. Pray for yourself. Pray for your guy. Pray for strength, wisdom, and conviction... Our flesh is weak. But God is strong. Prayer is the antidote.

In answer to modern requests for signs and wonders, Our Lord might say, 'You repeat Satan's temptation, whenever you admire the wonders of science, and forget that I am the Author of the Universe and its science. Your scientists are the proofreaders, but not the authors of the Book of Nature; they can see and examine My handiwork, but they cannot create one atom themselves. You would tempt Me to prove Myself omnipotent by meaningless tests...You tempt Me after you have willfully destroyed your own cities with bombs by shrieking out, "Why does God not stop this war?" You tempt Me, saying that I have no power, unless I show it at your beck and call. This, if you remember, is exactly how Satan tempted Me in the desert. I have never had many followers on the lofty heights of Divine truth, I know; for instance, I have hardly had the intelligentsia. I refuse to perform stunts to win them, for they would not really be won that way. It is only when I am seen on the Cross that I really draw men to Myself; it is by sacrifice, and not by marvels, that I must make My appeal. I must win followers not with test tubes, but with My blood; not with material power, but with love; not with celestial fireworks, but with the right use of reason and free will.

In America the taint of sectarianism lies broad upon the land. Not content with acknowledging the supremacy as the Deity, and with erecting temples in his honor, where all can bow down with reverence, the pride and vanity of human reason enter into and pollute our worship, and the houses that should be of God and for God, alone, where he is to be honored with submissive faith, are too often merely schools of metaphysical and useless distinctions. The nation is sectarian, rather than Christian. Religion's first lesson is humility; its fruit, charity. In the great and sublime ends of Providence, little things are lost, and least of all is he imbued with a right spirit who believes that insignificant observances, subtleties of doctrine, and minor distinctions, enter into the great essentials of the Christian character. The wisest thing for him who is disposed to cavil at the immaterial habits of his neighbor, to split straws on doctrine, to fancy trifles of importance, and to place the man before principles, would be to distrust himself.

In an open. loving, and caring fellowship where judgment and fear do not exist, and the truth is its substance, the oneness of the body is expressed. There is no division, and mutual caring for one another is manifested. This is the apostles' doctrine and fellowship that the early believers shared and continued steadfastly from house to house.

In a now-familiar paradox of punishment it was explained again and again that all these physical attacks were a kindness. The Church persecutes, Augustine said, in the spirit of love. Jerome, the biblical scholar and saint, concurred: it was not cruel to defend God’s honour – in the Bible sinners suffer punishments up to and including death. Chrysostom agreed: if he were to punish your earthly body, he reassured his listeners, it was only to protect your eternal one so that ‘you may be saved, and we may rejoice, and God may be glorified now and always, for ever and ever without end. Amen.’ Those receiving such salvation might, not unreasonably, have felt otherwise. One monk in Shenoute’s care was saved with beatings so savage that he died of his injuries. And what if people, disinclined to rejoice, became frightened by the fact that their neighbours were spying on them, reporting on them, hounding them in their homes? Well, fear too had its benefits. Better to be scared than to sin. ‘Where there is terror,’ said Augustine, ‘there is salvation . . . Oh, merciful savagery!’ The intellectual foundations for a thousand years of theocratic oppression were being laid.

In a very real sense, every person who denies God is living of borrowed capital. He enjoys living as if the world is filled with morality, meaning, order and beauty, yet he denies the God whose existence makes such things possible. When you start with theism - "in the beginning God"- these destinations make complete sense. When you start with materialism though - "in the beginning, the particles" - that route takes you over a cliff of absurdity and despair.

[I]n around AD 170, a Greek intellectual named Celsus launched a monumental and vitriolic attack against the religion. It is clear that, unlike the other authors who have so far written about it, Celsus knows a lot about it. He has read Christian scripture – and not just read it: studied it in great detail. He knows about everything – from the Creation, to the Virgin Birth and the doctrine of the Resurrection. It is equally clear that he loathes it all and in arch, sardonic, and occasionally very earthy sentences, he vigorously rebuts it. The Virgin Birth? Nonsense, he writes, a Roman soldier had got Mary pregnant. The Creation is ‘absurd’; the books of Moses are garbage; while the idea of the resurrection of the body is ‘revolting’ and, on a practical level, ridiculous: ‘simply the hope of worms. For what sort of human soul would have any further desire for a body that has rotted?’ What is also clear is that Celsus is more than just disdainful. He is worried. Pervading his writing is a clear anxiety that this religion – a religion that he considers stupid, pernicious and vulgar – might spread even further and, in so doing, damage Rome. Over 1,500 years later, the eighteenth-century English historian Edward Gibbon would draw similar conclusions, laying part of the blame for the fall of the Roman Empire firmly at the door of the Christians. The Christians’ belief in their forthcoming heavenly realm made them dangerously indifferent to the needs of their earthly one. Christians shirked military service, the clergy actively preached pusillanimity, and vast amounts of public money were spent not on protecting armies but squandered instead on the ‘useless multitudes’ of the Church’s monks and nuns. They showed, Gibbon felt, an ‘indolent, or even criminal, disregard for the public welfare’.

In a sort of negative proof of the power of prayer, three times God commanded Jeremiah to stop praying; God wanted no alteration in his plans to punish a rebellious nation.

In Christianity and the body of Christ there is no room for celebrities, the message of the cross doesn't centre around anyone. It is Christ & Him alone. God can do without any of our church celebrities. We've got to let God stand out in all we do. Our celebrities have included pastors, worship leaders, singers, instrumentalist, the rich in the church, etc. Let's get back on track. God will use our social influence not to make us famous and pompou.s

In conversion, God interferes with out lives. We relinquish autonomy. If we find the gospel message to be true, we need to surrender to God and change our lives. For that reason - whether or not the trilemma or some form of it works - many will still never assent that Jesus is God.

In dealing with us, God always starts with our motives. What do you want for the people? What does God wants for his people? What do you want Him to do for you; that's is a starting place.

Indeed, if their wristbands asked them the question: “What-Would-Jesus-Buy”—well now, that could very well revolutionize the Christian church in America.

In churches that care about special needs inclusion I have found that the single biggest determinant for a child's success is the strength of the relationship between the church and the child's parents. When church leaders and parents are in general agreement regarding a child's abilities and needs, problems tend to get solved with greater speed and ingenuity. But when parents view their child's special needs as nonexistent or insignificant, it creates extra work (and stress!) for everyone serving that child. This is the reason that it is sometimes easier for churches to successfully include children with complex needs that are obvious than it is for churches to successfully include high-functioning children whose disabilities are less obvious. When parents dismiss a child's legitimate need for even occasional assistance it makes it really hard for the child and the volunteers serving them to experience success.

Indeed if they ever once saw the endless supply of eternal opportunities The Adversary offers them every temporal moment of day after day of their fuddled little lives, they would stagger at the sheer industry and prodigality of His efforts. Conversely, if they ever gained a glimpse of how their ordinary actions actually effect and shape things not only under time but without, the very vast weight of that would almost certainly end in their becoming humble.

Indeed, how could we experience grace at all except through our defects?

Indeed, it is amazing that a religion was founded on the experience of utter shame, of a god that dies the death of a condemned criminal.

Indeed we also work, but we are only collaborating with God who works, for his mercy has gone before us. It has gone before us so that we may be healed, and follows us so that once healed, we may be given life; it goes before us so that we may be called, and follows us so that we may be glorified; it goes before us so that we may live devoutly, and follows us so that we may always live with God: for without him we can do nothing.

I never knew the extent of God’s greatness until I hang on to His glorious hope.

In everyday life, a blessed act of saying ‘hello, a smile, word of encouragement…’ can uplift someone spirit.

In fact, according to physicians, the functioning of the digestion depends less on the brain than on hormonal mechanisms and autoregulators. However, during a fast, the digestive system gets an increasing rest. About ten hours after a meal, the contractions stop and the feeling of hunger disappears; five or six hours later the glucose stops coming directly from the intestines and begins to produce itself from the reserve of glycogen contained in the liver. From then on, the body works on itself in a closed circuit, becoming itself the source of the energy it uses. Instead of destroying an appropriating to himself nourishment taken from outside, man enters a state of nonviolence and detachment relative to the outside world.

In fact, God may be working in and through their circumstances, and we can't know completely how God is working through any situation during our earthly lifetime. But if the topic of healing is overemphasized, the family of an individual with special needs may miss the opportunity to be loved and accepted for exactly who they are and where they are in life. Again, the church's role is to provide a safe, nonjudgmental environment that enables families to experience the love of Jesus Christ.

In every problem there is opportunity to win or lose, rise or fall...Ur actions or reactions are the deciding factor

In forming an estimate of sins, we are often imposed upon by imagining that the more hidden the less heinous they are.

In every sound convert the judgement is brought to approve of the laws and ways of Christ, and subscribe to them as most righteous and reasonable; the desire of the heart is to know the whole mind of Christ; the free and resolved choice of the heart is determined for the ways of Christ, before all the pleasures of sin, and prosperities of the world; it is the daily care of his life to walk with God.

In God’s Kingdom there are no overnight sensations or flash-in-the-pan successes. Anyone who wants to be used of God will experience hidden years in the backside of the desert. During that time the Lord is polishing, sharpening and preparing us to fit into His bow, so at the right time, like “a polished shaft” He can launch us into fruitful service. The invisible years are years of serving, studying, being faithful in another person’s ministry and doing the behind-the-scenes work. The Bible says, ‘God is not unjust; he will not forget your work’ (Hebrews 6:10 NIV 2011 Edition). Be patient; when the time is right He will bring forth the fruit He placed inside you.

In Him we have peace, in Him we have power; Preserved by His grace, throughout the dark hour; In all our temptation He keeps us to prove His utmost salvation, His fulness of love. Pronounce the glad word, and bid us be free! Ah, hast Thou not, Lord, a blessing for me? The peace Thou hast given, this moment impart, And open Thy heaven, O Love, in my heart.

In general, Americans would walk a mile uphill in the rain to avoid pain, unless the walk could be shorter and level and the day sunny, which they’d prefer.

In his last years Linacre gave up medicine for the Church and then for the first time read the gospels. On so doing he exclaimed, 'Either this is not the gospel or we are not Christians.

In God's presence I find peace that is much deeper than any disappointment. I will grow and I understand I can't grow myself, that is why I need God and His grace.

In intertwining sentimentality, healing, narcissism, and authority, modern evangelicals give authority to those emotions themselves...The sentimental becomes evidence and authority in a world in which most evangelicals have given up intellectual pursuits and concerns over doctrine. Essentially, sentimentality represents an abandonment of theology and critical introspection in popular evangelicalism. Instead of crafting intellectual responses to the challenges to evangelicalism, popular evangelicals appeal to the power of feeling as an authority to counteract science and criticism of the Bible. They offer their audiences the opportunity to FEEL that evangelicalism is right rather than asking them to accept the veracity of doctrinal positions of evangelicalism.

In Joy, to lose one’s life is to gain it, and Joy never loses an opportunity to be lost in the other.

In life I will fall, I will backslide, but mark my word I will never give up.

In many people Christ lives the life of the Host. Our life is a sacramental life. This Host life is like the Advent life, like the life of the Child in the womb, the Child in the swaddling bands, the Christ in the tomb. It is a life of dependence upon creatures, of silence and secrecy, of hidden light. It is the life of a prisoner.

In my experiences, the common critic of Christianity, when he thinks of Christianity, imagines a sort of elementary, Sunday School blunder of elements: fiery Hell, an angry God, 'try not to sin', 'be good so that you can go to Heaven', absurd miracles, hyper-fundamentalist tales, religious hypocrites, and Jesus telling people not to judge. There is no horse more dead than such. I maintain that understanding Christianity and the Bible is quite like painting a piece of art. Let a toddler paint a puppy; then let an adult who is a long-time painter paint the very same puppy. They are both paintings of the puppy, but one is far more detailed, rational, realistic, and believable than the other. One is distorted and comical; the other is proportional and lively. One can write off Theology if he so pleases, but he might not be very wise in using the toddler's painting when it comes time to identify the real puppy or when trying to confront actual men of the Faith.

In my view, the ultimate goal for a special needs ministry is to being families into a growing relationship with Jesus Christ. And in order for that to happen, a church has to be prepared to successfully accommodate the child with special needs during regular church programming.

In Nietzsche's usage, the word 'Christianity' does not even refer primarily to the religion; using it like a code word, he is thinking more of a particular religio-metaphysically influenced disposition, an ascetically (in the penitent and self-denying sense) defined attitude to the world, an unfortunate form of life deferral, focus on the hereafter and quarrel with secular facts

In order to cease our striving, we must transfer our trust away from our own abilities, our own accomplishments, our own strength, and place it on His provision.

In Jesus the performance pendulum stops — both the pride of success and the despair of failure are absorbed by grace.

In life when God calls you, answer.

In life when people count you out, count on God and count your blessings.

In matters of conscience and basic convictions it is unlawful and pernicious for anyone to forcibly intrude upon another's beliefs; therefore, because I am a man of rational convictions, I will not go out and demolish churches, drown monks, or rip down icons from my friends' walls because in so doing I will not spread my convictions; human beings must be educated, not coerced, I am not the enemy, I am not the tyrant of the conscience of true believers.

In my gut-wrenching honesty and by acknowledging our big, big God, I found peace.

In order for us to learn to love, first ourselves and the others, we must accept Jesus’ love for us in the deepest parts of our hearts.

In other words, this servant would offer God an absolutely obstruction-free "void" within the realm of the human world and history, wherein God may act as the "Creator" of a new world, his world, the way he wants it: where the impossible is daily bread, and in place of the present reality in which the barren one cannot possibly conceive, "the children of the barren one are more than those of the one that is married.

In order to be loved, you must love.