Best 4545 quotes in «christianity quotes» category

Adam returned his gaze to the cross. The Jesus was hurting. Guilt simmered and then boiled in him. Jesus had a whole world of suffering and horror to worry about and here Adam was in all his punk puniness. He didn't want to add to Jesus's burdens, but... 'Sorry about that. Look, I know you're busy and I don't want to get greedy with your time, but still, if you could just help me... If you could find a minute, please, please, please, dear sweet Jesus, fix me.

A deeper intimacy with God sharpens our awareness of sin, which causes a stronger need for grace and a freer offering of mercy.

A devout Christian, desire Jesus Christ.

A disciple of Jesus Christ is a visible verbal follower of Jesus Christ at the expense of the ones and things that they hold dear. It's that serious.

A disciple can be forgiven if he does not have great mental ability. He can be forgiven also if he does not display outstanding physical prowess. But no disciple can be excused if he does not have zeal. If his heart is not aflame with a red-hot passion for the Savior, he stands condemned.

A divided heart can never bring complete satisfaction. The man of mingled interests will seldom make a success of anything. If he would succeed in business he must give the major portion of his time and the best of his thought to his business.... The very same is true of the man who would be used of God, only to a far greater degree. The work alone must claim his whole attention. He has no room for other things.

A dream is a divine prophecy.

A distinguishing taste of authentic Christians is their distaste for evil.

Advaita, being the non-dual reality, necessarily points to the essential truth in all religions. Paula Marvelly points out that: 'All religions and faiths contain an esoteric heart, a mystical belief that I AM is in fact synonymous with God.' (Ref. 353) As Gandhi said: 'If the same divinity constitutes the core of all individuals, they cannot but be equal. Further, divinity in one person cannot in any way be unjust to the same divinity in another person.' (Ref. 215) Sayings from the bible such as those of God to Moses ('I am that I am' ) or of Christ ('The kingdom of heaven is within you') express the fundamental truth of Advaita, the non-dual reality of Brahman.

Affliction may be for our edification and Christian development.

A final irony has to do with the idea of political responsibility. Christians are urged to vote and become involved in politics as an expression of their civic duty and public responsibility. This is a credible argument and good advice up to a point. Yet in our day, given the size of the state and the expectations that people place on it to solve so many problems, politics can also be a way of saying, in effect, that the problems should be solved by others besides myself and by institutions other than the church. It is, after all, much easier to vote for a politician who champions child welfare than to adopt a baby born in poverty, to vote for a referendum that would expand health care benefits for seniors than to care for an elderly and infirmed parent, and to rally for racial harmony than to get to know someone of a different race than yours. True responsibility invariably costs. Political participation, then, can and often does amount to an avoidance of responsibility.

A fresh wave of pain ripped though him and he let himself feel it, more than he ever had before, until it overwhelmed him. "God, I cannot bear this pain."

A fresh wave of pain ripped though him and he let himself feel it, more than he ever had before, until it overwhelmed him. "God, I cannot bear this pain." 'Cast your pain on Me. Let me bear it.' Aladdin imagined Jesus hanging on the cross, in horrible pain. Yes, Jesus knew about pain and betrayal. Aladdin's pain might not go away completely, but he could let God carry his pain...God would bear the pain for him if he would cast it on Him. Aladdin lay across his bed and felt a strange sense of peace wash over him.

A fresh wave of pain ripped through him and he let himself feel it more than he ever had before, until it overwhelmed him. "God, I cannot bear this pain."

After Jesus showed up, the Old Testament basically became a way for Bible publishers to keep their word count up. Of course, just because Jesus replaces the Old Testament doesn't mean that you should necessarily skip it. That would be like skipping Batman and Robin just because the story starts over in Batman Begins. The important thing to realize is that both the old and new stories are about an all-powerful being trying to rid the world of evildoers, only in the new one The Batman can eat pork.

After the disintegration of Christendom-a historical apparatus that gave cultural pride of place to Christianity-Christian truth claims cannot be taken for granted or simply asserted using logical apologetics. Rather, the truth of the faith appears to stand or fall based on its goodness, as shown in the lives of those who claim it.

After the Lord has tried our faith, he, in the love of His heart, gives us an abundance. For the glory of His name and for trial of our faith, He allows us to be poor and then graciously supplies our needs.

After the service, coffee and tea were on offer around a big table in the church cafe. The coffee was dispensed from large flasks on the table itself - a small touch but one that emphasised the idea of sharing. The priest spoke to me and I explained briefly why I was there. “Well,” she said, “everyone is welcome here.

After that I went home and Sally put what was left of me to bed; next day, being a Christian family, we saluted the happy morn with the Hell and Hades of a row because I wouldn't get up and go to early service, my sister being quite determined that even if I didn't get up. I shouldn't sleep.

After the knowledge of, and obedience to, the will of God, the next aim must be to know something of His wisdom, power and goodness as evidenced by His handiwork.

Agnosticism, Atheism, secularism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam or any other counter belief to Christianity is not the greatest threat facing Christianity in the west. The biggest threat facing Christianity in the west is Scripture illiterate believers. People who are asleep, all while the world waits to here the Gospel...”

A God unbound by our rules of time has the ability to invest in every person on earth. God has, quite literally, all the time in the world for each one of us.

A good dad will fulfill his daughter's request—but only if it's the right gift, at the right time. Sometimes he may give the gracious gift of saying no. But always—always—he cares about his child's request.

A God who punishes disobedience will teach us to obey and endure when it would be holy to protest and righteous to refuse to cooperate.

A good purpose, which has known God, cannot be changed.

A good soldier ponders the Word of God; he mulls it over, chews on it, and eats it so that he will bleed it when cut.

A Great Rabbi stands, teaching in the marketplace. It happens that a husband finds proof that morning of his wife's adultery, and a mob carries her to the marketplace to stone her to death. There is a familiar version of this story, but a friend of mine - a Speaker for the Dead - has told me of two other Rabbis that faced the same situation. Those are the ones I'm going to tell you. The Rabbi walks forward and stands beside the woman. Out of respect for him the mob forbears and waits with the stones heavy in their hands. 'Is there any man here,' he says to them, 'who has not desired another man's wife, another woman's husband?' They murmur and say, 'We all know the desire, but Rabbi none of us has acted on it.' The Rabbi says, 'Then kneel down and give thanks that God has made you strong.' He takes the woman by the hand and leads her out of the market. Just before he lets her go, he whispers to her, 'Tell the Lord Magistrate who saved his mistress, then he'll know I am his loyal servant.' So the woman lives because the community is too corrupt to protect itself from disorder. Another Rabbi. Another city. He goes to her and stops the mob as in the other story and says, 'Which of you is without sin? Let him cast the first stone.' The people are abashed, and they forget their unity of purpose in the memory of their own individual sins. ‘Someday,’ they think, ‘I may be like this woman. And I’ll hope for forgiveness and another chance. I should treat her as I wish to be treated.’ As they opened their hands and let their stones fall to the ground, the Rabbi picks up one of the fallen stones, lifts it high over the woman’s head and throws it straight down with all his might it crushes her skull and dashes her brain among the cobblestones. ‘Nor am I without sins,’ he says to the people, ‘but if we allow only perfect people to enforce the law, the law will soon be dead – and our city with it.’ So the woman died because her community was too rigid to endure her deviance. The famous version of this story is noteworthy because it is so startlingly rare in our experience. Most communities lurch between decay and rigor mortis and when they veer too far they die. Only one Rabbi dared to expect of us such a perfect balance that we could preserve the law and still forgive the deviation. So of course, we killed him. -San Angelo Letters to an Incipient Heretic

A great many skeptics are unfortunately put to waste, in that they vainly focus their energy on ridiculing a certain tiny denomination of Biblical fundamentalism, a denomination seated just one chair away from unbelief. They, the skeptics, cannot believe because they are the most literal of fundamentalists: of those who must interpret Scripture as simply an obsolete, absolutely dead compilation of intellectual incompetence. Nevertheless, by all means, because, after all, that is supposed to happen - Scripture states of itself that all thought and interpretation is folly without the Holy Spirit - however the ironic thing is the case in which one believes that the Bible is, in its true essence, completely outdated. And like flashes in a pan, he hints at his naivety, that he knows little about the world around him, little about those who live in it. Either that, or he knows little about what Scripture really says in relation to the world around him, little about what it really says in relation to those who live in it. It is as though he is the one dead to the world and it to him. He has not the Spirit to give life to his own spirit; he can only possibly understand Scripture as long-deceased rather than the modern world's very living narrative.

A great problem in America is that we have an anemic and watered-down Christianity that has produced an anemic, watered-down, and spineless Christian who is not willing to stand up and be counted on every issue.

A guilty suffering spirit is more open to grace than an apathetic or smug soul.' - Bread & Wine (day 5)

A healthy Christian life cannot be stitched together from a series of disjointed mountain-top experiences. We need a Christian spirituality that endures the shadowy, low-lying valleys and the rocky slopes in between all those glorious summits.

A higher understanding of human freedom, however, is inseparable from a definition of human nature. To be free is to be able to flourish as the kind of being one is, and so to attain the ontological good toward which one's nature is oriented; freedom is the unhindered realization of a complex nature in its proper end (natural and supernatural), and this is consummate liberty and happiness. The will that chooses poorly, then - through ignorance, maleficence, or corrupt desire - has not thereby become freer, but has further enslaved itself to those forces that prevent it from achieving its full expression. And it is this richer understanding of human freedom that provides us some analogy to the freedom of God. For God is infinite actuality, the source and end of all being, the eternally good, for whom mere arbitrary 'choice' - as among possibilities that somehow exceed his 'present' actuality - would be a deficiency, a limitation placed upon his infinite power to be God. His freedom is the impossibility of any force, pathos, or potentiality interrupting the perfection of his nature or hindering him in the realization of his own illimitable goodness, in himself and in his creatures. To be 'capable' of evil - to be able to do evil or to be affected by an encounter with it - would in fact be an incapacity in God; and to require evil to bring about his good ends would make him less than the God he is. The object of God's will is his own infinite goodness, and it is an object perfectly realized, and so he is FREE.

Ah, Lord God be merciful to us all!

A holy fast is the food of faith.

A human being must have an auxiliary means of discovering the truth, a means that exists outside of his own belief or outside any alleged revelation. Otherwise…well, who’s to say he isn’t insane?

Aiming for the Higher Calling through Christ Yeshua Hamashiach.

A Jesus Follower can explain our "One God in Three Persons" is like an "equilateral triangle". Both have three, conjoined, and distinct but identical parts. This is a simple way to help non-Followers of Jesus who struggle with the concept of Trinity to better understand the Three Personalities of our One Living God...God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit." ~ gfp '42©

A Jesus-focused ministry gives greater weight to connection over correction, recognizing that change and spiritual growth occur in the context of meaningful relationships. The student with special needs is more like to develop a personal relationship with Jesus if no one is hung up on the deficit in interpersonal skills and instead everyone cares more about providing a positive, anxiety-free church experience.

A lament is an act of worship, a faith statement of trust, in the face of difficulty. It's a wonderfully honest way to acknowledge our trouble to God as we also acknowledge our hope is in him.

A legalist is not someone who places divine law above all else. A legalist is someone who places human law above all else.

A leader in the leader is your positional status in the body while the leader in a leader is Christ in you the hope of glory

A life of faith is an enduring sacred-existence.

A life of hospitality begins in worship, with a recognition of God's grace and generosity. Hospitality is not first a duty and responsibility; it is first a response of love and gratitude for God's love and welcome to us.

A life based on [religious] faith is a life based on pure speculation, and speculation is, by its very definition, unsound.

All Christians in any state or walk of life are called to the fullness of Christian life and to the perfection of charity. ... In order to reach this perfection the faithful should use the strength dealt out to them by Christ's gift, so that ... doing the will of the Father in everything, they may wholeheartedly devote themselves to the glory of God and to the service of their neighbor.

A life I have lived and have found just that... life.

A little murmur of admiration greeted this neat reply and on the crest of it the hostess rose to dismiss the meeting. The ladies rustled forward towards the lecturer but he, deprecating their flattery, came to greet Helena. "I was told your Majesty might do me the honor of coming." "I scarcely hoped you had recognized me. I am afraid the lecture was far above my head. But I am delighted to see you have prospered. Are you . . . are you able to travel as you wish?" "Yes, I was given my freedom many years ago by a kind, foolish old woman who took a fancy for my verses." "Did you get to Alexandria?" "Not yet, but I found what I wanted. Did you reach Troy, Highness?" "No, oh no." "Or Rome?" "Not even there." "But you found what you wanted?" "I have accepted what I found. Is that the same?" "For most people. I think you wanted more." "Once. Now I am past my youth." "But your question just now. 'When? Where? How do you know?'--was a child's question." "That is why your religion would never do for me, Marcias. If I ever found a teacher it would have to be one who called little children to him." "That, alas, is not the spirit of the time. We live in a very old world today. We know too much. We should have to forget everything and be born again to answer your question.

All Christians have access to the spiritual riches found in the Scriptures, which, after all, were written amid the spiritual turmoil and social conflicts of the writers’ times. We can learn from those who went before us.

All discourses and disciplines proceed from commitments and beliefs that are ultimately religious in nature. No scientific discourse (whether natural science or social science) simply discloses to us the facts of reality to which theology must submit; rather, every discourse is, in some sense, religious. The playing field has been leveled. Theology is most persistently postmodern when it rejects a lingering correlational false humility and instead speaks unapologetically from the the primacy of Christian revelation and the church's confessional language.

All believers have been called into only one fellowship, which is that of Jesus Christ. Believers may mistakenly consider the group they associate with is one fellowship, and every other group has its own separate fellowship. The truth is, all believers belong to only one fellowship...Since all believers are in the one body of Christ, there should be no divisions in Christ.