Best 4545 quotes in «christianity quotes» category

St Laurence gathered the poor, the blind, and the lame together in the church in Rome and brought in the rapacious Roman authorities, proclaiming, “Here are the riches of the Church!” Whenever Christians refuse to use the word “Church” as a synonym for “those in prominent roles in the clergy hierarchy,” but instead assume and take for granted that “Church” means principally the uncelebrated, the downtrodden, and the poor, the Holy Spirit is active in making the stories of Church history live in the habits of Christian speech.

Stop concentrating on the leaves concentrate on d root cause where they came from.Curse or bless d cause

Stop complaining. Be grateful for every circumstance.

Stop living a double life, God isn't looking for a part- time christian but he's looking for a full-time Christian.

Stop telling God what you want to have , He is going to use what you have left to give you what you need.

Stop praying to God to change your marriage or your finances because you might end up seeing that you are the one that need the change not your marriage or finances.

Stop trying, & start trusting.

Success starts with a Vision

Such as make the sacrament only a representation of Christ do aim short of the mystery, and come short of the comfort.

Suffering often draws us closer to God. Instead of being a sign of God's punishment or distance, suffering can purify us, lead us into the heart of God, and transform our souls.

Sunday mornings, on the other hand, weren't going so well. On Sunday mornings, my doubt came to church like a third member of the family, toddling along behind me with clenched fists and disheveled hair, throwing wild tantrums after every offhanded political joke or casual reference to hell. During the week I could pacify my doubt with book or work or reality TV, but on Sunday mornings, in the brand-new, contemporary-styled sanctuary of Grace Bible Church, doubt pulled up a chair and issued a running commentary.

Sunshine is a light. May the sunshine brighten your path of life.

Surely no rebel can expect the King to pardon his treason while he remains in open revolt. No one can be so foolish as to imagine that the Judge of all the earth will put away our sins if we refuse to put them away ourselves.

Suppose that members of a religious movement, such as Christianity, maintain that the existence of some powerful god and its goals or laws can be known through their scriptures, their prophets, or some special revelation. Suppose further that the evidence that is available to support the reliability of those scriptures, prophets, or special revelations is weaker than that God is hypothetically capable of producing. That is, suppose that Christians maintain that Jesus was resurrected on the basis of the Gospels, or that God’s existence can be known through the Bible, or Muslims insist on the historical authenticity of the Koran. Could God, the almighty creator of the universe, have brought it about so that the evidence in favor of the resurrection, the Bible, or the Koran was better than we currently find it? I take it that the answer is obviously yes. Even if you think there is evidence that is sufficient to prove the resurrection, a reasonable person must also acknowledge that it could have been better. And there’s the problem. If the capacity of that god is greater than the effectiveness or quality of those scriptures, prophets, or special revelations, then the story they are telling contradicts itself. 'We know our god is real on the basis of evidence that is inadequate for our god.' Or, 'The grounds that lead us to believe in our god are inconsistent with the god we accept; nevertheless, we believe in this god that would have given us greater evidence if it had wished for us to believe in it.' Given the disparity between the gods that these religious movements portend and the grounds offered to justify them, the atheist is warranted in dismissing such claims. If the sort of divine being that they promote were real and if he had sought our believe on the basis of the evidence, the evidential situation would not resemble the one we are in. The story doesn’t make internal sense. A far better explanation is that their enthusiasm for believing in a god has led them to overstate what the evidence shows. And that same enthusiasm has made it difficult for them to see that an all powerful God would have the power to make his existence utterly obvious and undeniable. Since it’s not, the non-believer can’t possibly be faulted for failing to believe.

Sve Crkve stoje danas u našem postmodernom krajoliku poput stabala bez lišća.

Surrounded by enemies, surrounded by evil, surrounded by darkness, injustice......."don't be afraid , those who are with us are more than those who are with them" 2 Kings 6:16

T-4.II.6. Only those who have a real and lasting sense of abundance can be truly charitable. This is obvious when you consider what is involved. To the ego, to give anything implies that you will have to do without it. When you associate giving with sacrifice, you give only because you believe that you are somehow getting something better, and can therefore do without the thing you give. “Giving to get” is an inescapable law of the ego, which always evaluates itself in relation to other egos. It is therefore continually preoccupied with the belief in scarcity that gave rise to it. Its whole perception of other egos as real is only an attempt to convince itself that it is real. “Self-esteem” in ego terms means nothing more than that the ego has deluded itself into accepting its reality, and is therefore temporarily less predatory. This “self-esteem” is always vulnerable to stress, a term which refers to any perceived threat to the ego’s existence.

T-4.II.4. Think of the love of animals for their offspring, and the need they feel to protect them. That is because they regard them as part of themselves. No one dismisses something he considers part of himself. You react to your ego much as God does to His creations,–with love, protection and charity. Your reactions to the self you made are not surprising. In fact, they resemble in many ways how you will one day react to your real creations, which are as timeless as you are. The question is not how you respond to the ego, but what you believe you are. Belief is an ego function, and as long as your origin is open to belief you are regarding it from an ego viewpoint. When teaching is no longer necessary you will merely know God. Belief that there is another way of perceiving is the loftiest idea of which ego thinking is capable. That is because it contains a hint of recognition that the ego is not the Self.

T-4.I.2. Many stand guard over their ideas because they want to protect their thought systems as they are, and learning means change. Change is always fearful to the separated, because they cannot conceive of it as a move towards healing the separation. They always perceive it as a move toward further separation, because the separation was their first experience of change.

T-4.II.5. Undermining the ego’s thought system must be perceived as painful, even though this is anything but true. Babies scream in rage if you take away a knife or scissors, although they may well harm themselves if you do not. In this sense you are still a baby. You have no sense of real selfpreservation, and are likely to decide that you need precisely what would hurt you most.

Take anything that is above you to God, lift it, bless it and release it and see what God will do.

Tea followers were among the earliest converts to the Christian faith. Takayama Ukon, a daimyo turned ardent evangelist, was a disciple of Sen no Rikyu, the preeminent tea master of all time. After Christianity had been banned - Takayama was exiled to the Philippines - underground Christians cherished the tea ceremony as the only opportunity to assemble without arousing suspicion on the part of the authorities. It proved to be a fitting substitute for Holy Communion; even in its Zen context the rite symbolized the giving of oneself. For Christians liable to detection and torture because of their outlawed faith, it was a solemn reminder that Christ had willingly given his life for them. Some of the cups were boldly inscribed with a cross. So it is little wonder that some Japanese Christians have envisioned their Lord in the graceful robe of a Zen tea master.

Teach them the shame that tells the lie, “I am unforgivable,” when the truth is, “I feel unforgivable, but it was out of my control.” Never let them switch those round right or The Adversary will liberate them in a heartbeat, like a bird flying from a cage.

Teaching and learning _religious plurality often ends up privileging religious _texts_ over _practice_ and largely ignoring the social and historical contexts and the lived experience of people who shape, situate, and structure these religious texts. Furthermore, adopting the politics of recognition as a pedagogical principle in teaching can lead to an _uncritical silence_ about the various forms of oppression and domination of certain religious groups. Here people often use _religious difference_ as a _religious alibi_ for the oppression or violation of human rights of certain groups of people, such as women or LGBT people.

Teaching is no joke, sonny! ... Comforting truths, they call it! Truth is meant to save you first, and the comfort comes afterwards. Besides, you've no right to call that sort of thing comfort. Might as well talk about condolences! The Word of God is a red-hot iron. And you who preach it 'ud go picking it up with a pair of tongs, for fear of burning yourself, you daren't get hold of it with both hands. It's too funny! Why, the priest who descends from the pulpit of Truth, with a mouth like a hen's vent, a little hot but pleased with himself, he's not been preaching: at best he's been purring like a tabby-cat. Mind you that can happen to us all, we're all half asleep, it's the devil to wake us up, sometimes — the apostles slept all right at Gethsemane. Still, there's a difference... And mind you many a fellow who waves his arms and sweats like a furniture-remover isn't necessarily any more awakened than the rest. On the contrary. I simply mean that when the Lord has drawn from me some word for the good of souls, I know, because of the pain of it.

Tell God what's on your heart, and don't be afraid to pray for those who need healing.

Tell me how much you know of the sufferings of your fellow man and I will tell you how much you have loved them.

Ten thousand people were baptized in the Han river in Seoul, Korea. Imagine! 10,000 people giving their lives to Christ at one time! I will never forget it! ----I felt that the constant prayers of the Korean people had made the difference. I think we in the west should take prayer more seriously.

Thaddeus noticed the archangels had their own personal rooms with name tags showing which office belongs to whom. Gabriel. Michael. Charles. Lucifer. “Lucifer?” Thaddeus stopped. “Yea. It’s empty. Been empty for years.” “Why didn’t doesn’t God use it for something else?” Thaddeus had to know. “I don’t know. Maybe He wanted to keep it as a reminder or something. Maybe He’s hoping His old friend will come back home. I’m not sure,” Jesus answered with a sad look on His face.

Thankfulness should always be our first response when God answers prayers.

Thank God #EVEN# #THOUGH# in bad times not only in your good; this is a graduated form of gratitude.

That dusty hill we can scarcely look upon and then only with pain, The Adversary, also with pain, does and must ever witness The Crucifixion.

That is, I fancy, the true doctrine on the subject of Tales of Terror and such things, which unless a man of letters do well and truly believe, without doubt he will end by blowing his brains out or by writing badly. Man, the central pillar of the world must be upright and straight; around him all the trees and beasts and elements and devils may crook and curl like smoke if they choose. All really imaginative literature is only the contrast between the weird curves of Nature and the straightness of the soul.

That sin will never stand firm which is heartily prayed against....We must spread out all our case before our heavenly Physician, if He is to give us daily relief.

That's the crazy thing about Christianity — the idea that the finite can contain the infinite. After all, what is the incarnation if not that? So there's an incredible physicality to the spiritual within the Christian story. There's not this weird sort of  Greek separation, where there's a higher spiritual world and a corrupted, bad world of  flesh. It's all one. Because if God chose to have a body, there's a way in which spiritual things are revealed in the physical things that are all around us — bread, wine, people, tears, laughter.

That’s where thinking started, where thinking stopped, where all her prayers so long ago had dried up. She no longer prayed, nor even dreamed of changing her father. Her dreams now played variations on the theme of escape. And they were nothing more than that —just dreams, just play. She’d been alone at the end of her dreams so many times before and never had God helped her escape her father, because God couldn’t, because she would never escape her need to love him.

That's why I always keep a handful of silver glitter in my pockets. If I get pushed into a conversational corner I throw the glitter into the air, and while the person I'm talking to is distracted, I run away. An additional benefit is that I look like a cool magician, so I've got that going for me.

That very thing you want God to fix may be his instrument to teach you first to depend on him rather than on yourself or on peaceful circumstances.

The 330 million gods and goddesses of the Hindu culture act as placebo for the masses, just like other gods of other cultures do.

The acceptance comes largely in the form of embracing Liberation Theology, the merging of Marxism and Christianity, hence, my term, Marxianity.

The agenda of the Media is not to inform you, they don't care about you, they are trying to show you the truth. There are some intelligent Christians but they can't find them and put on the air ...for instance me

The ambition God invites us to us cross-shaped ambition: to embrace our inability to have it all so that he may be our all. Likewise, the contentment to which God invites us is a cross-shaped contentment: to choose to say “they will be done,” to willingly embrace our own constraints, because it is often through human weakness that God most clearly displays his power and glory. Until God is our all in all, may we be bold enough to hold on to our ambitions, to keep turning them in the light to see what holy and surprising refractions bounce back. To be vulnerably honest before God about what we want and why we want, then to step back and see what he will do. To be content with his answer but to let even a “no” be the grounds for fruitfulness within constraints. To allow our disappointments and the frustration of our dreams become the seedbed of deeper trust in the Lord of the universe and the Lord of our lives.

The Americans’ great wealth (and their great love for it) makes it precisely the appropriate metaphor. Supply and Demand as a principle has permeated their minds. As a practice, it stains all the way down to their souls.

The Americans want a surplus stocked up to supply their every whim. And their appeals are much less requests, more demands. Indeed, the phrase might be more aptly put: Demand and Surplus.

The aim is to love God because the pure heart loves loving God and because the true mind knows He deserves it. Unlike the accusations and beliefs of the critics and skeptics, it is neither an obligation of duty; nor a fear of damnation; nor a wish for power; nor a desire to appear more righteous than others; nor because God needs it; but because through all love, truth, reason, faith, honesty, and joy in and beyond oneself and the universe, He is worthy.

The Almighty God is perfect and patient.

The American people spend thousands of dollars to propagate the doctrines of the fall of man, the creation of the world out of nothing in six days by a personal God, vicarious atonement, absolution from sin by the shedding of innocent blood. This is the Christianity offered to the poor and illiterate of India... Christianity has percolated through the layers of dogmatism and bigotry, of intolerance and superstition, of damnation and hell fire. It takes on itself the quality of these layers and imparts them to those that are received within its folds.

The apostle Paul often appears in Christian thought as the one chiefly responsible for the de-Judaization of the gospel and even for the transmutation of the person of Jesus from a rabbi in the Jewish sense to a divine being in the Greek sense. Such an interpretation of Paul became almost canonical in certain schools of biblical criticism during the nineteenth century, especially that of Ferdinand Christian Baur, who saw the controversy between Paul and Peter as a conflict between the party of Peter, with its 'Judaizing' distortion of the gospel into a new law, and the party of Paul, with its universal vision of the gospel as a message about Jesus for all humanity. Very often, of course, this description of the opposition between Peter and Paul and between law and gospel was cast in the language of the opposition between Roman Catholicism (which traced its succession to Peter as the first pope) and Protestantism (which arose from Luther's interpretation of the epistles of Paul). Luther's favorite among those epistles, the letter to the Romans, became the charter for this supposed declaration of independence from Judaism.

The attacks were hymned by hagiographies and histories. In fourth-century France, St Martin, or so the Life of Martin proudly records, ‘set fire to a most ancient and famous shrine’ before moving on to a different village and a different temple. Here, he ‘completely demolished the temple belonging to the false religion and reduced all the altars and statues to dust’. Martin was no anomaly. Flushed by his success at the temple of Serapis, Bishop Theophilus went on to demolish numerous shrines in Egypt. Hagiography records such attacks not as dismal or even embarrassing acts of vandalism but as proof of a saint’s virtue. Some of the most famous saints in Western Christianity kicked off their careers – so the stories like to boast – demolishing shrines.

The bare knowledge of God's will is inefficacious, it doth not better the heart. Knowledge alone is like a winter sun, which hath no heat or influence; it doth not warm the affections, or purify the conscience. Judas was a great luminary, he knew God's will, but he was a traitor.