Best 479 quotes in «holiness quotes» category

Glory to God in the holy highest heavens.

Gnosticism, a highly intellectual second-century movement (the word ‘gnostic’ comes from the Greek word for ‘knowledge’) that was later declared heretical, didn’t help. Heretics were intellectual therefore intellectuals were, if not heretical, then certainly suspect. So ran the syllogism. Intellectual simplicity or, to put a less flattering name on it, ignorance was widely celebrated. The biography of St Antony records with approval that he ‘refused to learn to read and write or to join in the silly games of the other little children’. Education and silly games are here bracketed together, and both are put in opposition to holiness. Instead of this, we learn, Antony ‘burned with the desire for God’. That this wasn’t quite true – Antony’s letters reveal a much more careful thinker than this implies – didn’t much matter: it appealed to a powerful ideal. No need to read: give up both books and bread and you will win God’s favour. Even intellectuals were susceptible to this pretty picture: it was hearing about how the simple, unlettered Antony had inspired so many to turn to Christ that led Augustine to start striking himself on the head, tearing his hair and asking, ‘What is wrong with us?’ Ignorance was power.

God loves us toughly enough not to allow us to be happy with our sins. The recollection of sin rightly brings misery of conscience. How else could moral awareness be saved from sentimentality? The deepest human happiness, we learn, is grounded in holiness - God's holy love and our responsive attempts to reflect it fittingly.

God's holiness is not an unloving holiness, and God's love is not an unholy love. It is only by keeping these two primary moral qualities of the divine being closely related that we may rightly behold the character of God. (p. 98)

Here is the life of holiness as the Thrice Holy gives it: the Father, the first, the Holy One, making holy; the Son, the second, His Holy One, in whom we are; the Spirit, the third, who dwells in us, and through whom we abide in Christ, and Christ in us. Thus it is that the Thrice Holy makes us holy. [. . .] Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness, (2 Peter 3:11, KJV).

Here's an idea you can use in your witnessing as people throw out their objections to believing in God. Many will say, 'God isn't fair, and I'm glad. If He were fair, you and I wouldn't be here today. We'd be in hell. What we really need is not God's fairness, but His mercy.

He who had known the ceaseless worship of angels came to be a slave to men. Preaching, teaching, healing the sick, and raising the dead were parts of his ministry, of course, and the parts we might consider ourselves willing to do for God if that is what He asked. He could be seen to be God in those. But Jesus also walked miles in dusty heat. He healed, and people forgot to thank Him. He was pressed and harried by mobs of exigent people, got tired and hungry, was "tailed" and watched and pounced upon by suspicious, jealous, self-righteous religious leaders, and in the end was flogged and spat on and stripped and had nails hammered through His hands. He relinquished the right (or the honour) of being publicly treated as equal with God.

He who lives according to God ought to cherish towards evil men a perfect hatred, so that he shall neither hate the man because of his vice nor love the vice because of the man.

God called us to live a holy life by his grace.

God can use impure vessels to serve his holiness

God cares about our dietary choices. This should come as no surprise; you only have to read the first two chapters of Genesis to see God's concern for food. Humanity's first sin was disobedience manifested in a choice about eating. Adam and Eve were allowed to eat anything they wanted, except the one fruit they chose. And the New Testament makes clear that God cares about the most basic quotidian aspect of our lives. (Our God, after all, is the God who provides for the sparrows and numbers the hairs on our heads.) This God who is interested in how we speak, how we handle our money, how we carry our bodies - He is also interested in how we live with food.

God does not require a perfect, sinless life to have fellowship with Him, but He does require that we be serious about holiness, that we grieve over sin in our lives instead of justifying it, and that we earnestly pursue holiness as a way of life.

God is not a God of confusion, although at times one's judgment, for a period, may become clouded in the mi(d)st of one's growth process. I stopped fooling myself into thinking that Christ is always for the cool kids and never for those upright and uptight religious people everybody hates.

God is spirit. The spirit dwells in a body. We are the Holy temple.

God knew man would evolve. People think some of the Old Testament laws are absurd now because we live in a very different culture, a different time period. They had their problems and we have ours. God is constant but man is not, and he foreknew the ever-changing world his people would have to deal with; therefore, and if there is indeed an omniscient God, a Christ-like figure would be our only rational, possible connection to a constant, holy God throughout the evolution of culture and social law. The only answer that makes sense when it comes to relevance regarding religions and time periods is Christ, and the chances are slim that men could have invented it.

God loves each person, I believe; although, just like we do in our private homes, He reserves His kingdom only for those whom He enjoys.

God’s constant wealth is accessible to us, if we cultivate His holiness in our lives

God’s holiness demands that sin be punished—but God’s love has provided the way of redemption through Christ.

God will never disappoint us. He loves us and has only one purpose for us : holiness, which in His kingdom equals joy.

Goodness is sparked by a caution for the sake of what is good, not a fear of what is bad.

Grace is loving people for who they are, where they are. It's loving people *before* they change, not just *after* they change. And that grace is the difference between holy and holier-than-thou. Holiness, in its purest form, is irresistible. That's why sinners couldn't be kept away from Jesus. Hypocrisy has the opposite effect. It's as repulsive to the irreligious as the Pharisees' religiosity was to Jesus.

Holiness doesn’t demand denial of happiness, only selfishness. Where unhappiness exists in a relationship, I would submit that such isn’t the price of holiness but a sign of sin. It is an indication that one or both partners is holding to the wrong value system, that of self-love.

Holiness in the purest form is independent of all textual doctrines, all churches and all institutions.

Holiness is as much about what you do on a Monday morning on the factory floor as it is about what you do on a Sunday morning in a church gathering. Holiness is as much about the kind of neighbour you are as it is about the kind of church member you are. It is as much about who you are when you are holding a steering wheel as who you are when you are holding a Bible.

Holiness is in fact commanded: God wills it, Christ requires it, and all the Scriptures—the law, the gospel, the prophets, the wisdom writings, the epistles, the history books that tell of judgments past and the book of Revelation that tells of judgment to come—call for it.

HOLINESS is the daily inner-working of His Life and Power expressed in me, to keep changing me - Transforming me into the Likeness of His Person and Presence, in ever-increasing degrees of glory. "WITHOUT HOLINESS NO ONE SHALL SEE GOD" - Heb 12:14

Holiness is the only weapon capable of pulling the stronghold of hell.

Holiness on earth is a spiritual fantasy.

Holiness begins in our minds and works out to our actions. This being true, what we allow to enter our minds is critically important. The television programs we watch, the movies we may attend, the books and magazines we read, the music we listen to, and the conversations we have all affect our minds.

Holiness exalts people and keeps them on high

Holiness has most often been revealed to me in the exquisite pun of the first syllable, in holes- in not enough help, in brokenness, mess. High holy places, with ethereal sounds and stained glass, can massage my illusion of holiness, but in holes and lostness I can pick up the light of small ordinary progress, newly made moments flecked like pepper into the slog and the disruptions.

Holiness is the best means influencing people

Holiness is the only weapon capable of pulling down the stronghold of hell.

Holiness is the union we experience with one another and with God. Holiness is when more than one become one, when what is fractured is made whole. Singing in harmony. Breastfeeding a baby. Collective bargaining. Dancing. Admitting our pain to someone, and hearing them say, "Me too." Holiness happens when we are integrated as physical, spiritual, sexual, emotional, and political beings. Holiness is the song that has always been sung, perhaps even the sound that was first spoken when God said, "Let there be light.

Holiness was always something richly dim.

Holiness is found in how we treat others, not in how we contemplate the cosmos. As our experiences in marriages, families, and friendship teach us, it takes relationships to provide the friction that wears down our rough edges and sanctifies us.

Holiness is the best means of influencing people.

Holiness purifies our lives.

Holy God, Holy light.

Holiness is a holy fire.

Holiness is not a bid to be noticed or loved or accepted by God. Holiness, rather, is acting out and acting upon the truth that God has noticed, loved and accepted us long before we did anything to warrant that.

Holiness is the holy fire.

Holiness must have a philosophical and theological foundation, namely, Divine truth; otherwise it is sentimentality and emotionalism. Many would say later on, 'We want religion, but no creeds.' This is like saying we want healing, but no science of medicine; music, but no rules of music; history, but no documents. Religion is indeed a life, but it grows out of truth, not away from it. It has been said it makes no difference what you believe, it all depends on how you act. This is psychological nonsense, for a man acts out of his beliefs. Our Lord placed truth or belief in Him first; then came sanctification and good deeds. But here truth was not a vague ideal, but a Person. Truth was now lovable, because only a Person is lovable. Sanctity becomes the response the heart makes to Divine truth and its unlimited mercy to humanity.

Holiness requires continual effort on our part and continual nourishing and strengthening by the Spirit.

Holy communication, Holy life.

Holiness has to do with more than mere acts. Our motives must be holy, that is, arising from a desire to do something simply because it is the will of God. Our thoughts should be holy, since they are known to God even before they are formed in our minds.

Holiness is the object of our new creation. We are born again so that we may grow up into Christlikeness.

However true or not they may be to us, the trouble with all those tired, platitudinous, hackneyed mantras, which go along the lines of 'Christianity is not a religion, but a relationship,' is that many of us use them not as cries to embrace the grace of God but rather as licenses and/or excuses to celebrate sin. Make way for our beloved and ready, willing and able Christ to clean up your life already.

I am not hlier than you, you are not holier than me. Any one who thinks he is holier than the rest deludes himself.

I am not holier than you, you are not holier than me. Any one who thinks he is holier than the rest deludes himself.