Best 3954 quotes in «church quotes» category

This is why God has allowed you to have more: not for you to waste on prostitutes, drink, fancy food, expensive clothes, and all other kinds of indolence, but for you to distribute to those in need.

This may be the real reason many of us fear silence in church—because anyone sitting near us may hear the hissing, rumbling, wheezing sounds of a living human being, which do not match up with the attractive countenances that we work so hard to present to one another.

Those of us who are concerned about the 'church-less Christian' phenomenon ... must first look at ourselves and ask to what degree *we* have contributed to the conditions that tempt some to hit eject on the local church.

Those who criticize the innovative concept of multi-site churches must also remember that at one point stained glass and hymnals were new as well.

Those who love their dream of a Christian community more than they love the Christian community itself become destroyers of that Christian community even though their personal intentions may be ever so honest, earnest and sacrificial. God hates this wishful dreaming because it makes the dreamer proud and pretentious. Those who dream of this idolized community demand that it be fulfilled by God, by others and by themselves. They enter the community of Christians with their demands set up by their own law, and judge one another and God accordingly.

Thousands of people have entered churches without discovering a vital experience with Jesus Christ. The substitutes have been handed them in the guise of religious rituals, good works, community effort, or social reform . . .none of which can gain a person a right relationship with God.

Time is on our side to fulfill the will of God in our church and nation

To consume the best for yourself and give the crumbs to God is blasphemy. A heart that truly worships is a heart that gives its best to God in time and substance. A heart that truly worships God gives generously to the causes of God---causes that God cares deeply about. I have to wonder whether someday we may wake up to discover that all our incestous spending on ourselves and our frantic construction of excessively luxurious places of worship---even as we ignore, for the most part, the hurting and the deprived of the world---filled God's heart with pain.

Today, a lot of people, businesses, countries and even churches have their dreams sleeping in the belly of the shark where they are starved because they chose the wrong path although they know the right destination! The consequence is "becoming uncomfortable" because you refuse to let your dreams go to let "Niviveh"!

To conquer your biology, stop seeing people sexually and start seeing them as family. In our day, we have really a perverted notion where it's like strangers and potential sexual objects.

To be successful, you must leave the church walls behind and go out

To instill the values for the culture was and is the responsibility of the leadership, and staff alignment was critical to its success. It started with both board and staff. They realized that they needed to share the same value system that says, “I am the equipper, not the doer.” If not, there were going to be immense roadblocks to effectively mobilizing people for ministry.

To live [in the church] at the beck and call of marketing logic is to live in slavery.

To love one another as He loves us, is the true Gospel of Jesus Christ. For it is love that kills our outward man’s ways; buries him in baptism; and causes our inward-man (named Jesus) to resurrect on the inside of us!

To get to Adam, Satan went after a target of value to him. It is no surprise, then, that he is still relentless in trying to deceive Christ’s bride, the church, through false teachers, ill-placed priorities, felt needs, fear tactics, and coping mechanisms, to divert them from resting in Christ and in God’s wisdom, provision, and sovereignty” (p. 26).

To listen to others quiets and disciplines the mind to listen to God.

Too many Christians reverse New Covenant commands as we seek, through condemnation of the world, the return of the never-existent, demonic myth of the "Christian Nation"!

To my shame, my nation and the church of the lord Jesus Christ in my continent is covered head to toe in this ignorance.

Too many in the Church today are likes babies in the nursery,they put everything in their mouth.

To promise to abide by this legislation, so inimical to God, would mean forsaking the gospel and turning away from God's law. This is why Christians have a choice to make, either to trade in their loyalty to God for freedom from persecution, or to remain true to Christ and consequently run the risk of persecution.

Tough times don't define you, they refine you. ‪

Training is an active, dynamic process lived out daily in all areas of life- not a rote exercise in memorizing verses and going to church every week.

True worship leaders worship the Lord at all times and use songs only when necessary.

True and genuine charity is no lesse necessary to Salvation for all Churches, and members of Christian Churches, than the true and entire profession of sound and saving Faith.

True leaders bring out your personal best. They ignite your human potential”.

Trust" are the eyes you need in the shadow of death.

Turns out, I wasn't the only one struggling with doubt. I wasn't the only one questioning my church's position on homosexuality and gender roles, and a whole host of other issues. I wasn't the only one who felt lonely on Sunday mornings.

Until the Second Coming, sin will remain a part of earthly existence. And as long as there is sin, there will be suffering and pain. But suffering by persecution is not a sine qua non of the church. If it is, there are few if any true churches in North America today.

Unfortunately the leading proponent of ignorance in our society has become the very same institution that was created to fight it - The Church.

Unless the church quickly recovers the authoritative biblical message, we may witness the spectacle of millions of Christians going outside the institutional church to find spiritual food.

Unfortunately, Da Vinci was a prankster who often amused himself by quietly gnawing at the hand that fed him. He incorporated in may of his Christian paintings hidden symbolism that was anything but Christian - tributes to his own beliefs and a subtle thumbing of his nose at the Church.

Unfortunately, some churches are now so worried about being arrogant and unbending like certain other Christians that they fail to stand for anything at all. They hang question marks over all the major doctrines of the faith or throw them out entirely. Bit by bit, they lose the things that set them apart as Christians.

[U]nity isn’t just biblical in an abstract sense. It’s the Trinitarian telos of gospel ministry.

Very occasionally, a simplified form of communion and of adult baptism for new members of the church would be enacted but no Separatist was ever married in church, because there is no hint of a marriage ceremony in scripture and the primitive church had not considered marriage a sacrament before AD 537.

Wachawi hivi ndivyo wanavyoapishwa na kuikana imani ya Kikristo: Mwanafunzi hupelekwa kilingeni katika siku maalumu kuonana na Shetani, pamoja na jopo la wachawi. Shetani hutokea katika mwili wa hewa, mwili uliochanganyikana na hewa na mvuke mzito, wa mwanamume na kuwasihi waishikilie imani yao kwake kwa mioyo yao yote, huku akiwaahidi utajiri na maisha marefu kama hawatamkana. Kisha wachawi wanampendekeza mwanafunzi kwa Shetani. Shetani humuuliza mwanafunzi kama yuko tayari kuikana imani yake, kuachana na Ukristo na kutokumwabudu Mwanamke Aliyebarikiwa Kuliko Wanawake Wote Duniani Maria Magdalena, na kutoziheshimu sakaramenti za aina zote. Mwanafunzi atakapokubaliana na masharti hayo, Shetani atanyoosha mkono wake na kumsihi mwanafunzi anyooshe wa kwake. Kwa mkono wake mwenyewe, mwanafunzi ataapa na kuweka agano na Shetani mbele ya jopo la wachawi. Baada ya hapo bila kuchelewa Shetani ataendelea na kusema kuwa hicho kiapo hakitoshi. Lakini mwanafunzi atakapouliza afanye kitu gani cha ziada, Shetani atahitaji kiapo kifuatacho kwa heshima yake na kwa heshima ya mashetani wote: Mwanafunzi ajikabidhi kwa Shetani kwa mwili na kwa roho yake yote daima dawamu, na afanye kila awezalo kuleta wanafunzi wengine wa kike na wa kiume katika ufalme wake. Kama hiyo haitoshi Shetani ataongeza kuwa lazima mwanafunzi atengeneze mafuta fulani kutokana na mifupa na viungo vya miili ya watoto, hasa watoto waliobatizwa, kwani kwa kufanya hivyo atamtimizia kila kitu atakachokitaka hapa duniani. Hiyo ni njia mojawapo ya kiapo. Njia nyingine ya kiapo ni kwa wale ambao hawajiamini au wana hofu ya kuonana na Shetani uso kwa uso kilingeni, akiwa na mwili wa kimazingaombwe na sauti ya kutisha kwani Shetani hana mapafu wala hana ulimi. Badala ya kilingeni mwanafunzi hupelekwa kanisani na jopo la wachawi ambapo mbele ya jopo atalazimishwa kuikana imani yake, kumkana Yesu Kristo, kuukana ubatizo na kulikana kanisa zima kwa ujumla wake. Mwanafunzi baada ya hapo atalazimishwa kutoa heshima kuu kwa Mfalme Mdogo, kwani hivyo ndivyo wanavyomwita Shetani ili kumwondolea mwanafunzi hofu, kisha atalazimishwa kunywa supu ya mtoto mchanga waliyemuua akazikwa kisha wakamfukua na kupika viungo vya mwili wake; na dakika hiyo mwanafunzi atapata maarifa, maarifa ya kichawi, kama walimu wake na watarudi nyumbani.

Wasn’t I allowed at least one nervous breakdown a year? Maybe next year Jon and I could pencil it into our calendar. Maybe we could post it in the church bulletin. It would read “ATTENTION: Our Dear Pastor’s wife is scheduling her annual nervous breakdown, so if you could avoid calling, texting, emailing, or whining in her direction for the next week between the hours of 10:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m., she would be most grateful.

We are being called to a new and deeper passion: to those who live under the shadow of the cross and those most in need of compassion. Then we become mothers of God, sisters and brothers of Jesus, the loved disciples born in the blood of the Cross and fed on the Word of God.

We all have that divine moment, when our lives are transformed by the knowledge of the truth.

We are called to be strange in the same way that the early Christian communities were strange to the world around them. The community in Antioch brought together Jews and Samaritans, Greeks and Romans, slaves and free, men and women in a way that was so confusing that people didn't know what to call them. So they called them "Christians." The only way they knew to describe their peculiar actions was to say that they were followers of an odd preacher from Galilee. The world is longing for such new and odd communities in our time. . . . I pray the time is now and that the resurrection might begin in us.

We are members of the Church of Christ

We are not even going to throw the challenge of changing a whole generation before the modern day church. This generation of believers don’t even know what that means

We are one human family.

We are tempted (and encouraged) to believe that the kingdom of God spreads throughout the earth by presenting the gospel, through some pat formula, to strangers. That doesn't happen very often. The gospel spread throughout the world of the first centuries by conversations between close friends and relatives, business associates and neighbors-people with whom the passionate Christians already had personal contact. So today the Church grows and expands, and people come to maturity in Christ nearly always through the influence of people they already know and trust, like you. Even the most shy person among us talks to people every day. Most of that talk is idle chatter, not very useful for the advancement of God's kingdom. Every one of those less-than-redemptive conversations is a lost opportunity for extending the Lordship of Jesus. However, if we could learn to enhance the quality of our conversations, we could improve our ability to do what Jesus commanded-make disciples. We could turn that meaningless chatter into a means of God's grace, helping our friends become all God intends for them and enriching their lives (and our own) in the process.

We are the choice elected few Let all the rest be damned There is room enough in hell for you We won’t have heaven crammed!

We cannot become starched Christians, those overeducated Christians who speak of theological matters as they calmly sip their tea. No! We must become courageous Christians and go in search of the people who are the very flesh of Christ! ... This is the [issue]: the flesh of Christ, touching the flesh of Christ, taking upon ourselves this suffering for the poor.

We claim to have the light in the Church yet we want to lock ourselves within the four walls of that same Church.

We don’t find God in temples and cathedrals. We don’t find Him by standing on a prayer rug or sitting in a pew. God appears when we love someone other than ourselves. And we continue to feel His presence when we do good for others. Because God is not found in mosques and synagogues. He resides in our hearts.

We do repent not to be forgiven, but because we are forgiven.

We get called dishonoring for pointing out the garbage in the church, yet nobody ever seems to think it's dishonoring that somebody put the garbage there in the first place.

We do not need them. They would hinder rather than help our praise. Sing unto him. This is the sweetest and best music. No instrument like the human voice. What a degradation to supplant the intelligent song of the whole congregation by the theatrical prettiness of a quartet, bellows, and pipes! We might as well pray by machinery as praise by it.