Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
We are all both victims and victimizers. Just as everyone suffers, no one is innocent of causing suffering themselves.
The Christian life has been nothing more and nothing less than a daily dependence on and a rediscovery of God's grace.
God has hardwired me to thoroughly enjoy and be sharpened by good and friendly theological discussion about the gospel.
The hub of Christianity is not "do something for Jesus." The hub of Christianity is "Jesus has done everything for you".
Our default faith mode is to trust, above all things, our own ability to create a safe, controllable, predictable world.
God is inviting you today to appropriately grieve your pains and losses and to acknowledge the world is seriously broken.
Our assurance is anchored in the love and grace of God expressed in the glorious exchange: our sin for His righteousness.
Christianity is not about good people getting better. It is good news for bad people coping with their failure to be good.
Your pain could be God prying open your life and heart to remove a gift of His that you've been on to more dearly than Him.
The people who have taught me the most about grace are those who have blown it so bad that they know how much they need it.
Rest assured: Before God, the righteousness of Christ is all we need; before God, the righteousness of Christ is all we have.
The gospel frees you from the pressure of having to fix people: your worth is located in Christ, not in their transformation.
An identity based in the one-way love of God does not take into account public opinion or, thankfully, even personal opinion.
Our minds are affected by sin. Our hearts are affected by sin. Our wills are affected by sin. Our bodies are affected by sin.
My struggle isn't believing my performance can earn God's favor; my struggle is believing my performance can keep God's favor
Even those of us who have tasted the radical saving grace of God find it intuitively difficult not to put conditions on grace.
I had turned personal validation into my primary source of meaning and value, so that without it I was miserable and depressed.
The deepest cry of the human heart is to be loved without condition, no matter what. The gospel of grace announces that you are.
People who know they are not good make the best messengers of grace because they are desperately aware of their own need for it.
If you feel compelled to respond every time you're criticized it reveals just how much you've built your identity on being right.
There is no better news than that the God who makes the demand for perfection also meets the demand for perfection on our behalf.
I think there is tribalism is a big deal inside of the church, that the church thinks of themselves as a tribe and not a mission.
I was afraid that if I surrendered my life over to God, God would tell me not to do those things that I desperately wanted to do.
The truth is, narratives of self-justification burble beneath more of our relationships and endeavors than we would care to admit.
God does everything through people who understand they're nothing. And God does nothing through those who think they're everything.
My observation of Christendom is that most of us tend to base our relationship with God on our performance instead of on His grace.
When you don't have anything to lose, you discover something wonderful: you're free to take great risks without fear or reservation.
Long-term, gospel-motivate d obedience can only come from the grace of what Jesus has already done, not the guilt of what we must do.
The gospel alone liberates you to live a life of scandalous generosity, unrestrained sacrifice, uncommon valor, and unbounded courage.
When it comes to understanding and appreciating grace, our biggest problem is our so-called goodness...not our self-perceived badness.
The biggest lie about grace that Satan wants the church to buy is the idea that it’s dangerous and therefore needs to be kept in check.
The more I focused on my need to get better the worse I actually got - the more neurotic and self-conscious and self-absorbed I became.
Mt. Sinai says, 'You must do. Mt. Calvary says, 'Because you couldn't, Jesus did.' Don't run to the wrong mountain for your hiding place
Even political insiders recognize that years of political effort on behalf of Evangelical Christians have generated little cultural gain.
Grace doesn't lead us into destructive behavior. Sin does. And grace is the only remedy for sin. The kindness of God leads to repentance.
The overwhelming emphasis of contemporary Christianity: "Just do it." The overwhelming emphasis of Biblical Christianity: "It is finished"
In those moments when I'm obsessively counting my sins against me, it is good news to remember that God has counted my sins against Christ.
Grace frees you to be honest about what you've always known to be true about yourself: that you're weaker & more afraid than you want to be.
What is indisputable is the fact that unbelief is the force that gives birth to all of our bad behavior and every moral failure. It is the root.
Your identity is firmly anchored in Christ's accomplishment, not yours; his strength, not yours; his performance, not yours; his victory, not yours.
The Gospel frees us to speak honestly about the reality of pain, confident that nothing is riding on our ability to cope with or fend off suffering.
Thankfully, God's restraining grace keeps even the worst of us from being utterly depraved. The worst people who have ever lived could've been worse.
There is a strange impulse in many to protect Bible characters and to use them as inspiration... as if sanctification happens as a result of emulation.
The Bible is plain that God requires moral perfection. It tells us unambiguously that God is holy and therefore cannot tolerate any hint of unholiness.
For years and years, Christians have been singing about their wandering hearts. Our hearts need to be recalibrated and realigned and reoriented by God.
If we read the Bible asking first, 'What would Jesus do?' instead of asking 'What has Jesus done?' we’ll miss the good news that alone can set us free.
If we read the Bible asking first, 'What would Jesus do?' instead of asking 'What has Jesus done,' we'll miss the good news that alone can set us free.
As Luke 24 shows, it's possible to read the Bible, study the Bible, and memorize large portions of the Bible, while missing the whole point of the Bible.
There's nothing like suffering to remind us how not in control we actually are, how little power we ultimately have, and how much we ultimately need God.
I think for far too long the Church has concluded that Christians don't need the gospel, it's simple what non-Christian people need in order to be saved.