Quotes by Pastors - Page 58

God has given you grace. Maybe you should give yourself some too.
Todd Stocker
Religion is spelled 'D-O', because it consists of the things people do try to somehow gain God's forgiveness and favor. But the problem is that you never know when you've done enough. But thankfully, Christianity is spelled differently. It's spelled 'D-O-N-E', which means that what we could never for ourselves, Christ has already done for us. To become a real Christian is to humbly receive God's gift of forgiveness and to commit to following His leadership.
Bill Hybels
Sin builds up. Forgiveness cleans up.
Todd Stocker
Paul tells us that, "The wages of sin is death." That's the bill. Our choice to sin has created a barrier between us and God, taken a toll on our relationship with Him that we can't fix, repair, or pay off on our own. Let's not minimize the situation. We've lived in offense to a holy, righteous God, who reigns in justice. We deserve death for what we've done. Like the Prodigal Son, we've robbed honor from our Father. We have scorned His provision and fled from His house. We have chosen wild living with strangers over a relationship with Him. Like the Prodigal Son, we've told God we'd be better off if He were dead. We've lived in ways that prove our distrust and disbelief in Him. We've chosen a path that leads to starvation and death, so that's what we deserve. Despite all of this, God offers us a brand-new inheritance -- one that has been reclaimed and redeemed by His Son, Jesus Christ, who came to earth and died for our sins. The bill was totaled up, and Christ died to settle that bill. After being crucified, He rose to life again, and He now beckons us home, having prepared a place for us. In the fullness of our sin, God responded with the fullness of His grace through Jesus Christ.
Kyle Idleman
Forgiveness and restoration are two difference acts. Forgiveness can lead to restoration but restoration is not hinged to forgiveness.
Gary Rohrmayer
Whenever relationships can't be restored, it's because someone is not willing to move forward in the promises of God.
Matt Chandler
Your refusal to forgive one who has sinned against you us a manifestation of hypocrisy - a telltale sign that either you have not experenced God's forgiving grace, or that you take such grace for granted.
Joe Thorn
If you carry offense in your heart, it is too early for you to start your team
Sunday Adelaja
Patience is underscored with forgiveness.
Sunday Adelaja
If you look at Isis beheading women and children, if you are like me, you are not thinking, one of these would make a great missionary.
Matt Chandler
...according to God's Word, we should not give a singe drop of evangelical consolation to those who are still living in sin. ON THE OTHER HAND, we should not address the slightest threat or rebuke to the broken hearted--but only promises delivering consolation and grace, forgiveness of sin and righteousness. Life and salvation.
C.F.W. Walther
But don't ever forget: adultery is also biblical grounds for forgiveness, healing, and restoration.
Craig Groeschel
He is the God who loved you so much that His Son stripped Himself of all heavenly glory to live as an impoverished Jewish carpenter so He could shed His blood, suffer, and die for the forgiveness of our sins.
Craig Groeschel
Do not carry the burden of self-judgment. You are forgiven and pardoned
Sunday Adelaja
If we regularly ponder the depth of our own sinfulness, like the woman who washed Jesus' feet with her tears, and consider the greater depth of God's forgiveness, we will grow in our love for him. It is when we forget God's benefits that our hearts become proud. If we are not careful, we who have been forgiven much can act like those who think they have been forgiven little and, consequently, become slow to forgive others who sin against us.
Paul Tautges
Is it possible that our world still knows better how to deal with a bandit, a murderer, and insurrectionist than it knows what to do with the Prince of Peace? There is a sense in which an assassin's attempt on the pope's life is less shocking to our world than the pope's forgiveness of him. Is it possible that we would rather deal with raw power that rides on a stallion than with this one who comes on a donkey, with the weapons of love, patience, suffering, and peace? Given the choice, isn't it possible that we would take Barabbas, too?
James A. Harnish
Keep in mind that when sin is viewed superficially, it is dealt with superficially.
Erwin W. Lutzer
The Lord does not forgive excuses, He forgives sin.
Rick Joyner
Disobedience happens not when we think too much grace but when we think too little of it
Tullian Tchividjian
In the shadow of my hurt, forgiveness feel like a decision to reward my enemy. But in the shadow of the cross, forgiveness is merely a gift from one undeserving soul to another.
Andy Stanley
...God's grace and forgiveness, while free to the recipient, are always costly for the giver.... From the earliest parts of the Bible, it was understood that God could not forgive without sacrifice. No one who is seriously wronged can "just forgive" the perpetrator.... But when you forgive, that means you absorb the loss and the debt. You bear it yourself. All forgiveness, then, is costly.
Timothy J. Keller
It takes quite a spine to turn the other cheek. It takes phenomenal fortitude to love your enemy. It takes firm resolve to pray for those who persecute you. (with reference to Matthew 5)
Rob Bell
Keep in mind, hurting people often hurt other people as a result of their own pain. If somebody is rude and inconsiderate, you can almost be certain that they have some unresolved issues inside. They have some major problems, anger, resentment, or some heartache they are trying to cope with or overcome. The last thing they need is for you to make matters worse by responding angrily.
Joel Osteen
Cultivating spiritual intimacy is essential for leaders to live a vibrant missional life.
Gary Rohrmayer
You (Millennials) are the generation most afraid of real community because it inevitably limits freedom and choice. Get over your fear.
Timothy J. Keller
During courtship, guarding each other's purity and refraining from intimacy are the acts of lovemaking.
Joshua Harris
Father to teenage son: "My relationship with you is more important than anything I've got to say to you.
Randy Alcorn
Just as a father hates cancer, because of what it does to his child, so God hates divorce, because of what it does to His children.
Kyle Idleman
Look in your local Christian Bookstore. You could take most of the books there, throw them into the sea, and not lose anything valuable. The vast majority of them are just placebos that superficially attack trivial problems. During the eras when the church was most holy, Christians had very few books to read, but the ones they did have told them how to have a relationship with God. Most books today don't do that.
John F. MacArthur Jr.
Without a relationship with God, it is not possible to have order in your life.
Sunday Adelaja
Every extramarital intimate relationship has a spiritual resonance, the consequences of which can be very severe.
Sunday Adelaja
Personal relationship with God is the main condition for quality in life.
Sunday Adelaja
God desires your increase in your leadership, stewardship, relationship, and business
Sunday Adelaja
Most people can’t seem to see the relationship between truth, honesty and national development.
Sunday Adelaja
We have to remember all the time how wonderful life with God is so as not to lose out on our relationship with Him
Sunday Adelaja
To disobey God’s law is to forfeit your relationship with him
Sunday Adelaja
To submit to a dominion is to pursue relationship with the King of that domain
Sunday Adelaja
God doesn’t want us to sit idle and simply enjoy His presence, he wants a close relationship with Him
Sunday Adelaja
To maintain a constant relationship with God is to be discernable
Sunday Adelaja
If God lives in you and you have a relationship with Him, He will protect you
Sunday Adelaja
Focus on your relationship with God, make doing His wills your priority and together with Him you will be the head and not the tail
Sunday Adelaja
To restore a lost relationship is your choice
Sunday Adelaja
Through uninhibited relationship with God you are empowered to function
Sunday Adelaja
Nothing should become a stumbling block in your relationship with the people who surround you
Sunday Adelaja
God is interested in how you relate to Him
Sunday Adelaja
You should have a personal link to your creator
Sunday Adelaja
Justice is the state that exists when there is equity, balance, and harmony in relationships and in society. Injustice is the state that exists when unjust people do violence to peace and shalom and create inequity, imbalance, and dissonance.
Ken Wytsma
We all look for strategies or techniques that will free us from the pain of relationships and the hard work good relationships demand. We hope that better planning, more effective communication, clear role definitions, conflict resolution strategies, gender studies, and personality typing--to name just a few -- will make the difference. There may be value in these things, but if they were all we needed, Jesus' life, death, and resurrection would be unnecessary or, at best, redundant. Skills and techniques appeal to us because they promise that relational problems can be fixed by tweaking our behavior without altering the bent of our hearts. But the Bible says something very different. It says that Christ is the only real hope for relationships because only he can dig deep enough to address the core motivations and desires of our hearts.Most dangerous aspect of your relationships is not your weakness, but your delusions of strength. Self-reliance is almost always a component of a bad relationship.
Paul David Tripp
If I am seeking to get identity from you ,I will watch you too closely, listen to you too intently, and need you to fundamentally. I will ride the roller coaster of your best and worst moments and everything in between. And because I am watching you too closely, I will become acutely aware of your weaknesses and failures. I will become overly critical, frustrated, disappointed, hopeless, and angry. I will be angry not because you are a sinner but because you have failed to deliver the one thing I seek from you: identity. But none of us will ever get the well-being that comes from knowing who we are from our relationships. Instead we will be left with damaged relationships filled with hurt, frustration and anger.
Paul David Tripp
Our purpose (in relationship) is to get what we want but God's purpose is to give us what we really need. We think things are going well only if we are getting along with others. But God says that it is also when we are not getting along with others that he is accomplishing his purpose.God has designed our relationship to function as both a diagnosis and a cure.
Paul David Tripp
The fatal flaw of human wisdom is that it promises that you can change your relationships without needing to change yourself.Every painful thing we experience in relationships is meant to remind us of our need for God. And every good thing we experience is meant to be a metaphor of what we can only find in Him.... We settle for the satisfaction of human relationships when they were meant to point us to the perfect relational satisfaction found only with God.
Paul David Tripp
A disciple does not ask, "How much can I keep?" but, "How much more can I give?" Whenever we start to get comfortable with our level of giving, it's time to raise it again.
Randy Alcorn
...when you trust the Lord God to give you the next step, when you wait in humility upon Him, *He* will open the doors or close them, and you'll get to rest and relax until He says, 'Go.
Charles R. Swindoll
If economic catastrophe does come, will it be a time that draws Christians together to share every resource we have, or will it drive us apart to hide in our own basements or mountain retreats, guarding at gunpoint our private stores from others? If we faithfully use our assets for his kingdom now, rather than hoarding them, can't we trust our faithful God to provide for us then?
Randy Alcorn
Your wisest moments will be those when you say yes to God.
Rick Warren
Skeptics would rather, even at their own expense, appear to be right than take the risk of trusting.
John Ortberg
Faith all grown up is trust.
Adam LiVecchi
God has ordained that His people live by promises and not by explanations.
Warren W. Wiersbe
Trust is an act of the mind, while obedience is an act of the hands and feet.
David Jeremiah
To be trusted is to be entrusted.
Paul Enenche