Billy Graham Quotes - Page 7

[Today] there is less emphasis on redemption by the blood of Christ.

Today the idea of the shed blood of Christ is becoming old-fashioned and out of date in a lot of preaching. It is in the Bible. It is the very heart of Christianity.

Many of the mysteries of God—the heartaches, trials, disappointments, tragedies, and the silence of God in the midst of suffering—will be revealed in heaven.

Peter preached about [the blood]. Paul wrote about it, and the redeemed in heaven sing about it. In a sense, the New Testament is the Book of the Blood.

How often do we lie simply because we are trying to build ourselves up in the eyes of others? How often do we gossip because we want to appear “in the know,”or because we are trying to make ourselves appear better than someone else? The Bible's command is clear: [“Have regard for good things in the sight of all men” (Romans 12:17 NKJV)].

Renewal is brought by the Holy Spirit. Believers will learn what it means to minister to one another and build each other up. No longer will our lives seem ordinary and indistinguishable from the rest of the world.

Sometimes we encourage someone without even being aware of it. Even the example we set by attending church may encourage someone who is searching for God.

[The Holy Spirit] will remain with every believer right to the end. This thought has encouraged me a thousand times in these dark days when satanic forces are at work.

With an old head and a young heart, you can be a source of real strength [to others] who need your cheer and encouragement.

All around you are people whose lives are filled with trouble and sorrow, and they need your compassion and encouragement.

We never gain in life by hurting others. Sometimes we try to elevate our own insecure egos by degrading and belittling those around us. Yet this produces only a false sense of self-esteem.

The Bible teaches us to be more concerned about the needs and feelings of others than our own. We are to encourage and build self-confidence in our loved ones, friends, and associates.

The journey God has set before us isn’t a freeway; we are constantly encountering forks and junctions and crossroads. Which way will we go when we meet them? Life is filled with decisions, and we can’t avoid them.

Jesus does not allow us to be neutral about Him. Jesus demands that we decide about Him.

God has a plan and the devil has a plan, and you will have to decide which plan you are going to fit into.

Men and women do make decisions wherever the Gospel is proclaimed; whether publicly or privately, some say yes, some say no, and some procrastinate. No one ever hears the Gospel proclaimed without making some kind of decision!

When disappointment or tragedy or suffering strikes, we have a decision to make: Will we turn away from God, or will we turn toward Him? Which road will we take? One road leads to doubt, anger, bitterness, fear, hopelessness, and despair.The other leads to hope, comfort, peace, strength, and joy.

When we are called before God and His throne of judgment, it will be too late to reverse our decision. It is during our lifetime here on earth that we decide our eternal destiny.

Becoming “new” in Christ is a wonderful beginning, but it isn’t the end of pain or problems in our lives. It is the beginning of our facing up to them. Being a Christian involves a lifetime of hard work, dedicated study, and difficult decisions.

Part of the human makeup which distinguishes man from other creatures is his ability to reason and make moral decisions. Man is a free moral agent.

Once God leads you to make a decision, don’t draw back. Instead, trust His leading, and believe He goes before you—because He does.

The most important decision you will ever make is the decision you make about eternity.

Heaven is real and hell is real, and eternity is but a breath away.

God can use the fear that grips the hearts of men today to point them to eternal truths—the truth of God’s eternal judgment, and the truth of His eternal love.

Jesus taught that there is an eternal destiny for each individual—either heaven or hell (John 5:25–29). The eternal destiny of each individual depends on a decision made in this life (Luke 16:19–31)—to be followed by a life of obedience.

Christians should seek after holiness—without which no man shall see the Lord. Let us seek ardently the kind of life that reflects the beauty of Jesus and marks us as being what saints ought to be!

What stirs God most is not physical suffering but sin. All too often we are more afraid of physical pain than of moral wrong. The cross is the standing evidence of the fact that holiness is a principle for which God would die.

As I read the Bible, I seem to find holiness to be [Christ’s] supreme attribute.

If you belong to Jesus Christ, you are called to live a life of purity and holiness. God wants your mind to be shaped by Him so that your thoughts and goals reflect Christ.

Don’t take the holiness of God lightly, for it is the very essence of His character.

Compassion is not complete in itself, but must be accompanied by inflexible justice and wrath against sin and a desire for holiness.

Disappointment and failure are not signs that God has forsaken you or stopped loving you. The devil wants you to believe God no longer loves you, but it isn’t true. God’s love for us never fails.

[While] disappointment and failure aren’t identical, they often occur together, and both can hold us back from God’s best for our lives.

Don’t be bound by the past and its failures. But don’t forget its lessons either.

Repeated disappointment almost always triggers a series of other reactions: discouragement, anger, frustration, bitterness, resentment, even depression. Unless we learn to deal with disappointment, it will rob us of joy and poison our souls.

Pride is associated with failure, not success. We hear a great deal about the inferiority complex, but the superiority complex of pride is seldom spoken of . . .The greatest act of humility . . .was when Jesus Christ stooped to die on the cross of Calvary.

I long to see [Jesus] face to face, to hear His voice and touch Him. In the day I go to be with Him, there will be no unfulfilled longings or disappointments. He will welcome me into His mansion, answer my questions, and teach me the wisdom of the ages.

Disappointments are part of life; we can’t always have our own way, and we need to learn to separate what is significant from what is merely annoying. Only in heaven will we be free of all disappointments and failures. A friend of mine says, “Oh well, a hundred years from now it won’t make any difference!

Learn from your disappointments and failures and with God’s help seek to overcome them. Ask yourself, could I have done anything to prevent this? Were my hopes and dreams unrealistic, or were my motives wrong?Is there a new path God wants me to explore?

The time to prepare for life’s disappointments and hurts is in advance.

Don’t let failure or disappointment cut you off from God or make you think the future is hopeless. When God closes one door, He often opens another—if we seek it.

If we who have the Holy Spirit living and working within us falter and fail, what hope is there for the rest of the world?

Drinking has become one of the most serious social problems. It is basically the result of an attempt to escape from the responsibilities and realities of life.

A senator once confided to me that the greatest need in Washington was the elimination of the cocktail party. He said: “It consumes so much of our time that we don’t have time for matters of state.

Volumes could be written on the problem of [drug] addiction. Millions of barbiturates are swallowed every night to help the nation sleep. Millions of tranquilizers keep us calm during the day. Millions of pep pills wake us up in the morning. The Bible warns that these flights from reality bring no lasting satisfaction.

The Greek word used in the New Testament to designate a sorcerer or a person who practiced occult magic is “pharmakeus,” or one who mixed drugs and used them to induce spells . . .Such practices are included in the list of “acts of the sinful nature” in Galatians 5:19–21 that God will judge.

One of the bonuses of being a Christian is the glorious hope that extends out beyond the grave into the glory of God’s tomorrow.

We are so caught up with the affairs of this life we give little attention to eternity.

What you do with Christ here and now decides where you shall spend eternity.

We glorify Christ when we live for God—trusting, loving, and obeying Him.

When one bears suffering faithfully, God is glorified and honored.

What greater glory can we anticipate than to stand before the throne of God, to humble ourselves before His great and incomparable majesty.

Our voices, our service, and our abilities are to be employed, primarily, for the glory of God.

One of the joys of heaven . . . will be discovering the hidden ways that God in His sovereignty acted in our lives on earth to protect and guide us [that we might] bring glory to His name, in spite of our frailty.

Our dress, our posture, our actions should all be for the honor and glory of Christ. Much of our talk as Christians is secular, not spiritual. It is easy to fall into the conversational conformity of the world and spend an evening discussing politics, new cars, and the latest entertainment. We often forget that we are to edify one another with holy conversation and that our conversation should be on heavenly, and not exclusively on earthly things.

We glorify God by living lives that honor Him.

Life is just a schoolroom with a glorious opportunity to prepare us for eternity.

Most people are living for today with barely a thought of eternity.

How do we prepare for that last day? Before we embark on our final trip, have we left an earthly home in a state of chaos or a condition of order?

[Multitudes] have never been born again. They will go into eternity lost—while thinking they are saved because they belong to the church, or were baptized.

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