Category: Quotes

So how do we determine who Jesus is? Fortunately, we do not have to “check our brains at the door,” as Josh McDowell said. Instead, we can use our logic to make a pretty simple determination.

Jesus was either:
(1) God, if His claim about Himself was true, or
(2) a bad man, if what He said was not true, for good men do not claim to be God.

This is the essential Christian argument.
–Peter Kreeft

We sometimes use the term “savior complex” to describe an unhealthy syndrome of obsession over curing others’ problems. The true Savior, however, seemed remarkably free of such a complex.
–Philip Yancey

Jesus was so confident of who He was. He didn’t need to “put on airs” or run around healing everyone just so people would think well of Him.

I wish that I was so confident of who I am in Christ. He lives in me. All that is His is now mine as well. And yet I am still running around trying to “do things” to get the attention of others so that I can somehow feel better about myself. Instead, if I would just embrace the truth that I am a child of the King… that would be enough to satisfy me completely for all of my life.

Father God, help me to rest in the truth that I am yours… a child of the King!

We often think that the “routine” means dull and mundane, but Chesterton asks us to think about it in a different way:

Routine might be due, not to a lifelessness, but to a rush of life. The thing I mean can be seen, for instance, in children, when they find some game or joke that they specially enjoy.
    …Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, “Do it again”; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony.
    But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, “Do it again” to the sun; and every evening, “Do it again” to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making daisies. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.
    The repetition in Nature may not be a mere recurrence; it may be a theatrical encore.
–G. K. Chesterton

What a beautiful thought… that God delights in what He has made so much, that He continues to say “I will do it again!” Remember today that He has made you, and He delights in what He has made!

Before the ladies get too upset from today’s quote, let me first say – this quote goes both ways. So men, just reverse the genders!

We simply ask too much of our relationships.
Women — you’ll never find a man who completes you. Regardless of what the TV shows and movies promise you, no one can fix what’s broken in your heart….
No man is enough.
You need a Savior.
–Matt Chandler

And we can say the same to all people regarding all relationships.
There is no relationship that any woman OR man has that is enough to fill your heart completely.
Certainly there are relationships that meet many needs, such as the relationships of spouses, children, and great friends. But no relationship is enough except the relationship you have with Jesus.
Matt Chandler is right…
You need a Savior!

Christian, you are to:
make the gospel viable to the world but not palatable. As John Stott once said in a lecture, “For the gospel to be effective it must remain prickly.”
–Rebecca Pippert

This simply means that we are to share the truth of the gospel with the world without shaving off the sharp edges. Jesus says we are to love Him more than our family – even more than our own children. Ouch.
Jesus says we are to go and sin no more – and the sins haven’t changed, even if society doesn’t like His list. Ouch.
Jesus says we are to love everyone – even our enemies. Ouch.
Jesus says we are to give up everything for Him – even our own lives. Ouch.

The gospel remains effective until we start making it more palatable, at which point it loses its power to save and transform lives.

Let’s keep the gospel prickly.