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We live in a church culture that has a dangerous tendency to disconnect the grace of God from the glory of God. Our hearts resonate with the idea of enjoying God's grace. We bask in sermons, conferences, and books that exalt a grace centering on us. And while the wonder of grace is worthy of our attention, if that grace is disconnected from its purpose, the sad result is a self-centered Christianity that bypasses the heart of God.
David PlattAugustine said that we were all born into the world of "common grace" [i.e., available to all]. Before one is baptized, or even if one never is, such grace meets one in God's creation. There is grace in the pear tree that blooms and blushes. There is common grace in the sea (that massive cleanliness which we are proceeding to corrupt), in the fact that there was, before we laid hands on it, clean air. Our task is to appreciate that grace.
Joseph SittlerAnd then, what is grace? Grace is love. But grace is not love simply, and purely, and alone. Grace and love are, in their innermost essence, one and the same thing.
Alexander WhyteAll the natural movements of the soul are controlled by laws analogous to those of physical gravity. Grace is the only exception. Grace fills empty spaces, but it can only enter where there is a void to receive it, and it is grace itself which makes this void. The imagination is continually at work filling up all the fissures through which grace might pass.
Simone WeilIf a person has grasped the meaning of God's grace in his heart, he will do justice. If he doesn't live justly, then he may say with his lips that he is grateful for God's grace, but in his heart he is far from him. If he doesn't care about the poor, it reveals that at best he doesn't understand the grace he has experienced, and at worst he has not really encountered the saving mercy of God. Grace should make you just.
Timothy KellerYou okay? (Grace) Oh, yeah. I’m just fine considering the fact I’ve walked through burning fires that hurt less than my groin does right now. (Julian) I said I was sorry. Okay, can you reach the pedals? (Grace) I’d like to reach your pedals…(Julian) Julian! Would you concentrate? (Grace) All right. I’m concentrating. (Julian) I don’t mean on my breasts. (He dropped his hungry gaze to her lap.) Or there, either. (Grace)
Sherrilyn KenyonGrace binds you with far stronger cords than the cords of duty or obligation can bind you. Grace is free, but when once you take it, you are bound forever to the Giver and bound to catch the spirit of the Giver. Like produces like. Grace makes you gracious, the Giver makes you give.
E. Stanley JonesGrace does not demonize our desires nor destroy them nor lead us to deny them. Grace is the work of the Holy Spirit in transforming our desires so that knowing Jesus becomes sweeter than illicit sex, sweeter than money and what it can buy, sweeter than every fruitless joy. Grace is God satisfying our souls with His Son so that we're ruined for anything else!
Sam StormsDon’t cry for me, Grace. I’m not worth it. (Julian) Yes you are! (Grace) You are my saving Grace. Without you, I would never have known love. And I would never have known me again. (Julian)
Sherrilyn KenyonI need not torment myself with the fear that my faith may fail; as grace led me to faith in the first place, so grace will keep me believing to the end. Faith, both in its origin and continuance, is a gift of grace (Phil 1:29).
J. I. PackerGrace and gratitude belong together like heaven and earth. Gratitude evokes grace like the voice and echo. Gratitude follows grace as thunder follows lightning.
Karl BarthIf we let ourselves believe that man began with divine grace, that he forfeited this by sin, and that he can be redeemed only by divine grace through the crucified Christ, then we shall find peace of mind never granted to philosophers. He who cannot believe is cursed, for he reveals by his unbelief that God has not chosen to give him grace.
Blaise PascalThe church is, above all, a place to receive grace: it brings forgiven people together with the aim of equipping us to dispense grace to others.
Philip YanceyThe assurance of Heaven is never given to the person. And that's why at the core of the Christian faith is the grace of God. If there's one word I would grab from all of that, it's forgiveness - that you can be forgiven. I can be forgiven, and it is of the grace of God. But once you understand that, I think the ramifications are worldwide.
Ravi ZachariasChristians tend to motivate others with guilt. We tend to say: You would do this if you were really committed Christians, indicating that we are committed and all that is needed is for others to become as good as we are! This is why so many churches quench the motivation of people for ministry. In our shoes, Paul would say: Remember the grace God has showered on you—what does living out and enjoying that grace look like in this situation?
Timothy KellerFaith is the champion of Grace, and Love the nurse; but Humility is the beauty of Grace.
Thomas BrooksEvery Christian family ought to be as it were a little church, consecrated to Christ, and wholly influenced and governed by his rules. And family education and order are some of the chief means of grace. If these fail, all other means are likely to prove ineffectual. If these are duly maintained, all the means of grace will be likely to prosper and be successful.
Jonathan EdwardsI pray thee, if I have found grace in thy sight, shew me now thy way, that I may know thee, that I may find grace in thy sight: and consider that this nation is thy people.
MosesThat’s how we often react when grace comes at us. It’s awkward. God offers us something that’s too good to be true—unearned, unmerited, total forgiveness—and we stand there, stiff and uncomfortable, waiting for the embrace to stop so we can get back to the business of earning our way into heaven. We need to embrace grace. We need to learn how to hug back.
Judah SmithWithout the burden of afflictions it is impossible to reach the height of Grace. The gift of Grace increases as the struggle increases.
Rose of LimaGrace is the seed of glory, the dawning of glory in the heart, and therefore grace is the earnest of the future inheritance.
Jonathan EdwardsIt is this one Spirit who makes it possible for an infant to be regenerated . . . when that infant is brought to baptism; and it is through this one Spirit that the infant so presented is reborn. For it is not written, 'Unless a man be born again by the will of his parents' or 'by the faith of those presenting him or ministering to him,' but, 'Unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Spirit.' The water, therefore, manifesting exteriorly the sacrament of grace, and the Spirit effecting interiorly the benefit of grace, both regenerate in one Christ that man who was generated in Adam.
Saint AugustineGrace ceases to be grace if God is compelled to bestow it in the presence of human merit.
Sam StormsIn the New Testament grace means God's love in action towards men who merited the opposite of love. Grace means God moving heaven and earth to save sinners who could not lift a finger to save themselves.
J. I. PackerHumans need justice in the here and now and grace in the thereafter. Justice in the here and now is possible only without freedom,and grace in the thereafter only through the freedom of God.
Friedrich DurrenmattSo saving grace, converting grace, for Augustine, is God's giving us a sovereign joy in God that triumphs over all other joys and therefore sways the will. The will is free to move toward whatever it delights in most fully, but it is not within the power of our will to determine what that sovereign joy will be.
John PiperNor did I need anyone's pity, but I would accept it with grace, because I have been well trained. Rudeness was a sign of weakness. Grace stemmed from power, the powere to accept anything and move on.
Robin WassermanIf the Holy Spirit takes over your family, your business or your health, it doesn't matter what troubles you've been experiencing or what's been going wrong, you will begin to go from strength to strength, from grace to grace, from faith to faith, from success to success and from greatness to greatness. When the Holy Spirit takes over your life, He'll drive every sickness out of your body; He'll make right everything that was wrong.
Chris OyakhilomeThis grace of God is a very great, strong, mighty and active thing. It does not lie asleep in the soul. Grace hears, leads, drives, draws, changes, works all in man, and lets itself be distinctly felt and experienced. It is hidden, but its works are evident.
Martin LutherWhen I say the grace of wildness, what I mean is its autonomy, its self-possession, the fact that it has nothing to do with us. The grace is in the separation, the distance, the sense of a self-sustaining way of life.
Verlyn KlinkenborgA man who has no part in the grace of God, cannot keep the commandments of God, or prepare himself, either wholly or in part, to receive grace; but he rests of necessity under the power of sin.
Martin LutherThe fearsome blessing of that hard time continues to work itself out in my life in the same way we're told the universe is still hurtling through outer space under the impact of the great cosmic explosion.... I think grace sometimes explodes into our lives like that-sending our pain, terror, astonishment hurtling through inner space until by grace they become Orion, Cassiopeia, Polaris to give us our bearings, to bring us into something like full being at last.
Frederick BuechnerAugustine does not disagree with this when he teaches that it is a faculty of the reason and the will to choose good with the assistance of grace; evil, when grace is absent.
John CalvinGrace is necessary to salvation, free will equally so - but grace in order to give salvation, free will in order to receive it.
Bernard of ClairvauxAll the passages in the Holy Scriptures that mention assistance are they that do away with "free-will", and these are countless...For grace is needed, and the help of grace is given, because "free-will" can do nothing.
Martin LutherThe eyes of the future are looking back at us and they are praying for us to see beyond our own time. They are kneeling with hands clasped that we might act with restraint, that we might leave room for the life that is destined to come. To protect what is wild is to protect what is gentle. Perhaps the wilderness we fear is the pause between our own heartbeats, the silent space that says we live only by grace. Wilderness lives by this same grace. Wild mercy is in our hands.
Terry Tempest WilliamsTo live by grace means to acknowledge my whole life story, the light side and the dark. In admitting my shadow side I learn who I am and what God's grace means.
Brennan ManningI hope to work through disappointment and frustration with as much grace as [Georgia] O'Keeffe did, and I hope to have the same confidence in my own vision.
Liza CampbellThe world, Govinda my friend, is not imperfect, not to be seen as on a slow path toward perfection: No, it is perfect in every moment, all transgression already bears grace within itself, all little children already have the aged in themselves, all the sucklings death, all the dying eternal life.
Hermann Hesse... so our customary practice of prayer was brought to mind: how through our ignorance and inexperience in the ways of love we spend so much time on petition. I saw that it is indeed more worthy of God and more truly pleasing to him that through his goodness we should pray with full confidence, and by his grace cling to him with real understanding and unshakeable love, than that we should go on making as many petitions as our souls are capable of.
Julian of NorwichTithing isn't the ceiling of giving; it's the floor. It's not the finish line of giving; it's just the starting blocks. Tithes can be the training wheels to launch us into the mind-set, skills, and habits of grace giving.
Randy AlcornThrough the years, I have discovered some essential principles in discerning God's will: First, by God's grace, we must be firmly committed to seeking first the Kingdom of God and His glory. Secondly, we must establish a life discipline of renewing our minds in the Word of God. Thirdly, we must seek godly counsel from mature believers. Fourthly, we must watch for signs of God's providence opening doors and closing them. Finally, we should consider the desires of our heart.
Paul WasherI feel that my environment reflects my belief in the grace and art and elegance of living simply.
Bell Hooks