Timothy Keller Quotes

Everyone says they want community and friendship. But mention accountability or commitment to people, and they run the other way.

Jesus is not asking us to do anything for him that he hasn’t already done for us, under conditions of difficulty beyond our comprehension.

The church does not simply have a missions department; it should wholly exist to be a mission.

The way to find your calling is to look at the way you were created. Your gifts have not emerged by accident.

Everyone worships something. The only choice you get is what to worship.

You don't fall in love. You commit to it.

To be loved but not known is comforting but superficial. To be known and not loved is our greatest fear. But to be fully known and truly loved is, well, a lot like being loved by God. It is what we need more than anything. It liberates us from pretense, humbles us out of our self-righteousness, and fortifies us for any difficulty life can throw at us.

If you didn't earn your salvation how are you going to un-earn it?

Power, approval, comfort, and control are meta-idols that hold sway over our daily lives.

Falling in love in a Christian way is to say,'I am excited about your future and I want to be part of getting you there. I'm signing up for the journey with you. Would you sign up for the journey to my true self with me? It's going to be hard but I want to get there.

Sin is not just breaking the rules, it is putting yourself in the place of God as Savior, Lord, and Judge… There are two ways to be your own Savior and Lord. One is by breaking all the moral laws and setting your own course, and one is by keeping all the moral laws and being very, very good.

The Gospel is news of what God has done to reach us. It is not advice about what we must do to reach God.

Jesus came into this world not as a philosopher or a general but as a carpenter. All work matters to God.

There is no evil that the father’s love cannot pardon and cover, there is no sin that is a match for his grace.

Every single emotion you have should be processed in prayer.

The greatness of prayer is nothing but an extension of the greatness and glory of God in our lives To fail to pray, then, is not to merely break some religious rule - it is a failure to treat God as God. It is a sin against his glory

But resurrection is not just consolation — it is restoration. We get it all back — the love, the loved ones, the goods, the beauties of this life — but in new, unimaginable degrees of glory and joy and strength.

The gospel is not just the “ABCs” but the “A-to-Z” of the Christian life.

We get angry when we feel like God owes us a better life than we have.

To preach the gospel is to show people their need for salvation against a backdrop of God's nature and the character of sin, and then present Jesus as the only remedy for what ails them and the world. In my weekly preaching in the worship services I always call people to believe in Christ.

What the heart most wants, the mind finds reasonable, the will finds doable, and the emotions find desirable.

Elder brothers obey God to get things. They don't obey God to get God himself — in order to resemble him, love him, know him, and delight him.

Real love, the Bible says, instinctively desires permanence.

The gospel shows us that our spiritual problem lies not only in failing to obey God, but also in relying on our obedience to make us fully acceptable to God, ourselves and others. Every kind of character flaw comes from this natural impulse to be our own saviour through our own performance and achievement. On the one hand, proud and disdainful personalities come from basing your identity on your performance and thinking you are succeeding. But on the other hand, discouraged and self loathing personalities also come from basing your identity on your performance and thinking you are failing.

You are a totally loved moral failure.

The gospel frees us from the relentless pressure of having to prove ourselves, for we are already proven and secure.

Prayer-though it is often draining, even an agony-is in the long term the greatest source of power that is possible.

Religion makes us proud of what we have done. The Gospel makes us proud of what Jesus has done.

You are more sinful than you could dare imagine and you are more loved and accepted than you could ever dare hope.

Love without truth is sentimentality; it supports and affirms us but keeps us in denial about our flaws. Truth without love is harshness; it gives us information but in such a way that we cannot really hear it. God's saving love in Christ, however, is marked by both radical truthfulness about who we are and yet also radical, unconditional commitment to us. The merciful commitment strengthens us to see the truth about ourselves and repent. The conviction and repentance moves us to cling to and rest in God's mercy and grace.

The Bible’s purpose is not so much to show you how to live a good life. The Bible’s purpose is to show you how God’s grace breaks into your life against your will and saves you from the sin and brokenness otherwise you would never be able to overcome… religion is ‘if you obey, then you will be accepted’. But the Gospel is, ‘if you are absolutely accepted, and sure you’re accepted, only then will you ever begin to obey’. Those are two utterly different things. Every page of the Bible shows the difference.

Jesus is the ultimate Job, the only truly innocent sufferer.

Careful obedience to God’s law may serve as a strategy for rebelling against God

The Gospel is this: You're more sinful, evil and weak than you'd ever believe. But you're more valued, accepted and loved than you dared hope.

We are called not simply to communicate the gospel to nonbelievers; we must also intentionally celebrate the gospel before them.

We don't merely need the money from work to survive. We need the work itself to survive and live fully human lives more than money.

Idolatry happens when we take good things and make them ultimate things

A job is a vocation only if someone else calls you to do it for them rather than for yourself. And so our work can be a calling only if it is reimagined as a mission of service to something beyond merely our own interests. Thinking of work mainly as a means of self-fulfillment and self-realization slowly crushes a person.

The world is polarizing over religion. It is getting both more religious and less religious at the same time.

Because of Jesus-there is always hope, even in the darkest moments of your life.

If you try to add to God's salvation you subtract. If you try to add to God's salvation you subtract. If you try to merit God's salvation you haven't believed at all, even if you try to do a little bit.

Christians necessarily believe we depend on God for everything-a prayerless Christian, then, is a contradiction in terms.

Truth is more important, freedom is more complex, and Jesus is more liberating than you think.

Religion says earn your life. Secular society says create your life. Jesus says, 'My life for your life.

Fear-based repentance makes us hate ourselves. Joy-based repentance makes us hate the sin.

We can only grasp the gospel's sweetness if we first grapple with its offense- you can't save yourself.

While the difference between a bad sermon and a good sermon is mainly the responsibility of the preacher, the difference between good preaching and great preaching lies mainly in the work of the Holy Spirit. . . . We should do the work it takes to make our communication good and leave it up to God how and how often he makes it great for the listener.

Proper wedding vows are more a promise of mutually binding future love than a declaration of your present love.