Popular quotes about God! Wisdom and inspiration are here! | page 15
We cannot find God without God. We cannot reach God without God. We cannot satisfy God without God - which is another way of saying that all our seeking will fall short unless God starts and finishes the search. The decisive part of our seeking is not our human ascent to God, but His descent to us. Without God's descent there is no human ascent. The secret of the quest lies not in our brilliance but in His grace.
Os GuinnessBeware of manufacturing a God of your own: a God who is all mercy, but not just; a God who is all love, but not holy; a God who as a heaven for every body, but a hell for none; a God who can allow good and bad to be side by side in time, but will make no distinction between good and broad in eternity. Such a God is an idol of your own, as truly an idol as any snake or crocodile in an Egyptian temple. The hands of your own fancy and sentimentality have made him. He is not the God of the Bible, and beside the God of the Bible there is no God at all.
J. C. RyleLook at the animals roaming the forest: Godโs spirit dwells within them. Look at the birds flying across the sky: Godโs spirit dwells within them. Look at the tiny insects crawling in the grass: Godโs spirit dwells within them. Look at the fish in the river and seaโฆ.There is no creature on earth in whom God is absentโฆ his breath had brought every creature to lifeโฆ Godโs spirit is present within plant as well. The presence of Godโs spirit in all living things is what makes them beautiful; and if we look with Godโs eyes, nothing on earth is ugly.
PelagiusThat experience showed me that I-from moment to moment-am the only person in control of my connection to God. It's not that God is deciding to connect with me, depending on whether I had a good day, or did good or bad deeds. It's all up to me. God, the awareness of God, the love of God, the blessings of God-that lively ecstasy-is always there. It's me who separates from God by judging, by indulging in negativity, by criticizing myself, as well as others.
Barbara De AngelisThe gospel is saying that, what man cannot do in order to be accepted with God, this God Himself has done for us in the person of Jesus Christ. To be acceptable to God we must present to God a life of perfect and unceasing obedience to his will. The gospel declares that Jesus has done this for us. For God to be righteous he must deal with our sin. This also he has done for us in Jesus. The holy law of God was lived out perfectly for us by Christ, and its penalty was paid perfectly for us by Christ. The living and dying of Christ for us, and this alone is the basis of our acceptance with God
Graeme GoldsworthySunday morning in America is the greatest hour of idolatry in the whole week. Why? Because most people who are even worshiping God, are worshiping a God they don't know. They're worshiping a god that looks more like Santa Claus than the God of Scripture. They're worshiping a god that is a figment of their own imagination. They created a god in their own likeness and they worship the god they've made.
Paul WasherGod felt, God tasted and enjoyed is indeed God, but God with those gifts which flatter the soul, God in darkness, in privation, in forsakenness, in sensibility, is so much God, that he is so to speak God bare and alone. Shall we fear this death, which is to produce in us the true divine life of grace?
Francois FenelonThe Bible portrays God as entering into covenants with people which, when broken, causes him grief and sorrow. The biblical prophet Hosea and God's using him as an illustration of how much Israel's idolatry costs God emotionally points to God's vulnerability. But also the incarnation of God in Jesus Christ who, even as God the Son, suffered for our sins, points to God's vulnerability.
Roger E. OlsonGod was on the move; God is on the move; and God will always be on the move. Those who walk with God and listen to God are also on the move. Reading the Bible so we can live it out today means being on the moveโalways. Anyone who stops and wants to turn a particular moment into a monument, as the disciples did when Jesus was transfigured before them, will soon be wondering where God has gone.
Scot McKnightListen, God love everything you love - and a mess of stuff you don't. But more than anything else, God love admiration. You saying God vain? I ast. Naw, she say. Not vain, just wanting to share a good thing. I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don't notice it. What it do when it pissed off? I ast. Oh, it make something else. People think pleasing God is all God care about. But any fool living in the world can see it always trying to please us back.
Alice WalkerWhen we unravel the theological tomes of the ages, the makeup of God becomes quite clear. God is a human being without human limitations who is read into the heavens. We disguised this process by suggesting that the reason God was so much like a human being was that the human beings were in fact created in God's image. However, we now recognize that if was the other way around. The God of theism came into being as a human creation. As such, this God, too, was mortal and is now dying.
John Shelby SpongI make soup and I back bread and I know my supreme need is joy in God and I know I can't experience deep joy in God until I deep trust in God. I shine sinks and polish through to the realization that trusting God is my most urgent need. If I deep trusted God in all the facets of my life, wouldn't that deep heal my anxiety, my self-condemnation, my soul holes? The fear is suffocating, terrorizing, and I want the remedy, and it is trust. Trust is everything. If fear keeps our lives small, does a life that receives all of God in this moment grow large too?
Ann VoskampThere is no evidence for a god, no coherent definition of a god, no good argument for a god, good positive arguments against a god, no agreement among believers about the nature or moral principles of a god, and no need for a god. We can live happy, moral, productive lives without such belief, and we can do it better.
Dan BarkerIn a very real sense my science does inform my knowledge of God. If you would allow me to say that we never know God, because if I claim that I know God, I know something other than God, because God is not knowable, he is unknowable. So we have to approach it in that sense first, that my knowledge of God is always limited.
George CoyneTo quarrel with God is to pay God the supreme compliment: it is to take God seriously. It is to say that God matters enough to be worth some anger. To be indifferent to God is to pay God the supreme insult. It is to say that nothing of consequence is at stake.
Robert McAfee BrownThe position of the Atheist is a clear and reasonable one. I know nothing about โGodโ and therefore I do not believe in Him or in it; what you tell me about your God is selfโcontradictory, and therefore incredible. I do not deny โGod,โ which is an unknown tongue to me; I do deny your God, who is an impossibility. I am without God.
Annie BesantThe peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus . As we do our part rejoice in the Lord, pursue a gentle spirit, pray about everything, and cling to gratitude, God does his part. He bestows upon us the peace of God. Note, this is not a peace from God. Our Father gives us the very peace of God. He downloads the tranquility of the throne room into our world, resulting in an inexplicable calm. We should be worried, but we aren't. We should be upset, but we're comforted.
Max LucadoSo, how to become friends with money? First, you have to forget everything you've ever been told about it. And then you have to put in its place a new message: There's nothing in the universe that isn't God. And God, and the energy which is God, is found in everything, including money. It isn't like God is everywhere except in your billfold. In fact, God is everywhere.
Neale Donald Walsch[Star Wars is] designed primarily to make young people think about the mystery. Not to say, 'Here's the answer.' It's to say, 'Think about this for a second. Is there a God? What does God look like? What does God sound like? What does God feel like? How do we relate to God?'
George LucasInterest in religion is not necessarily interest in God. Religion in public life means a set of ideas, an ideology that has certain positions. Religion is then one more ideology among others. Religion is about God. Religion begins with a relationship to God, not a relationship to an idea. It is God who is an actor, not just individuals who have certain beliefs who are actors. God is an actor.
Francis GeorgeAnd Kate Hepburn-God, she's beautiful, God, she plays golf well, God, she can get anyone in the world on the phone, God, she knows what to do all the time, God, she wears clothes well.
Joseph L. Mankiewicz[Georg Cantor was the first to prove that there could be a series of infinities; that infinities come in an infinite number of sizes.] Thus Cantor's Absolute is a perfect image for what we experience of God. When I speak of a Big Enough God I am not merely thinking of an Infinite God, but the God of infinities, the Absolute, which either chooses to reveal itself or remains veiled in mystery. Modern mathematics does begin to feel like the language that God talks.
Sara MaitlandAll of man's ills are due to his lack of knowing God within him. The perfection of God's universe is founded upon its perfection of Balance. All of man's ills are caused by toxic poisons generated in his body through unbalance affecting his power of control over the functions of his electric body. Man, as an extension of God, is creator of his own electric body. He is master of his electric body to the extent of his knowing the Light of God in him. ... God says to man: ยปWhat I do, ye shall doยซ, but man is unbelieving for long ages.
Walter RussellIf you're not aligned with God, it's hard to recognize yourself as being of God. The way that you get aligned with God is by being like God, being like Source, being like energy. That means understanding how God works.
Wayne DyerGodโs grace is not infinite. God is infinite, and God is gracious. We experience the grace of an infinite God, but grace is not infinite. God sets limits to His patience and forbearance. He warns us over and over again that someday the ax will fall and His judgment will be poured out.
R. C. SproulThe grand difference between a human being and a Supreme being is precisely this: Apart from God I cannot exist; apart from me God does exist. God does not need me in order for Him to be. I do need God in order for me to be. We are dependent. We are fragile. This is how we differ from God.
R. C. SproulYou are not called to believe in your love to God, but in God's love to you! Do not argue, 'I cannot love God! I have striven to my uttermost to do so, but have failed in all my endeavors, until in despair I have abandoned the thought and relinquished the attempt.' Be it so- no effort of your own can strike a spark of love to God from your heart. Nor does God demand the task at your hands. All that He requires of you is faith in His love, as embodied and expressed in Jesus Christ to poor sinners.
Octavius WinslowThere are two Gods, there is the God that people generally believe in - a God who has to serve them. This God does not exist. But the God whom people forget - the God whom we all have to serve - exists, and is the prime cause of our existence and of all that we perceive.
Leo TolstoyIf God gives you a few more years, remember, it is not yours. Your time must honor God, your home must honor God, your activity must honor God, and everything you do must honor God.
Aiden Wilson TozerIn order to trust God, we must always view our adverse circumstances through the eyes of faith, not of sense. And just as the faith of salvation comes through hearing the message of the gospel (Romans 10:17), so the faith to trust God in adversity comes through the Word of God alone. It is only in the Scriptures that we find an adequate view of God's relationship to and involvement in our painful circumstances. It is only from the Scriptures, applied to our hearts by the Holy Spirit, that we receive the grace to trust God in adversity.
Jerry BridgesI donโt think God has a gender. I donโt think God hates gays or Democrats, and I donโt think you have to be Born Again to find your way to Heaven. I believe God expects us to care for one another, even those who are different. God wants us to be good stewards of this planet, and that means not wasting or violating its resources. Most of all, it means not blowing it up. Especially not in Godโs name.
Ellen HopkinsIn India the mother is the center of the family and our highest ideal. She is to us the representative of God, as God is the mother of the universe. It was a female sage who first found the unity of God, and laid down this doctrine in one of the first hy mns of the Vedas. Our God is both personal and absolute, the absolute is male, the personal, female. And thus it comes that we now say: 'The first manifestation of God is the hand that rocks the cradle'.
Swami VivekanandaGod is not anything human. God is a force, God is chaos, God is unknown. God is terror and enlightenment at the same time.
Ralph FiennesYou cannot know God until you've stopped telling yourself that you already know God. You cannot hear God until you stop thinking that you've already heard God. I cannot tell you My Truth until you stop telling Me yours.
Neale Donald WalschJames says, "You desire and do not have; so you kill" (Jas. 4:2). We kill marriages and we kill unborn babies because they cut across our desires; they stand in the way of our unencumbered self-enhancement. And we live in a culture where self-enhancement and self-advancement is god. And if self-enhancement is god, then the One who is at work in the womb shaping a person in His own image is not God and the assault on His work is not sacrilegious, but obedience to the god of self.
John PiperIs the Son of God praying in me, or am I dictating to Him?... Prayer is not simply getting things from God, that is a most initial form of prayer; prayer is getting into perfect communion with God. If the Son of God is formed in us by regeneration, He will press forward in front of our common sense and change our attitude to the things about which we pray.
Oswald ChambersAccording to my definition of God, I'm not an atheist. Because I think God is everything. Whenever I open my eyes I'm looking at God. Whenever I'm listening to something I'm listening to God.
Pete SeegerYou may say, 'God doesn't hate anybody. God is love.' No, my friend. You need to understand something. Jesus Christ taught, the prophets taught, the apostles taught this: that apart from the grace of God revealed in Jesus Christ our Lord the only thing left for you is the wrath, the fierce anger of God because of your rebellion and your sin.
Paul WasherOne of the values of centering prayer is that you are not thinking about God during the time of centering prayer so you are giving God a chance to manifest. In centering prayer there are moments of peace that give the psyche a chance to realize that God may not be so bad after all. God has a chance to be himself for a change.
Thomas KeatingThe people who know God well - the mystics, the hermits, those who risk everything to find God - always meet a lover, not a dictator. God is never found to be an abusive father or a tyrannical mother, but always a lover who is more than we dared hope for. How different than the "account manager" that most people seem to worship. God is a lover who receives and forgives everything.
Richard RohrGod does not have hands, we do. Our hands are God's. It is up to us what God will see and hear, up to us, what God will do. Humanity is the organ of consciousness of the universe ... Without our eyes the Holy One of Being would be blind.
Lawrence KushnerI think about God, yes, and I wonder if there is a God. And if there is a God, will God please help me through my hard trips.
Brian WilsonWe do not segment our lives, giving some time to God, some to our business or schooling, while keeping parts to ourselves. The idea is to live all of our lives in the presence of God, under the authority of God, and for the honor and glory of God. That is what the Christian life is all about.
R. C. SproulThe love of God is no human projection, but the wrath of God is. In fact, what we call the wrath of God is really the love of God experienced by a fool.
Peter KreeftThere's an anointing the Spirit of God brings into your life; and that anointing gives you insight into the things of God. It opens the mind of God to you and unveils the riches of His glory to you. God said, "I will no longer hide my face from them," because of the outpouring of His Spirit, Hallelujah!
Chris OyakhilomeGod is universal," spluttered the priest. The imam nodded strong approval. "There is only one God." "And with their one god Muslims are always causing troubles and provoking riots. The proof of how bad Islam is, is how uncivilized Muslims are,: pronounced the pandit. "Says the slave-driver of the cast system," huffed the imam. "Hindus enslave people and worship dressed-up dolls." "They are golden calf lovers. They kneel before the cows," the priest chimed in. "While Christians kneel before a white man! They are flunkies of a foreign god. They are nightmare of all nonwhite people.
Yann MartelOur evangelical culture tends to take the awesome reality of a transcendent god who is worthy to be feared and downsize Him so He could fit into our "buddy system." The way we talk about Him, the way we pray, and, more strikingly, the way we live shows that we have somehow lost our sense of being appropriately awestruck in the presence of a holy and all-powerful God. It's been a long time since we've heard a good sermon on the "fear of God." If God were to show up visibly, many of us think we'd run up to Him and high-five Him for the good things He has done.
Joseph StowellHe talks about God, and loving God. he says that when we open to loving a person, whether that person is a spouse, friend, or child, we open our hearts to loving God. He says when we let someone love us, we're opening our hearts to god's love. he says the acts are the same. p 19 I decide loving isn't for the fain. Its for the courageous. p 19
Melody Beattie