Quotes About Grace

All 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.

Any concept of grace that makes us feel more comfortable sinning is not biblical grace. God's grace never encourages us to live in sin, on the contrary, it empowers us to say no to sin and yes to truth.

Obedience does not consist in paying God back and thus turning grace into a trade. Obedience comes from trusting in God for more grace - future grace - and thus magnifying the infinite resources of God's love and power.

You were born into a state of grace. It is impossible for you to leave it. You will die in a state of grace whether or not special words are spoken for you, or water or oil is poured upon your head. You share this blessing with the animals and all other living things. You cannot fall out of grace, nor can it be taken from you. You can ignore it. You can hold beliefs that blind you to its existence. You will still be graced but unable to perceive you own uniqueness and integrity, and blind also to other attributes with which you are automatically gifted.

We know certainly that our God calls us to a holy life. We know that he gives us every grace, every abundant grace; and though we are so weak of ourselves, this grace is able to carry us through every obstacle and difficulty.

Grace and glory differ very little; the one is the seed, the other is the flower; grace is glory militant, glory is grace triumphant.

Heaven is the day of which grace is the dawn; the rich, ripe fruit of which grace is the lovely flower; the inner shrine of that most glorious temple to which grace forms the approach and outer court.

If grace is to be free - which is the very meaning of grace - we cannot view it as something to be repaid.

I won't let this be my good-bye. I've folded one thousand paper crane memories of me and Grace, and I've made my wish. I will find a cure. And then I will find Grace.

I have found, in short, from reading my own writing, that my subject in fiction is the action of grace in territory largely held by the devil. I have also found that what I write is read by an audience which puts little stock either in grace or the devil. You discover your audience at the same time and in the same way that you discover your subject, but it is an added blow.

The more you understand the magnitude of God's grace, the more accurate will be your view of the depth of your unrighteousness ; and the more you understand the depth of your unrighteousness , the more you will appreciate the magnitude of God's gift of grace.

Before I can preach love, mercy, and grace, I must preach sin, Law, and judgment. Preach 90% Law and 10% grace.

Angels are bright still, though the brightest fell. Though all things foul would wear the brows of grace, Yet Grace must still look so.

I wish grace and healing were more abracadabra kind of things. Also, that delicate silver bells would ring to announce grace's arrival. But no, it's clog and slog and scootch, on the floor, in the silence, in the dark.

There are endless treasures of grace waiting for those who will make even the most feeble attempts to pray. The weakest prayers yield grace.

The gospel of grace nullifies our adulation of televangelists, charismatic superstars, and local church heroes. It obliterates the two-class citizenship theory operative in many American churches. For grace proclaims the awesome truth that all is gift. All that is good is ours, not by right, but by the sheer bounty of a gracious God.

The main thing for inner contentment is to be in a state of grace. And there is an artistic state of grace, for art is a kind of religion.

All good things come by grace, and grace comes by art, and art does not come easy.

To do evil for good is human corruption; to do good for good is civil retribution; but to do good for evil is Christian perfection. Though this be not the grace of nature, it is the nature of grace.

Grace does not make sin safe. But grace does make sinners safe.

I do have some leftover chicken and pasta. (Grace) And wine?...That’s acceptable (Julian) Look, buster, I’m not your cooking wench. Mess with me and I’ll feed you Alpo. (Grace)

It's easier for our brains to have a list of rules and say, "If we keep these rules, we're in, and if we don't keep these rules, we're out." The problem with grace is that it doesn't play by the rules. It covers sin, and it washes away shame. It releases you from self-hatred. You then realize, through grace in Jesus, and believing in Jesus, and agreeing with Jesus, that you evidently were worth dying for.

About 2500 years ago Aeschylus, the Greek playwright, wrote, He who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep, pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God. These remarkable photos and the stories that accompany them should be on billboards from sea to shining sea, so the pain and suffering they represent might fall drop by drop upon the American psyche and against our will, by the awful grace of God, wisdom might come to these United States and her foreign policy.

If I said I wouldn’t toss him out of my bed for eating crackers, would you leave me alone? (Grace) Maybe. What else wouldn’t you toss him out of bed for? (Selena) Eating greasy grimy gopher guts? (Grace)

Those who believe they have pleased God by the quality of their devotion and moral goodness naturally feel that they and their group deserve deference and power over others. The God of Jesus and the prophets, however, saves completely by grace. He cannot be manipulated by religious and moral performance--he can only be reached through repentance, through the giving up of power. If we are saved by sheer grace we can only become grateful, willing servants of God and of everyone around us.

The Holy Trinity doesn't need our permission to carry on in their endlessly resourceful work of making all things new. That we are invited to catch even a glimpse of the splendor is grace. All of it, every breath and every second is grace.

When I hear Christians say, "I don't do this, and I don't do that, and I am following a set of rules," I immediately recognize that they know very little about the grace of God. They are trying to live the Christian life in their own strength. But Paul says, "Be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus."

Black ice is the smoothest naturally occuring ice there is, as if nature were condescending to art. ... Black ice is an act of nature as elusive as grace, and far more rare. ... I have never skated on black ice, but perhaps my children will. They'll know it, at least, when it appears: that the earth can stretch smooth and unbroken like grace, and they'll know as they know my voice that they were meant to have their share.

I guess grace doesn't have to [be] logical. If it did, it wouldn't be grace.

If God brings our pets back to life, it wouldn't surprise me. It would be just like Him. It would be totally in keeping with His generous character... Exorbitant. Excessive. Extravagant in grace after grace. Of all the dazzling discoveries and ecstatic pleasures heaven will hold for us, the potential of seeing Scrappy would be pure whimsy-utterly, joyfully, surprisingly superfluous... Heaven is going to be a place that will refract and reflect in as many ways as possible the goodness and joy of our great God, who delights in lavishing love on His children.

Infuse your life with action. Don't wait for it to happen. Make it happen. Make your own future. Make your own hope. Make your own love. And whatever your beliefs, honor your creator, not by passively waiting for grace to come down from upon high, but by doing what you can to make grace happen... yourself, right now, right down here on Earth.

We all want Grace, but we cannot enjoy Grace when there is an attitude of comparing.

The 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.

You want to protect your child from pain, and what you get instead is life, and grace; and though theologians insist that grace is freely given, the truth is that sometimes you pay for it through the nose. And you can't pay your child's way.

The state of grace is nothing other than purity, and it gives heaven to those who clothe themselves in it. Holiness, therefore, is simply the state of grace purified, illuminated, beautified by the most perfect purity, exempt not only from mortal sin but also from the smallest faults; purity will make saints of you! Everything lies in this!

I used to think that one day I'd be able to resolve the different drives I have in different directions, the tensions between the different people I am. Now I realize that is who I am. I do feel I'm getting closer to the song in my head. I wasn't looking for grace. But luckily grace was looking for me.

The apostle Paul never seemed to exhaust the topic of grace - what makes us think we can? He just kept coming at it and coming at it from another angle. That's the thing about grace. It's like springtime. You can't put it in a single sentence definition, and you can't exhaust it.

For grace to be grace, it must give us things we didn't know we needed and take us places where we didn't know we didn't want to go. As we stumble through the crazily altered landscape of our lives, we find that God is enjoying our attention as never before.

There wasn't an episode of 'Will & Grace' that didn't begin with my voice saying, 'Will & Grace' is taped before a live studio audience.

Women need to remember that if nature has made them plain, grace can make them beautiful, and if nature has made them beautiful, good deeds can add to their beauty. Grace will make you beautiful and will attract truly godly men to you. Make godliness and inward beauty your priority.

But all the while, there was one thing we most needed even from the start, and certainly will need from here on out into the New Jerusalem: the ability to take our freedom seriously and act on it, to live not in fear of mistakes but in the knowledge that no mistake can hold a candle to the love that draws us home. My repentance, accordingly, is not so much for my failings but for the two-bit attitude toward them by which I made them more sovereign than grace. Grace - the imperative to hear the music, not just listen for errors - makes all infirmities occasions of glory.

And the dream we were conceived in will reveal a joyful face... and the world we once believed in will shine again in grace. Then why do we keep strangling life wound this Earth, crucify its soul. Though it's plain to see, this world is heavenly. We could be God's glow... Heal the world.

When once our grace we have forgot, Nothing goes right.

In proportion to the size of the vessel of faith, brought by us to the Lord, is the measure we draw out of His overflowing grace.

I feel that my environment reflects my belief in the grace and art and elegance of living simply.

Kneecaps only exist to get hit with claw-hammers; grace only exists to be fallen from.

Live a life of conspicuous grace and courageous resolve.

Quality in a classical Greek sense is how to live with grace and intelligence, with bravery and mercy.