Quotes About Grace

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.

How will you get God's grace? When you discipline yourself. How will you know how to discipline? By observing others that had walked the path successfully to the goal of perfection. Who are these men who had walked to the goal? It is these that are known as Gurus. So you need their help, their personal example, their encouragement and their grace. Thus, we have come round to the answer that a Guru is necessary as well as his grace. Everything is necessary-\-\ Atma Kripa, Guru Kripa and Isvara Kripa.

The ultimate difference between God's wisdom and man's wisdom is how they relate to the glory of God's grace in Christ crucified. God's wisdom makes the glory of God's grace our supreme treasure. But man's wisdom delights in seeing himself as resourceful, self-sufficient, self determining, and not utterly dependent on God's free grace.

When the New Testament speaks about the fullness of grace which we find in Christ, it does not mean only forgiveness, pardon and justification. Christ has done much more for us. He died for us, but he also lived for us. Now he has sent his own Spirit to us so that we might draw on his strength. He grew in grace, and when we draw on his power we shall likewise grow in grace.

Grace alone makes the elect gracious; grace alone keeps them gracious; and the same grace alone will render them everlastingly glorious in the heaven of heavens.

The grace that brought salvation to you is the same grace that teaches or disciplines you. But you must respond on the basis of grace, not law.

Many biblical passages teach that we're not saved by our own efforts but by the grace of God alone. But the same passages also tell us good works are an essential evidence of the salvation experience. We're not saved by good works, but for good works. It begins with God's grace, and it's sustained by his grace as you shape your character by what you do as you cross the bridge.

Grace is goodness and respect given freely and unconditionally. A sense of divine love and protection bestowed on us when we need strength and renewal. Grace helps us know we are not alone and believe we are cared for and cherished. Grace is a drink of clear, clean water in the desert.

If Christians cannot extend grace through faithful presence within the body of believers, they will not be able to extend grace to those outside.

"Otherwise grace is no more grace," since it is bestowed on us, not because we have done good works, but that we may be able to do them.

Christians 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?

The world thirsts for grace. When grace descends, the world falls silent before it.

Oh, from what heights of blessing it is possible for a man to fall! To what depths of sin a man can descend, even with all that spiritual background! The higher the pinnacle of blessing, authority, and publicity he has attained by grace, the deeper and more staggering can be his collapse. There is never a day in any man's life but that he is dependent upon the grace of God for power and the blood of Jesus for cleansing.

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.

If grace is so wonderful, why do we have such difficulty recognizing and accepting it? Maybe it's because grace is not gentle or made-to-order. It often comes disguised as loss, or failure, or unwelcome change.

No one is so good that they don’t need the grace of the gospel, nor so bad that they can’t receive the grace of the gospel.

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.

Whenever it happens it is never late; whenever it happens it is always early. The happening is so great that you cannot claim it for yourself. You cannot say: `I have earned it.` The happening is so great that it is always through grace and not through effort. It happens through effortlessness. Whenever it happens, you know well that it is through compassion, grace, that it has happened. It has nothing to do with you or your earning

Grace never ignores the awful truth of our depravity; in fact it emphasizes it. The worse we realize we are the greater we realize God's grace.

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.

Grace comes immediately to meet some of those who strive, giving them assurance of the earnest of their inheritance (cf. Eph. 1:14), letting them taste the promised prizes, as if stretching out a loving hand to welcome them and anointing them for further struggles. With others, however, grace waits for the end of the struggle, and prepares for them the crown of patience as well. As one of the God-bearing Fathers says, 'Some receive holy rewards before their labours, some during labours, and some when they depart' (St. John Climacus).

So I said to myself, "There but for the grace of God go I," only to realize I was looking in a mirror and had seriously overestimated the grace of God.

Everything is a grace, everything is the direct effect of our Father's love - difficulties, contradictions, humiliations, all the soul's miseries, her burdens, her needs - everything, because through them, she learns humility, realizes her weakness. Everything is a grace because everything is God's gift. Whatever be the character of life or its unexpected events - to the heart that loves, all is well.

Grace is openness. By remaining open, you let go of your ego and narrow-minded views, and allow divine grace to express itself through you.

Sense of sin may be often great, and more felt than grace; yet not be more than grace. A man feels the ache of his finger more sensibly than the health of his whole body; yet he knows that the ache of a finger is nothing so much as the health of the whole body.

The deepest need that you and I have in weakness and adversity is not quick relief, but the well-grounded confidence that what is happening to us is part of the greatest purpose of God in the universe - the glorification of the grace and power of his Son - the grace and power that bore Him to the cross and kept him there until the work of love was done.

We have suffered from the preaching of cheap grace. Grace is free, but it is not cheap. People will take anything that is free, but they are not interested in discipleship. They will take Christ as Savior but not as Lord.

Grace doesn't lead us into destructive behavior. Sin does. And grace is the only remedy for sin. The kindness of God leads to repentance.

Like the air, God's Grace is available to us. It is permeating every fibre of Being and the Being of the entire universe. When we take our attention to that Being, finer than the finest, then we establish ourselves on the level of God's Grace. Immediately we just enjoy. Life is Bliss!

Take steadily some one sin, which seems to stand out before thee, to root it out, by God's grace, and every fibre of it. Purpose strongly, by the grace and strength of God, wholly to sacrifice this sin or sinful inclination to the love of God, to spare it not, until thou leave of it none remaining, neither root nor branch.

The grace of God is dangerous. It's lavish, excessive, outrageous, and scandalous. God's grace is ridiculously inclusive. Apparently God doesn't care who He loves. He is not very careful about the people He calls His friends or the people He calls His church.

Only as we bow in contrition, confession, and repentance at the foot of the cross, can we find forgiveness. There is the grace of God.

How thankful I am, how thankful we all must be, for the women in our lives. God bless them. May His great love distill upon them and crown them with luster and beauty, grace and faith.

Believing, repenting, and the like, are the product of the new nature; and can never be produced by the old corrupt nature... as the child cannot be active in his own generation, so a man cannot be active in his own regeneration. The heart is shut against Christ: man cannot open it, only God can do it by his grace.

At Munich we sold the Czechs for a few months grace, but the disgrace will last as long as history.

Through 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.

We do not make friends with God; God makes friends with us, bringing us to know him by making his love known to us... The word know, when used of God in this way, is a sovereign-grace word, pointing to God's initiative in loving, choosing, redeeming, calling and preserving.

Grace means undeserved kindness. It is the gift of God to man the moment he sees he is unworthy of God's favor.

The regenerate man's desires are rectified; they are set on God himself, and the things above... Before, he saw no beauty in Christ, for which he was to be desired; but now he is all he desires, he is altogether lovely... regenerating grace sets the affections so firmly on God, that the man is disposed, at God's command, to quit his hold of every thing else, in order to keep his hold of Christ... If the stream of our affections were never thus turned, we are, doubtless, going down the stream into the pit.

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

As far as the search for truth is concerned, 98% of our thinking is rubbish. The remaining 2% is garbage. Throw it all out and be empty! Truth cannot be caught by intellect alone - grace is needed.

I find it most true that the greatest temptation outside of hell is to live without temptations; if water stands, it rots; faith is the better for the sharp winter storm in its face and grace withers without adversity. The devil is but God's master fencer to teach us to handle our weapons.

Therefore if mine enemy hunger, let me feed him; if he thirst, let me give him drink. Now in order to do this, (1) We must see good in that, in which other men can see none. (2) We must pass by those injuries that other men would revenge. (3) We must show we have grace, and that we are made to bear what other men are not acquainted with. (4) Many of our graces are kept alive, by those very things that are the death of other men's souls.... The devil, (they say) is good when he is pleased; but Christ and His saints, when displeased.

Christian humility does not consist in denying what there is of good in us; but in an abiding sense of ill-desert, and in the consciousness that what we have of good is due to the grace of God.

By one hour's intimate access to the throne of grace, where the Lord causes His glory to pass before the soul that seeks Him you may acquire more true spiritual knowledge and comfort than a day's or a week's converse with the best of men, or the most.

Our main source of psychic energy in the future will depend on our ability to understand this symbol of evolution in an acceptable context of interpretation. Only in the context of an emergent universe will the human project come to an integral understanding of itself. We must, however, come to experience the universe in its psychic as well as in its physical aspect. We need to experience the sequence of evolutionary transformations as moments of grace, and also as celebration moments in our new experience of the sacred.

The Lord does not show Himself to a proud soul. The proud soul, no matter how many books it reads, will never know God, since by its pride it does not give place for the grace of the Holy Spirit, while God is known only by the humble soul.