Philip Yancey Quotes

Christians get very angry toward other Christians who sin differently than they do.

Grace means there is nothing we can do to make God love us more . . . And grace means there is nothing we can do to make God love us less

I have learned that faith means trusting in advance what will make sense only in reverse.

I have come to know a God who has a soft spot for rebels, who recruits people like the adulterer David, the whiner Jeremiah, the traitor Peter, and the human-rights abuser Saul of Tarsus. I have come to know a God whose Son made prodigals the heroes of his stories and the trophies of his ministry.

When the world asks if there is any hope, we can say absolutely! No one is exempt from tragedy or disappointment- God himself was not exempt. Jesus offered no immunity, no way out of the unfairness, but rather a way through it to the other side.

We're concerned with how things turn out; God seems more concerned with how we turn out.

Imperfection is the prerequisite for grace. Light only gets in through the cracks.

I do not get to know God and then do His will. I get to know Him by doing His will.

When I pray for another person, I am praying for God to open my eyes so that I can see that person as God does, and then enter into the stream of love that God already directs toward that person.

C. S. Lewis observed that almost all crimes of Christian history have come about when religion is confused with politics. Politics, which always runs by the rules of ungrace, allures us to trade away grace for power, a temptation the church has often been unable to resist.

I rejected the church for a time because I found so little grace there. I returned because I found grace nowhere else.

In a nutshell, the Bible from Genesis 3 to Revelation 22 tells the story of a God reckless with desire to get his family back.

When I am tempted to complain about God's lack of presence, I remind myself that God has much more reason to complain about my lack of presence.

I doubt God keeps track of how many arguments we win; God may indeed keep track of how well we love.

We do well to remember that the Bible has far more to say about how to live during the journey than about the ultimate destination.

Grace is a free gift of God, but to receive a gift you must have open hands.

We often surround ourselves with the people we most want to live with, thus forming a club or clique, not a community. Anyone can form a club; it takes grace, shared vision, and hard work to form a community.

The proof of spiritual maturity is not how pure you are but awareness of your impurity. That very awareness opens the door to grace.

Why pray? Evidently, God likes to be asked. God certainly does not need our wisdom or our knowledge, nor even the information contained in our prayers ("your Father knows what you need before you ask him"). But by inviting us into the partnership of creation, God also invites us into relationship. God is love, said the apostle John. God does not merely have love or feel love. God is love and cannot not love. As such, God yearns for relationship with the creatures made in his image.

Prayer is a declaration of dependence upon God.

One who has been touched by grace will no longer look on those who stray as "those evil people" or "those poor people who need our help." Nor must we search for signs of "loveworthiness." Grace teaches us that God loves because of who God is, not because of who we are.

The people of God are not merely to mark time, waiting for God to step in and set right all that is wrong. Rather, they are to model the new heaven and new earth, and by so doing awaken longings for what God will someday bring to pass.

Any discussion of how pain and suffering fit into God's scheme ultimately leads back to the cross.

Doubt always coexists with faith, for in the presence of certainty who would need faith at all?

God loves people because of who God is, not because of who we are.