Tullian Tchividjian Quotes - Page 2

God loves broken people because broken people are all that there are.

Walking with God doesn't lead to God's favor; God's favor leads to walking with God.

If we're not reaching the same people Jesus reached, then we're not preaching the same message Jesus preached.

The gospel doesn't make bad people good, it makes dead people alive.

Passive righteousness tells us that God does not need our good works. Active righteousness tells us that our neighbor does. The aim and direction of good works are horizontal, not vertical.

Grace always runs downhill, meeting us at the bottom, not the top.

God does everything through people who understand they're nothing. And God does nothing through those who think they're everything.

Because of Jesus the sin we cannot forget God does not remember.

The heart of the Christian faith is Good News, not good advice, good technique, or good behavior.

God is not interested in what you think you should be or feel. He is not interested in the narrative you construct for yourself, or that others construct for you. Rather, He is interested in you, the you who suffers, the you who inflicts suffering on others, the you who hides, the you who has bad days (and good ones). And He meets you where you are.

Sometimes God has to remind you that you're weak so that you can be set free from your "self-sufficiency."

Nothing makes me want to obey more than knowing that God unconditionally loves me and forgives me even when I disobey.

Sanctification consists of the daily realization that in Christ we have died, and in Christ we have been raised.

Because Jesus was strong for me, I am free to be weak; because Jesus won for me, I am free to lose; because Jesus was someone, I am free to be no one; because Jesus was extraordinary, I am free to be ordinary; because Jesus succeeded for me, I am free to fail.

Only the gospel can truly save you. The gospel doesn't make good people good; it makes dead people alive. That's the difference between the gospel of Jesus Christ and every other world religion. All the others exhort their followers to save themselves by being good, by conforming their lives to whatever their worshiped deity is. But the gospel is God's acceptance of us based on what Christ has done, not on what we can do.

The gospel frees you from the pressure of having to fix people: your worth is located in Christ, not in their transformation.

The deepest cry of the human heart is to be loved without condition, no matter what. The gospel of grace announces that you are.

There's nothing like suffering to remind us how not in control we actually are, how little power we ultimately have, and how much we ultimately need God.

The Bible is one long story of God meeting our rebellion with His rescue, our sin with His salvation, our guilt with His grace, our badness with His goodness. The overwhelming focus of the Bible is not the work of the redeemed but the work of the Redeemer. Which means that the Bible is not first a recipe for Christian living but a revelation book of Jesus who is the answer to our un-Christian living.

A biblical understanding of the Christian life is not 'let go and let God,' it's 'trust God and get going.'

Christianity is not "Jesus is our example." Christianity is "Jesus is our substitute."

What I'm most deeply grateful for is that God's love for us, approval of us, and commitment to us does not ride on our resolve but on Jesus' resolve for us. The gospel is the good news announcing Jesus' infallible devotion to us despite our inconsistent devotion to Him. The gospel is not a command to hang on to Jesus; it's a promise that no matter how weak and unsuccessful our faith and efforts may be, God is always holding on to us.

You see, the secret of the gospel is that we become more spiritually mature when we focus less on what we need to do for God and focus more on all that God has already done for us. The irony of the gospel is that we actually perform better as we grow in our understanding that our relationship with God is based on Christ's performance for us, not our performance for him.

People who know they are not good make the best messengers of grace because they are desperately aware of their own need for it.

The biggest lie about grace that Satan wants the church to buy is the idea that it’s dangerous and therefore needs to be kept in check.