William Barclay Quotes - Page 3

There is a time when to avoid trouble is to store up trouble, and when to seek for a lazy and a cowardly peace is to court a still greater danger.

A saint is someone whose life makes it easier to believe in God.

A man may well be condemned, not for doing something, but for doing nothing.

It may well be a sign of the decadence of the Church and the failure of Christianity that gifts have to be coaxed out of people, and that often they will not give at all unless they get something for their money in the way of entertainment or of goods. Giving which is real giving has a certain recklessness in it.

It may well be that the world is denied miracle after miracle and triumph after triumph because we will not bring to Christ what we have and what we are. If, just as we are, we would lay ourselves on the altar of service of Jesus Christ, there is no saying what Christ could do with us and through us.

The Christian man must aim at that complete obedience to God in which life finds its highest happiness, its greatest good, its perfect consummation, its peace.

We may not understand how the spirit works; but the effect of the spirit on the lives of men is there for all to see; and the only unanswerable argument for Christianity is a Christian life. No man can disregard a religion and a faith and a power which is able to make bad men good. . .

So often we have a kind of vague, wistful longing that the promises of Jesus should be true. The only way really to enter into them is to believe them with the clutching intensity of a drowning man.

Self-defense is a part of the law of nature; nor can it be denied the community, even against the king himself.

Jesus was clear that He had come, not to make life easy, but to make men great.

There are certain things which are lost by being kept and saved by being used. Any individual talent is like that. If it is used, it will develop into something still greater. If someone refuses to use it, in the end that talent will be lost. Supremely so, life is like that.

If we are to accept the teaching of Jesus at all, then the only test of the reality of a man's religion is his attitude to his fellow men. The only possible proof that a man loves God is the demonstrated fact that he loves his fellow men.

When we believe that God is Father, we also believe that such a father's hand will never cause his child a needless tear. We may not understand life any better, but we will not resent life any longer.

Religion fails if it cannot speak to men as they are.

When we love anyone with our whole hearts, life begins when we are with that person; it is only in their company that we are really and truly alive.

Jesus’ coming is the final and unanswerable proof that God cares.

Instead of our petulant, fretful, irritable human hastiness we should cultivate in our souls the patience which has learned to wait on God.

It is the simple truth to say that the New Testament books became canonical because no one could stop them doing so.

Every discouraging sermon is a wicked sermon... There could hardly be a more un-Christian way of living than to go about in such a way as to depress and to discourage other people.

But the best definition of it is to say that heaven is that state where we will always be with Jesus, and where nothing will separate us from Him any more

We are chosen for joy. However hard the Christian way, it is both in the traveling and in the goal, the way of joy.

The only victory love can enjoy is the day when its offer of love is answered by the return of love. The only possible final triumph is a universe loved by God and in love with God.

The Christian is called upon to be the partner of God in the work of the conversion of men.

In the way of Christ the reward of work well done is more work to do.

Strict orthodoxy can cost too much if it has to be bought at the price of love. All the orthodoxy in the world will never take the place of love.