Christian Quotes - Page 270

Red Letter Christians believe in the doctrines of the Apostle's Creed, are convinced that the Scriptures have been inspired by the Holy Spirit, and make having a personal transforming relationship with the resurrected Christ the touchtone of their faith.

While a case can be made for intelligent design, I can't figure out why some Christians are so thrilled about that possibility. First of all, it doesn't prove there's a God. If anything, intelligent design lends support to some form of pantheism that defines God as immanent within nature.

But isn't it time for Christians to admit that we should reject bargains if they are gained by the exploitation of the poorest of the poor in developing countries?

Jesus refers to the poor over and over again. There are 2,000 verses of Scripture that call upon us to respond to the needs of the poor. And yet, I find that when Christians talked about values in this last election that was not on the agenda, that was not a concern. If you were to get the voter guide of the Christian Coalition, that does not rate. They talk more about tax cuts for people who are wealthy than they do about helping poor people who are in desperate straits.

Christianity is merely a system for turning priestesses into handmaidens, queens into concubines, and goddesses into muses.

Through Christ's satisfaction for sin, the very nature of afflictions changed with regard to believers. As death, which was, at first, the wages of sin, is now become a bed of rest (Is. 57:2); so afflictions are not the rod of God's anger, but the gentle medicine of a tender father.

Christ literally walked in our shoes and entered into our affliction. Those who will not help others until they are destitute reveal that Christ's love has not yet turned them into the sympathetic persons the gospel should make them.

Even if 80 percent of the population of a country are Christian believers, they will have almost no cultural influence if the Christians do not live in cultural centers and work in culture-forging fields such as academia, publishing, media, entertainment, and the arts. The assumption that society will improve simply be more Christian believers being present is no longer valid.

I've heard plenty of Christians try to answer the why question by going back to the what. "You have to believe because Jesus is the Son of God." But that's answering the why with more what. Increasingly we live in a time in which you can't avoid the why question. Just giving the what (for example, a vivid gospel presentation) worked in the days when the cultural institutions created an environment in which Christianity just felt true or at least honorable. But in a post-Christendom society, in the marketplace of ideas, you have to explain why this is true, or people will just dismiss it.

Christians don't believe that goodness gets you to heaven. Christians believe it's exhausting to rely on your own goodness to please God.

Prayer-though it is often draining, even an agony-is in the long term the greatest source of power that is possible.

To truly become Christians we must also repent of the reasons we ever did anything right.

If Christianity is really true it will be offending and correcting you somewhere.

The irreligious don't repent at all and the religious only repent of sins. But Christians repent of their wrongfully placed righteousness.

Christians should not be optimists; we know too much about sin. We should also not be pessimists, for we know the living God.

Within this Christian vision for marriage, here's what it means to fall in love. It is to look at another person and get a glimpse of the person God is creating, and to say, "I see who God is making you, and it excites me! I want to be part of that. I want to partner with you and God in the journey you are taking to his throne."

Suffering is actually at the heart of the Christian story.

Christianity is a myth that has been literalised.

The movie industry would never purposely offend homosexuals, native Americans, environmentalists, animal rights activists, or women's groups, but they don't think twice about something that might offend Christians.

Bible prophecy helps us to better understand the future and realize the urgent need to spread the Gospel. It motivates us to personal purity and gives us hope in a hopeless age.

It wasn't until I started reading the history of religion that I understood that the definition of Christianity has shifted in many different directions over time, and the mainstream view today certainly doesn't have any exclusive ownership of what being a Christian means. Realizing that freed me to use the terminology without needing to be tied down to it.

I'm a pretty solid Christian. But even as an altar boy, I was always asking the bigger questions--you know: if God is, in fact, good, what is all this death I see? And if God is gentle, what is all this suffering I see? I've found some of the answers in Eastern religion. It explained my Christianity to me. Good and evil are the same thing. You can't have one without the other. It's the balance, it's the temperance of things.

Some have asked whether we shall know one another in heaven? Surely, our knowledge will not be diminished, but increased. The judgement of Luther and Anselm, and many other divines is, that we shall know one another; yea, the saints of all ages, whose faces we never saw; and, when we shall see the saints in glory without their infirmities of pride end passion, it will be a glorious sight.

God's decree is the very pillar and basis on which the saint's perseverance depends. That decree ties the knot of adoption so fast, that neither sin, death, nor hell, can break it asunder.

He may look on death with joy, who can look on forgiveness with faith.