#gospel

Prayer does change things, all kinds of things. But the most important thing it changes is us. As we engage in this communion with God more deeply and come to know the One with whom we are speaking more intimately, that growing knowledge of God reveals to us all the more brilliantly who we are and our need to change in conformity to Him. Prayer changes us profoundly. ↗

— R.C. Sproul

#gospel #prayer #change

Not being changed by prayer is sort of life standing in the middle of a spring rain without getting wet. It's hard to stand in the center of God's acceptance and love without getting it all over you. ↗

— Steve Brown

#grace #prayer #change

If you know what He has done at infinite cost to himself—He’s put you into a relationship so that you’ll never be rejected by Him—then your motivation when you sin is to go get Him. You want fellowship with Him. When the thing that most assures you is the thing that most convicts you, you’ll be okay because when you’re convicted of sin in a gospel way it drives you toward God. Without the gospel we hate ourselves instead of our sin. Without the gospel we’re motivated through all sorts of awful fear and pride to change and it doesn’t really change our hearts; it just restrains our hearts. ↗

— Timothy Keller

#change

It's only when we understand [Jesus'] presence in the church as being the fulfillment of God's promise in Zephaniah 3:17 to "quiet you with his love" and "rejoice over you with singing" that a crucial aspect of our salvation comes into perspective. Jesus didn't coldly settle accounts for us. He doesn't bark us into improving ourselves. He united us to himself in the glorious communion he has enjoyed for eternity with his heavenly Father. He resides within us to heal the broken places and refresh cauterized hearts. He sings us into a new mode of existence.... When, as Paul does, we imagine Jesus singing nations into submission to his rule, our hearts come joyfully under the sway of a love that is infinite and powerful. ↗

— Reggie M. Kidd

#justification #obedience #righteousness #song #imagination

The sinners to whom Jesus directed His messianic ministry were not those who skipped morning devotions or Sunday church. His ministry was to those whom society considered real sinners. They had done nothing to merit salvation. Yet they opened themselves to the gift that was offered them. On the other hand, the self-righteous placed their trust in the works of the Law and closed their hearts to the message of grace. ↗

— Brennan Manning

#jesus #salvation #gospel

Blessed are the meek, for to them we shall say "attaboy". ↗

— Christopher Moore

#humour #gospel

Sometimes you have to wander around until you find where you really belong. And sometimes it's right where you started. ↗

— Rachel Gibson

#gospel

If the Gospels were truly the pattern of God’s activity, then defeat was only the beginning. ↗

— Corrie Ten Boom

#gospel

Those who have the disease called Jesus will never be cured. ↗

— Brennan Manning

#jesus #gospel

There is a fragrance in the air, a certain passage of a song, an old photograph falling out from the pages of a book, the sound of somebody's voice in the hall that makes your heart leap and fills your eyes with tears. Who can say when or how it will be that something easters up out of the dimness to remind us of a time before we were born and after we will die? ↗

— Frederick Buechner

#dimness #easter #fragrance #photograph #song