#gospel

If you try to add to God's salvation you subtract. If you try to add to God's salvation you subtract. If you try to merit God's salvation you haven't believed at all, even if you try to do a little bit. ↗

— Timothy Keller

#inspirational #keller #salvation #inspirational

Rags-to-riches story? I've heard that gospel before, no thanks. I find no greater inspiration than the riches-to-rags story of redemption, the story of God leaving His golden throne to pursue a wretch like me. ↗

— T. William Watts

#gospel #inspiration #rags #riches #wealth

It (trying to keep the law) grants you the power to judge others and feel superior to them. You believe you are living to a higher standard than those you judge. Enforcing rules, especially in its more subtle expressions like responsibility and expectation, is a vain attempt to create certainly out of uncertainty. And contrary to what you might think, I have a great fondness for uncertainty. Rules cannot bring freedom; they only have the power to accuse. ↗

— Wm. Paul Young

#control #control-freaks #god #law #law-and-gospel

In religion our only hope is to live a life good enough to require God to bless us, so every instance of sin and repentance is therefore traumatic, unnatural and threatening. Only under great duress do religious people admit they have sinned, because their only hope is their moral goodness. In the gospel the knowledge of our acceptance in Christ makes it easier to admit that we are flawed, because we know we won't be cast off if we confess the true depths of our sinfulness. Our hope is in Christ's righteousness, not our own, so it is not as traumatic to admit our weaknesses and lapses. ↗

— Timothy Keller

#god #gospel #religion #repentance #change

If we allow the consideration of heathen morality and heathen religion to absolve us from the duty of preaching the gospel we are really deposing Christ from His throne in our own souls. ↗

— Roland Allen

#allow #christ #consideration #duty #gospel

The children of believing parents, at least their next and immediate seed, even of us Gentiles now under the gospel, are included by God within the covenant of grace. ↗

— Thomas Goodwin

#children #covenant #even #gentiles #god

The gospel of justifying faith means that while Christians are, in themselves still sinful and sinning, yet in Christ, in God’s sight, they are accepted and righteous. So we can say that we are more wicked than we ever dared believe, but more loved and accepted in Christ than we ever dared hope — at the very same time. This creates a radical new dynamic for personal growth. It means that the more you see your own flaws and sins, the more precious, electrifying, and amazing God’s grace appears to you. But on the other hand, the more aware you are of God’s grace and acceptance in Christ, the more able you are to drop your denials and self-defenses and admit the true dimensions and character of your sin. ↗

— Timothy Keller

#faith

Can we stay faithful and persistent in our fidelity even when things seem not to succeed? I suppose Jesus could have chosen a strategy that worked better (evidence-based outcomes) — that didn't end in the Cross — but he couldn't find a strategy more soaked with fidelity that the one he embraced ↗

— Gregory Boyle

#gospel #success #faith

We prepared to go ashore to publish for the first time in New Zealand the glad tidings of the gospel. ↗

— Samuel Marsden

#first #first time #glad #go #gospel

The gospel to me is simply irresistible. ↗

— Blaise Pascal

#irresistible #me #simply