Quotes about God

This idea, that we are to live in a way that reflects who God is, fills the pages of the New Testament (see 1 John 4:7—12). God's love—seen in sun and rain—is showered on all humans, both "the evil and the good" or "the righteous and the unrighteous," which stands for the "observant" and "nonobservant.

The Sermon on the Mount is the moral portrait of Jesus' own people. Because this portrait doesn't square with the church, this Sermon turns from instruction to indictment. To those ends—both instruction and indictment—this commentary has been written with the simple goal that God will use this book to lead us to become in real life the portrait Jesus sketched in the Sermon.

Oneness cannot be achieved just between God and self; rather, oneness involves God, self, and others, and the world around us.

God's kingdom happens when human beings are empowered by God's Spirit to do God's kingdom work in the shape of a new community.

It is impossible for us to indwell this Story and not assume that narrative's perspective. Again, that perspective is God's perspective. It is not our perspective; it is God's perspective. It is God's perspective on us, not our perspective on others. Bible readers, especially pastors (and commenters on blogs), inevitably begin to think like God about ourselves and others.

This otherness problem is what the gospel "fixes," and the story of the Bible is the story of God's people struggling with otherness and searching for oneness.

Prayer is not informing God of something unknown but drawing oneself in the divine life of the Trinity and into the very mission of God in this world — this God loves us and invites us into his presence with our petitions.

For Jesus the word kingdom meant "God's dream for this world come true.

If we add all this together, we get something like this: a "blessed" person is someone who, because of a heart for God, is promised and enjoys God's favor regardless of that person's status or countercultural condition.

It is important to know the blessings and to rely on God's promises. Please don't misunderstand my point. But the blessings and promises of God in the Bible emerge from a real life's story that also knows that we live in a broken world and some days are tough. The stories of real lives in the Bible know that we are surrounded by hurting people for whom Psalm 22:1 echoes their normal day.

Knowing God's love, knowing God's goodness, and learning to embrace those attributes of God prompt us to pray.

From nature one can learn the lessons of divine providence, and some of us need to be reminded of this because we can look and not see a world alive with God's presence.