Quotes about Grace

The gospel is not at all what we would come up with on our own.

The One who had the right to destroy the world—and had nearly done so once in Noah's day—chose instead to love the world, at any cost.

Jesus' kingdom calls us to another way, one that depends not on our performance but his own. We do not have to achieve but merely follow.

To gain the hearing of a post-Christian society already skeptical about religion will require careful strategy. We must, in Jesus' words, be wise as serpents and harmless as doves. I fear that our clumsy pronouncements, our name-calling, our stridency — ?in short, our lack of grace — ?has proved so damaging that society will no longer look to us for the guidance it needs.

What greater gift could Christians give to the world than the forming of a culture that upholds grace and forgiveness?

Jesus' prayers for Peter — and perhaps for Judas as well — express God's unfathomable respect for human freedom.

Paul harped on grace because he knew what could happen if we believe we have earned God's love. In the dark times, if perhaps we badly fail God, or if for no good reason we simply feel unloved, we would stand on shaky ground. We would fear that God might stop loving us when he discovers the real truth about us. Paul—"the chief of sinners" he once called himself—knew beyond doubt that God loves people because of who God is, not because of who we are.

Does the Christian emphasis on love, grace, and forgiveness have any relevance outside quarreling families or church encounter groups? In a world where force matters most, a lofty ideal like forgiveness may seem as insubstantial as vapor.

Because of Jesus, I can never say about a person, "She must be suffering because of some sin she committed"; Jesus, who did not sin, also felt pain.

see the confusion of politics and religion as one of the greatest barriers to grace. C. S. Lewis once said that almost all crimes of Christian history have come about when religion is confused with politics. Politics, which always runs by the rules of ungrace, allures us to trade away grace for power, a temptation the church has often been unable to resist.

Like grace, forgiveness has about it the maddening quality of being undeserved, unmerited, unfair.

We Christians are called to use the "weapons of grace," which means treating even our opponents with love and respect.