Quotes about Grace
the Gospels make clear the connection: God forgives my debts as I forgive my debtors. The reverse is also true: Only by living in the stream of God's grace will I find the strength to respond with grace toward others.
— Philip Yancey
Legalism may "work" in an institution such as a Bible college or the Marine Corps. In a world of ungrace, structured shame has considerable power. But there is a cost, an incalculable cost: ungrace does not work in a relationship with God. I have come to see legalism in its pursuit of false purity as an elaborate scheme of grace avoidance. You can know the law by heart without knowing the heart of it
— Philip Yancey
Jesus gave us these stories about grace in order to call us to step completely outside our tit-for-tat world of ungrace and enter into God's realm of infinite grace.
— Philip Yancey
if I care to listen, I hear a loud whisper from the gospel that I did not get what I deserved.
— Philip Yancey
The only thing harder than forgiveness is the alternative.
— Philip Yancey
We live in an atmosphere choked with the fumes of ungrace. Grace comes from outside, as a gift and not an achievement.
— Philip Yancey
God's grace is not a grandfatherly display of "niceness," for it cost the exorbitant price of Calvary.
— Philip Yancey
Sadly, Jesus' followers tend to take the reverse approach. Some churches gradually lower the ideals, accommodating moral standards to a changing culture. Others raise the bar of grace so that needy people feel unwelcome: "We don't want that kind of person in our church." Either way we fail to communicate the spectacular good news that everyone fails and yet a gracious God offers forgiveness to all.
— Philip Yancey
God shattered the inexorable law of sin and retribution by invading earth, absorbing the worst we had to offer, crucifixion, and then fashioning from that cruel deed the remedy for the human condition. Calvary broke up the logjam between justice and forgiveness. By accepting onto his innocent self all the severe demands of justice, Jesus broke forever the chain of ungrace.
— Philip Yancey
a man who admits no guilt can accept no forgiveness.
— Philip Yancey
What would it mean, I ask myself, if I too came to the place where I saw my primary identity in life as "the one Jesus loves"? How differently would I view myself at the end of a day?
— Philip Yancey
God took a great risk by announcing forgiveness in advance, and the scandal of grace involves a transfer of that risk to us.
— Philip Yancey