Quotes about Grace

God doesn't wait for us to get ourselves polished, shined, proper, and without blemish—God comes to us and meets us and blesses us while we are still in the middle of the mess we created.

I'm convinced being generous is a better way to live. I'm convinced forgiving people and not carrying around bitterness is a better way to live. I'm convinced having compassion is a better way to live. I'm convinced pursuing peace in every situation is a better way to live. I'm convinced listening to the wisdom of others is a better way to live. I'm convinced being honest with people is a better way to live.

This is how you remember God: you bless those who need it the most in the same way that God blessed you when you needed it the most.

This story... blasts to pieces our biases and labels with a declaration that God is on everyone's side, extending grace and compassion to everyone, especially those we have most strongly decided are not on God's side.

We cannot earn what we have always had. What we can do is trust that what God keeps insisting is true about us is actually true.

Grace is when you aren't striving or controlling or trying to change or manipulate or make something happen. Grace is when you find yourself carried along, when all that's left to do is receive. Grace is when you know you're loved, exactly as you are. Grace is an entirely different way of experiencing life.

Forgiveness is unilateral. God isn't waiting for us to get it together, to clean up, shape up, get up - God has already done it.

Arguing about how it literally happened can be an easy way to avoid facing the people in your life you need to forgive. For the people who first heard this story, the story would have had a provocative, unsettling effect. The Assyrians? The Assyrians were like a huge, gaping, open wound for the Israelites. Bless the Assyrians? The story is extremely subversive because it insists that your enemy may be more open to grace and love than you are.

When you come to the end of yourself, you are at that exact moment in the kind of place where you can fully experience the God who is for you.

Gospel is the divine announcement that you are loved and accepted exactly as you are, that everything has been taken care of, that everything you've been striving to earn has been yours the entire time, that you belong, in exactly this condition that you are currently in, nothing additional required or needed.

Jesus says, he "did not come to judge the world, but to save the world" (John 12). We can name Jesus, orient our lives around him, and celebrate

Gospel is the announcement of who God insists you are. You're a child of God, not because of how great you are but because God has all kinds of kids and you're one of them.