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God had "hallowed" creation by separating the sacred from the profane, the clean from the unclean. Jesus did not cancel out the hallowing principle, rather he changed its source. We ourselves can be agents of God's holiness, for God now dwells within us. In the midst of an unclean world we can stride, as Jesus did, seeking ways to be a source of holiness."
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Philip Yancey |
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I know Christians who yearn for God's older style of a power-worker who topples pharaohs, flattens Jericho's walls, and scorches the priests of Baal. I do not. I believe the kingdom now advances through grace and freedom, God's goal all along. I accept Jesus' assurance that his departure from earth represents progress, by opening a door for the Counselor to enter. We know how counselors work: not by giving orders and imposing changes throug..
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Philip Yancey |
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grace is the only force in the universe powerful enough to break the chains that enslave generations.
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Philip Yancey |
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I leave in God's hands the scales that must balance justice and mercy.
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Philip Yancey |
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Today, if I had to answer the question "Where is God when it hurts?" in a single sentence, I would make that sentence another question: "Where is the church when it hurts?" We form the front line of God's response to the suffering world."
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Philip Yancey |
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In a sense, Job must replay the original test of the garden of Eden, with the bar raised higher. Living in paradise, Adam and Eve faced a best-case scenario for trusting God, who asked so little of them and showered down blessings. In a living hell, Job faces the worst-case scenario: God asks so much, while curses rain down on him.
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Philip Yancey |
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But what if I create a universe that is free, free even of me? What if I veil My Divinity so that the creatures are free to pursue their individual lives without being overwhelmed by My overpowering Presence? Will the creatures love Me? Can I be loved by creatures whom I have not programmed to adore me forever? Can love arise out of freedom? My angels love me unceasingly, but they can see Me at all times. What if I create beings in My own i..
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Philip Yancey |
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A grace-full Christian is one who looks at the world through "grace-tinted lenses."
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Philip Yancey |
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Alcoholics Anonymous discovered long ago that the path toward cure involves more than a quick-fix solution based on increased knowledge. In fact, it involves a change that seems more theological than educational. Somehow the "victim" of addictive behavior must regain an underlying sense of human dignity and choice, a profound reawakening that usually requires much time, attention, and love."
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Philip Yancey |
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It takes great effort, and considerable faith, to keep the Big Picture in mind. In some ways it makes me feel utterly insignificant, in some ways eternally significant
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Philip Yancey |
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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."
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Philip Yancey |
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An institution cannot love; only people can love. As the proverb says, apart from love, giving becomes an insult.
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Philip Yancey |
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never live as though God does not exist." Or, stated positively, "Always live in awareness of God's existence."
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Philip Yancey |
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A curious law of reversal seems to be at work in the Gospels: faith appears where least expected and falters where it should be thriving.
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Philip Yancey |
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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"
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Philip Yancey |
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f441a7a
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What would it look like if a Christian took literally Jesus' sweeping commands and acted on them. What would a Good Samaritan look like today, in urban America?
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Philip Yancey |
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Legalism is a subtle danger because no one thinks of himself as a legalist. My own rules seem necessary; other people's rules seem excessively strict.
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Philip Yancey |
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Can God forgive you? Of course. Read your Bible. David, Peter, Paul--God builds his church on the backs of people who murder, commit adultery, deny him, and persecute his followers. But because of Christ, forgiveness is now our problem, not God's. What we have to go through to commit sin distances us from God--we change in the very act of rebellion--and there is no guarantee we will come back. You ask me about forgiveness now, but will you ..
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Philip Yancey |
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Suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope."7-19 He lists hope at the end, instead of where I would normally expect it, at the beginning, as the fuel that keeps a person going. No, hope emerges from the struggle, a byproduct of faithfulness." --
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Philip Yancey |
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As Dennis Covington has written, "Mystery is not the absence of meaning, but the presence of more meaning than we can comprehend." 7-20"
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Philip Yancey |
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Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope. Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore we must be saved by faith. Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore we must be saved by love.7-22 REINHOLD NIEBUHR
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Philip Yancey |
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Are we concentrating more on the kingdom of this world than on the kingdom that is not of this world?
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Philip Yancey |
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Change came from below, as it usually does, rather than being imposed from above.
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Philip Yancey |
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Democracy requires us to recognize others' rights even when we fundamentally disagree with them. It requires a civility in which I respect a person's ultimate worth and seek to persuade but not to coerce.
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Philip Yancey |
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We understand God best, Dorothy Sayers suggests, by thinking of God as a creative artist. Imagine God as an engineer or watchmaker or immovable force, and you will go astray. God's image shines through us most clearly in the act of creation-comprising the three stages of Idea, Expression, and Recognition-and by reproducing this act we may begin to grasp, by analogy, the Trinity.
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Philip Yancey |
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Fulfillment comes not in pursuit of happiness, but rather in pursuit of service.
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service
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Philip Yancey |
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The first nation to separate Christianity from government produced perhaps the most religious nation on earth.
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Philip Yancey |
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God's gifts are best used when we give them away in serving those who have less.
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serving-others
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Philip Yancey |
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Can we live now "as if" God is loving, gracious, merciful, and all-powerful, even while the blinders of time are obscuring our vision? The"
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Philip Yancey |
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Jimmy Carter taught a Sunday school class throughout his presidency, winning the grudging respect of reporters who had once questioned his religious talk as a political ploy. Even so, he lost many Christians' votes to Ronald Reagan, the only U.S. president to have been divorced and who rarely attended church and gave little to charity, mainly because Reagan supported many of the favorite causes of the religious Right.
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Philip Yancey |
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and said, almost without thinking, "Well, of course, Philip, God was already present in the prison. I just had to make him visible." I have often thought of that line from Joanna, which would make a fine mission statement for all of us seeking to know and follow God. God is already present, in the most unexpected places. We just need to make God visible."
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Philip Yancey |
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G. K. Chesterton once wrote, "All men matter. You matter. I matter. It's the hardest thing in theology to believe."
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Philip Yancey |
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Los seres humanos crecemos al luchar, trabajar y extendernos; en cierto sentido, la naturaleza humana tiene mas necesidad de problemas que de soluciones.
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Philip Yancey |
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d15c19d
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It has taken me years to distill the Gospel out of the subculture in which I first encountered it. Sadly, many of my friends gave up on the effort, never getting to Jesus because the pettiness of the church blocked the way.
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Philip Yancey |
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I have found consolation, for example, in C. S. Lewis's depiction in The Great Divorce of hell as a place that people choose, and continue to choose even when they end up there. As Milton's Satan put it, "Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven."
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Philip Yancey |
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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.
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Philip Yancey |
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According to Gallup polls, more Americans will pray this week than will exercise, drive a car, have sex, or go to work. Nine in ten of us pray regularly, and three out of four claim to pray every day. To
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Philip Yancey |
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You do not have to sit outside in the dark. If, however, you want to look at the stars, you will find that darkness is required. The stars neither require it nor demand it. ANNIE DILLARD
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Philip Yancey |
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8e6980a
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Where is the church when it hurts? If the church is doing its job--binding wounds, comforting the grieving, offering food to the hungry--I don't think people will wonder so much where God is when it hurts. They'll know where God is: in the presence of God's people on earth.
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Philip Yancey |
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Because of Jesus we need never question God's desire for intimacy. Does God really want close contact with us? Jesus gave up Heaven for it.
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Philip Yancey |
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positioned myself. I once described the people I tend to hear from as "borderlanders," those caught in a no-person's-land between faith and disbelief. Some approach the church cautiously, attracted to Jesus but turned off by his followers. Some have fled the church due to bad experiences, yet still yearn for the consolation they felt there. I've spent time in the borderlands myself and want to honor those wandering on the edges, the misfits..
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Philip Yancey |
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The West too may find that prosperity and self-indulgence are not sufficient to satisfy human needs.
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Philip Yancey |
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If it's not setting you free and enlarging life, then it's not Jesus' message. If it doesn't sound like good news, it's not the gospel.
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Philip Yancey |
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bae9b16
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But should not atheists have an equal obligation to explain the origin of pleasure in a world of randomness and meaninglessness?
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christianity
origin-of-pleasure
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Philip Yancey |