“Yet as I read the birth stories about Jesus I cannot help but conclude that though the world may be tilted toward the rich and powerful, God is tilted toward the underdog.”1
“To some, the image of a pale body glimmering on a dark night whispers of defeat. What good is a God who does not control his Son’s suffering? But another sound can be heard: the shout of a God crying out to human beings, ‘I LOVE YOU.’ Love was compressed for all history in that lonely figure on the cross, who said that he could call down angels at any moment on a rescue mission, but chose not to – because of us. At Calvary, God accepted his own unbreakable terms of justice. Any discussion of how pain and suffering fit into God’s scheme ultimately leads back to the cross. ”
“When I pray for another person, I am praying for God to open my eyes so that I can see that person as God does, and then enter into the stream of love that God already directs toward that person.”
“A philosophy may explain difficult things, but has no power to change them. The gospel, the story of Jesus’ life, promises change.”
“Grace is the most perplexing, powerful force in the universe, and, I believe, the only hope for our twisted, violent planet.”
“One more, final question came from the audience on my last night in Newtown, and it was the one I most did not want to hear: “Will God protect my child?” I stayed silent for what seemed like minutes. More than anything I wanted to answer with authority, ‘Yes! Of course God will protect you. Let me read you some promises from the Bible.’ I knew, though, that behind me on the same platform twenty-six candles were flickering in memory of victims, proof that we have no immunity from the effects of a broken planet. My mind raced back to Japan, where I heard from parents who had lost their children to a tsunami in a middle school, and forward to that very morning when I heard from parents who had lost theirs to a shooter in an elementary school. At last I said, ‘No, I’m sorry, I can’t promise that.’ None of us is exempt. We all die, some old, some tragically young. God provides support and solidarity, yes, but not protection—at least not the kind of protection we desperately long for. On this cursed planet, even God suffered the loss of a Son.”
“We feel pain as an outrage; Jesus did too, which is why he performed miracles of healing. In Gethsemane, he did not pray, ‘Thank you for this opportunity to suffer,’ but rather pled desperately for an escape. And yet he was willing to undergo suffering in service of a higher goal. In the end he left the hard questions (‘if there be any other way . . .’) to the will of the Father, and trusted that God could use even the outrage of his death for good.”
“A God wise enough to create me and the world I live in is wise enough to watch out for me.”
“If God doesn’t want something for me, I shouldn’t want it either. Spending time in meditative prayer, getting to know God, helps align my desires with God’s.”
“The solution to sin is not to impose an ever-stricter code of behavior. It is to know God.”
“If we comprehend what Christ has done for us, then surely out of gratitude we will strive to live ‘worthy’ of such great love. We will strive for holiness not to make God love us but because He already does.”
“God wants us to choose to love him freely, even when that choice involves pain, because we are committed to him, not to our own good feelings and rewards. He wants us to cleave to him, as Job did, even when we have every reason to deny him hotly.”
“When I am tempted to complain about God’s lack of presence, I remind myself that God has much more reason to complain about my lack of presence.”
“Why pray? Evidently, God likes to be asked. God certainly does not need our wisdom or our knowledge, nor even the information contained in our prayers (‘your Father knows what you need before you ask him’). But by inviting us into the partnership of creation, God also invites us into relationship. God is love, said the apostle John. God does not merely have love or feel love. God is love and cannot not love. As such, God yearns for relationship with the creatures made in his image.”
“One who has been touched by grace will no longer look on those who stray as ‘those evil people’ or ‘those poor people who need our help.’ Nor must we search for signs of ‘love worthiness.’ Grace teaches us that God loves because of who God is, not because of who we are.”
“We can’t expect the nation to operate by Christian principles… but we can expect this of the church.”
“Dependence, sorrow, repentance, a longing to change—these are the gates to God’s kingdom.”
“There is only one way for any of us to resolve the tension between the high ideals of the gospel and the grim reality of ourselves: to accept that we will never measure up, but that we do not have to. We are judged by the righteousness of the Christ who lives within, not our own.”
1 All of the following quotes are from the websites below:
Inspirational Quotes by Philip Yancey
39 Philip Yancey Quotes | ChristianQuotes.info