Quotes about Christianity

The gospel gap in many of our lives doesn't stay empty either. If we do not live with a gospel-shaped, Christ-confident, and change-committed Christianity, that hole will get filled with other things. These things may seem plausible and even biblical, but they will be missing the identity-provision-process core that is meant to fill every believer.

As J. C. Ryle said, "A true Christian is one who has not only peace of conscience, but war within." 5 We are united to Christ for a purpose: "For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight" (Eph. 1:4). Our new life in Christ is just that: new life. A glorious fight against the world, the flesh, and the devil is at its heart and one of the clearest signs of our union with him.

The lies that capture us as Christians usually seem to fit well within the borders of our Christianity.

As an American, and especially as a Christian, I am convinced that a love for our own people is not a bad thing, but love doesn't stop at borders. Love is infinitely boundless and all about holy trespassing and offensive friendships.

America was never officially a Christian nation, since neither Jesus Christ nor the Bible are mentioned in the Constitution or the Declaration of Independence. But there's no denying the influence Christianity has had on our country.

I often wonder what would have happened to those in pain if, instead of Christ, there had been a Christian.

Mediaevalism, with its saints and martyrs, its love of self-torture, its wild passion for wounding itself, its gashing with knives, and its whipping with rods—Mediaevalism is real Christianity, and the mediaeval Christ is the real Christ.  When the Renaissance dawned upon the world, and brought with it the new ideals of the beauty of life and the joy of living, men could not understand Christ. 

I'll let John Baillie answer that. He was a distinguished professor who taught theology at the University of Edinburgh. He said: "What makes a man a Christian is neither his intellectual acceptance of certain ideas, nor his conformity to a certain rule, but his possession of a certain Spirit, and his participation in a certain Life.

Christians certainly aren't perfect. There will always be need for improvement. But there is a lot of room between being perfect and being "just forgiven" as that is nowadays understood. You could be much more than forgiven and still not be perfect.

More than any other single thing, in any case, the practical irrelevance of actual obedience to Christ accounts for the weakened effect of Christianity in the world today, with its increasing tendency to emphasize political and social action as the primary way to serve God. It also accounts for the practical irrelevance of Christian faith to individual character development and overall personal sanity and well-being.

To "grow in grace" means to utilize more and more grace to live by, until everything we do is assisted by grace. Then, whatever we do in word or deed will all be done in the name of the Lord Jesus (Colossians 3:17). The greatest saints are not those who need less grace, but those who consume the most grace, who indeed are most in need of grace—those who are saturated by grace in every dimension of their being. Grace to them is like breath.

Love is not God, but God is love. It is who he is, his very identity.