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We admit that we will never reach our ideal in this life, a distinctive the church claims that most other human institutions try to deny.

Philip Yancey

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Philip Yancey
Age: 75
Born: 1949
Born: November 4
Author
Journalist
Publisher
Writer
Atlanta
Georgia
Never
Claims
Life
Ideals
Institutions
Reach
Church
Distinctive
Human
Admit
Humans
Ideal
Trying
Deny

More quotes by Philip Yancey

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God operates by different rules of time and space. And God's infinite greatness, which we would expect to diminish us, actually makes possible the very closeness that we desire. A God unbound by our rules of time has the ability to invest in every person on earth. God has, quite literally, all the time in the world for each one of us.
Philip Yancey
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We human beings instinctively regard the seen world as the real world and the unseen world as the unreal world, but the Bible calls for almost the opposite.
Philip Yancey
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The people who related to God best--Abraham, Moses, David, Isaiah, Jeremiah--treated him with startling familiarity. They talked to God as if he were sitting in a chair beside them, as one might talk to a counselor, a boss, a parent, or a lover. They treated him like a person.
Philip Yancey
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Jesus gave us a model for the work of the church at the Last Supper. While his disciples kept proposing more organization - Hey, let's elect officers, establish hierarchy, set standards of professionalism - Jesus quietly picked up a towel and basin of water and began to wash their feet.
Philip Yancey
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Grace is heartfelt, tinged with love, a spillover gift of the God who extended undeserved favor toward us.
Philip Yancey
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The Christian sees the world as a transitional home badly in need of rehab, and we are active agents in that project.
Philip Yancey
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One Harlem preacher likens us to the pink plastic spoons at Baskin Robbins: we give the world a foretaste of what lies ahead, the vision of the Biblical prophets. In a world gone astray we should be activity demonstrating here and now God's will for the planet.
Philip Yancey
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I have found that living with faith in an unseen world requires constant effort.
Philip Yancey
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I have come to know a God who has a soft spot for rebels, who recruits people like the adulterer David, the whiner Jeremiah, the traitor Peter, and the human-rights abuser Saul of Tarsus. I have come to know a God whose Son made prodigals the heroes of his stories and the trophies of his ministry.
Philip Yancey
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The deadening part of Bible study is when you think you've already got it all figured out.
Philip Yancey
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We grow up hungry for love, and in ways so deep as to remain unexpressed we long for our Maker to love us.
Philip Yancey
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The Cross of Christ may have overcome evil, but it did not overcome unfairness. For that, Easter is required.
Philip Yancey
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The church works best not as a power center, rather as a countercultural community - in the world but not of it - that shows others how to live the most fulfilled and meaningful life on earth. In modern society that means rejecting the false gods of independence, success, and pleasure and replacing them with love for God and neighbor.
Philip Yancey
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I begin with confession not in order to feel miserable, rather to call to mind a reality I often ignore. When I acknowledge where I stand before a perfect God, it restores the true state of the universe. Confession simply establishes the proper ground rules of creatures relating to their creator.
Philip Yancey
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In the stories of extravagant grace given to us by Jesus, there are no loopholes disqualifying us from God's love.
Philip Yancey
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The world thirsts for grace. When grace descends, the world falls silent before it.
Philip Yancey
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Often, it seems, we're [Christians] perceived more as guilt dispensers than as grace dispensers.
Philip Yancey
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The world says you gain your life by getting more and more and more and more, but Jesus says, 'No, that leads to death. You get it back by giving it away and when you give it away you get it back.'
Philip Yancey
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The rubber hits the road when we try to show grace to a person most unlike us, even someone morally offensive.
Philip Yancey
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Jesus reserved his hardest words for the hidden sins of hypocrisy, pride, greed and legalism.
Philip Yancey