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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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Philip Yancey
Age: 75
Born: 1949
Born: November 4
Author
Journalist
Publisher
Writer
Atlanta
Georgia
Rights
Spot
Abusers
Adulterer
Stories
Peter
Rebels
Whiner
Human
Heroes
Recruit
Recruits
Humans
Soft
Trophies
Abuser
Come
Spots
Traitor
Saul
Made
Son
Ministry
Whiners
Like
Hero
David
Jeremiah
People
Whose
Rebel
Prodigals

More quotes by Philip Yancey

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We often surround ourselves with the people we most want to live with, thus forming a club or clique, not a community. Anyone can form a club it takes grace, shared vision, and hard work to form a community.
Philip Yancey
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If Jesus had never lived, we would not have been able to invent him.
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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People want to go back to those old days, but it's probably not going to happen.
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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You can know the law by heart without knowing the heart of it
Philip Yancey
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Augustine started from God's grace and got it right, Pelagius started from human effort and got it wrong. Augustine passionately pursued God Pelagius methodically worked to please God.
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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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.
Philip Yancey
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True faith does not so much attempt to manipulate God to do our will as it does to position us to do his will.
Philip Yancey
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All too often the church holds up a mirror reflecting back the society around it, rather than a window revealing a different way.
Philip Yancey
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True healing, of deep connective tissue, takes place in community. Where is God when it hurts? Where God's people are.
Philip Yancey
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C. S. Lewis observed 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.
Philip Yancey
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I say this with care, but I wonder if a fierce, insistent desire for a miracle - even a physical healing - sometimes betrays a lack of faith rather than an abundance of it. When yearning for a miraculous resolution to a problem, do we make our loyalty to God contingent on whether he reveals himself yet again in the seen world?
Philip Yancey
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The proof of spiritual maturity is not how pure you are but awareness of your impurity. That very awareness opens the door to grace.
Philip Yancey
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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.
Philip Yancey
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I would far rather convey grace than explain it.
Philip Yancey
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If God doesn't want something for me, then I shouldn't want it either.
Philip Yancey
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The people of God are not merely to mark time, waiting for God to step in and set right all that is wrong. Rather, they are to model the new heaven and new earth, and by so doing awaken longings for what God will someday bring to pass.
Philip Yancey
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Often, it seems, we're [Christians] perceived more as guilt dispensers than as grace dispensers.
Philip Yancey