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If my activism, however well-motivated, drives out love, then I have misunderstood Jesus’ gospel. I am stuck with law, not the gospel of grace.

Philip Yancey

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Philip Yancey
Age: 75
Born: 1949
Born: November 4
Author
Journalist
Publisher
Writer
Atlanta
Georgia
Motivated
Well
Love
Gospel
Stuck
However
Grace
Activism
Law
Misunderstood
Jesus
Drives
Wells

More quotes by 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 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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Grace does not depend on what we have done for God but rather what God has done for us. Ask people what they must do to get to heaven and most reply, Be good. Jesus' stories contradict that answer. All we must do is cry, Help!
Philip Yancey
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I ask God most often that we would be an unbroken line of Christians until Christ shall return.
Philip Yancey
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Most observers understand the difference between a committed Christian who accepts Jesus as a model for living and a 'cultural Christian' who happens to live in a nation with a Christian heritage. Most Muslims do not.
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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Pain narrows vision. The most private of sensations, it forces us to think of ourselves and little else.
Philip Yancey
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I never see God. I seldom run into visual clues that remind me of God unless I am looking. The act of looking, the pursuit itself, makes possible the encounter. For this reason, Christianity has always insisted that trust and obedience come first, and knowledge follows.
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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Parents learn the uses of power and its limits. They can insist on certain outward behavior but cannot change inner attitudes. They can require obedience but not goodness - and certainly not love.
Philip Yancey
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Be salt, and a little bit of salt keeps the whole society from going rancid.
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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God loves people because of who God is, not because of who we are.
Philip Yancey
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Goodness cannot be imposed externally, from the top down it must grow internally, from the bottom up.
Philip Yancey
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Repentance, not proper behavior or even holiness, is the doorway to grace. And the opposite of sin is grace, not virtue.
Philip Yancey
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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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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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And perhaps, exhibiting the fruit of the Spirit may be our very best defense against a materialist view of mankind here on earth.
Philip Yancey
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As the books of Job, Jeremiah, and Habakkuk clearly show, God has a high threshold of tolerance for what appropriate to say in a prayer. God can handle my unsuppressed rage. I may well find that my vindictive feelings need God's correction - but only by taking those feelings to God will I have the opportunity for correction and healing.
Philip Yancey