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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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Philip Yancey
Age: 75
Born: 1949
Born: November 4
Author
Journalist
Publisher
Writer
Atlanta
Georgia
Imposed
Goodness
Bottom
Grow
Grows
Cannot
Must
Externally
Internally

More quotes by 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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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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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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I have come to know a God of compassion and mercy and love.
Philip Yancey
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Prayer is not a means of removing the unknown and predictable elements in life, but rather a way of including the unknown and unpredictable in the outworking of the grace of God in our lives.
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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Christian faith is... basically about love and being loved and reconciliation. These things are so important, they're foundational and they can transform individuals, families.
Philip Yancey
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Life with God is an individual matter, and general formulas do not easily apply.
Philip Yancey
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God does not seem impressed by size or power or wealth. Faith is what he wants, and the heroes who emerge are heroes of faith, not strength or wealth.
Philip Yancey
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The world is not against you, but the world is a place where bad things happen. It's just true. Airlines crash, people do evil things. A lot of bad things happen and it causes pain.
Philip Yancey
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The Gospels and the rest of the New Testament reflect the life of Jesus, what it means for us & what it means for the world.
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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Prayer enters the pool of God's love and widens outward.
Philip Yancey
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If prayer stands as the place where God and human beings meet, then I must learn about prayer.
Philip Yancey
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The Quakers have a saying: An enemy is one whose story we have not heard. To communicate to post-Christians, I must first listen to their stories for clues to how they view the world and how they view people like me.
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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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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... the approach of admitting our errors, besides being most true to a gospel of grace, is also most effective at expressing who we are. Propaganda turns people off humbly admitting mistakes disarms.
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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We should feel dissonance we are, after all, immortals trapped in mortal surroundings. We lack unity because long ago a gap fissured open between our mortal and immortal parts theologians trace the fault line back to the Fall.
Philip Yancey