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Religion operates on the principle 'I obey-therefore I am accepted by God.' But the operating principle of the gospel is 'I am accepted by God through what Christ has done-therefore I obey.'

Timothy Keller

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Timothy Keller
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More quotes by Timothy Keller

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Religion says earn your life. Secular society says create your life. Jesus says, 'My life for your life.
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It is impossible to forgive someone if you feel superior to him or her.
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There is no way to have a real relationship without becoming vulnerable to hurt. Christmas tells us that God became breakable and fragile. God became someone we could hurt. Why? To get us back... No other religion-whethe r secularism, Greco-Roman paganism, Eastern religion, Judaism, or Islam-believes God became breakable or suffered or had a body.
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Occasionally God rips aside the veil, and you begin to see this very fact: All things happen for you. All things. Everything is knit together.
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If we can't love the sinner hate the sin then how can we relate to ourselves? Love who we are in Christ but still hate the sin remaining.
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A genuinely persuasive argument does not merely tell you that you are wrong about everything. It doesn't just beat on you from the outside. It comes inside your belief system, as it were, and affirms something you believe strongly. And then it says - well if you believe this (A) then why in the world can't you see that B is true?
Timothy Keller
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To be a Christian is a standing, a legal position. It means to be a child of God. You are or you are not, there is no try.
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The world is polarizing over religion. It is getting both more religious and less religious at the same time.
Timothy Keller
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The ministry of mercy, then, is the best advertising a church can have. It convinces a community that this church provides people with actions for their problems, not only talk. It shows the community that this church is compassionate.
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Prayer can be simple, but it's not easy. Nothing great is.
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Mercy and forgiveness must be free and unmerited to the wrongdoer. If the wrongdoer has to do something to merit it, then it isn’t mercy, but forgiveness always comes at a cost to the one granting the forgiveness.
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Big cities have a lot of 'younger brothers' who have left traditional parts of the world and their families for a more liberal lifestyle. But cities are filled to the gills with 'elder brothers' too.
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While marriage is many things, it is anything but sentimental. Marriage is glorious but hard. It's a burning joy and strength, and yet it is also blood, sweat, and tears humbling defeats and exhausting victories.
Timothy Keller
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Disordered love always leads to misery and breakdown. The only way to 'reorder' our loves is to love God supremely.
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Love is the effort and desire to make someone else everything they were created to be.
Timothy Keller
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God's grace and forgiveness, while free to the recipient, are always costly for the giver. From the earliest parts of the Bible, it was understood that God could not forgive without sacrifice. No one who is seriously wronged can “just forgive” the perpetrator.
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Christ's resurrection not only gives you hope for the future it gives you hope to handle your scars right now.
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Whatever you base your life on--you have to live up to that. Jesus is the one Lord you can live for who already died for you.
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If there is a God, you owe him far more than a morally decent life.
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If you wait until your motives are pure and unselfish before you do something, you will wait forever.
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