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 YanceyRead
In the stories of extravagant grace given to us by Jesus, there are no loopholes disqualifying us from God's love.
Interpretation
God's love is unconditional and not based on our flaws or circumstances.
This quote emphasizes the idea that divine love, as depicted in the stories told by Jesus, is all-encompassing and free from any conditions that might exclude someone from receiving it. It suggests that regardless of our imperfections or life situations, we are always considered worthy of God's love, highlighting the depth and nature of divine grace.
In practice
This quote can be used in a sermon to inspire the congregation about God's unwavering love.
The proof of spiritual maturity is not how pure you are but awareness of your impurity. That very awareness opens the door to grace.
If my activism, however well-motivated, drives out love, then I have misunderstood Jesusβ gospel. I am stuck with law, not the gospel of grace.
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.
Prayer is to the skeptic a delusion, a waste of time. To the believer it represents perhaps the most important use of time.
We grow up hungry for love, and in ways so deep as to remain unexpressed we long for our Maker to love us.
I once heard a theologian remark that in the Gospels people approached Jesus with a question 183 times whereas he replied with a direct answer only three times. Instead, he responded with a different question, a story, or some other indirection. Evidently Jesus wants us to work out answers on our own, using the principles that he taught and lived.
The architect must be a prophet... a prophet in the true sense of the term... if he can't see at least ten years ahead don't call him an architect.
Societies in decline have no use for visionaries.
Where I live, nobody who's fourteen is having sex and doing major drugs. And I think if you see it in the movies, you may be influenced by it. I think it's so important to preserve your innocence.
You have no need to travel anywhere - journey within yourself. Enter a mine of rubies and bathe in the splendor of your own light.
Learn all you can, don't be lazy. Nothing's worse than being stupid. Being broke is bad, but being stupid is what's really bad. And what's really really bad is being broke and stupid. Nothing's much worse than that. Unless you're sick. Sick, broke and stupid, thatβs about as far as you can fall unless you're ugly. Surely that would be the ultimate; ugly, sick, broke and stupid.
I hoped my absence made them happy or at least made them forget that they weren't happy and never will be.
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