Philip Yancey Quotes & Sayings

He who cannot forgive another breaks the bridge over which he must pass himself. GEORGE HERBERT — Philip Yancey

But the Lord say he won't put more on us than we can stand. If we can't take it, he'll be right there beside us giving stren'th we didn't know we had. — Philip Yancey

The presence of another caring person doubles the amount of pain a person can endure, — Philip Yancey

In my lifelong study of the Bible I have looked for an overarching theme, a summary statement of what the whole sprawling book is about. I have settled on this: "God gets his family back." From the first book to the last the Bible tells of wayward children and the tortuous lengths to which God will go to bring them home. Indeed, the entire biblical drama ends with a huge family reunion in the book of Revelation. — Philip Yancey

Law merely indicated the sickness; grace brought about the cure. — Philip Yancey

Like all good things, prayer requires some discipline. Yet I believe that life with God should seem more like friendship than duty. Prayer includes moments of ecstasy and also dullness, mindless distraction and acute concentration, flashes of joy and bouts of irritation. In other words, prayer has features in common with all relationships that matter. — Philip Yancey

We should do whatever we can to cut through the scum that has grown on our understanding and rediscover freshness. — Philip Yancey

Love deems this world worth rescuing. — Philip Yancey

Dependence, humility, simplicity, cooperation, and a sense of abandon are qualities greatly prized in the spiritual life, but extremely elusive for people who live in comfort. — Philip Yancey

I do not get to know God and then do His will. I get to know Him by doing His will. — Philip Yancey

When suffering happens, it forces us to confront life in a different way than we normally do. — Philip Yancey

Health and life, I would say, in the full and final sense of those words, are not what we die out of, but what we die into — Philip Yancey

I begin with confession not in order to feel miserable, rather to call to mind a reality I often ignore. When I acknowledge where I stand before a perfect God, it restores the true state of the universe. Confession simply establishes the proper ground rules of creatures relating to their creator. — Philip Yancey

God's gifts are best used when we give them away in serving those who have less. — Philip Yancey

I fear that our clumsy pronouncements, our name-calling, our hysteria about important issues - in short, our lack of grace - may in the end prove so damaging that society no longer looks to us for the guidance it needs. — Philip Yancey

Human beings do not readily admit desperation. When they do, the kingdom of heaven draws near. — Philip Yancey

A cease-fire between human beings depends upon a cease-fire with God. — Philip Yancey

Jesus never met a disease he could not cure, a birth defect he could not reverse, a demon he could not exorcise. But he did meet skeptics he could not convince and sinners he could not convert. Forgiveness of sins requires an act of will on the receiver's part, and some who heard Jesus' strongest words about grace and forgiveness turned away unrepentant. — Philip Yancey

What would it take for church to become known as a place where grace is "on tap"? — Philip Yancey

I think guilt is directional. You should get rid of it, but the way to get rid of it is not to get rid of the guilt feelings. It is to get rid of the wrong that you did that caused the guilt feelings. — Philip Yancey

I believe Christians walk a mental tightrope and are in constant danger of falling in one of two directions. On this subject, errors in thinking can have tragic results. The first error comes when we attribute all suffering to God, seeing it as his punishment for human mistakes; the second error does just the opposite, assuming that life with God will never include suffering. — Philip Yancey

Seventy-five thousand people a day become Christians, two-thirds of whom live in Africa. — Philip Yancey

We need faith and the mind of the Lord Jesus to recognize something of lasting value in even our most ordinary tasks. — Philip Yancey

To see that God does answer, in great things as well as small, the prayers of those who put their trust in Him will strengthen the faith of multitudes. — Philip Yancey

I hear very little from evangelicals about the impact of gun proliferation on violent crime, much less an issue like nuclear disarmament. I hear almost nothing about health care for the poor and protecting widows and orphans, both biblical mandates, and scant mention of the thirteen million children who die worldwide from malnutrition in a year. I hear scornful dismissal of concerns about global warming, an issue viewed seriously by the vast majority of scientists. I hear talk about family values, but when an administration proposed legislation to allow mothers to take unpaid leave after childbirth, conservative religious groups opposed it. — Philip Yancey

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

the average American household is in more danger from chemical germ-killers than from germs. — Philip Yancey

The only effective antidote to the wickedness around us is to live differently from this moment forward. — Philip Yancey

Jesus reserved his hardest words for the hidden sins of hypocrisy, pride, greed and legalism. — Philip Yancey

[Jesus] invoked a different kind of power: love, not coercion. — Philip Yancey

Pleasure represents a great good but also a grave danger. — Philip Yancey

God must love art because most of the Bible is expressed in the form of story or poetry. — Philip Yancey

I do "good works" for my wife not in order to earn credit but to express my love for her. Likewise, God wants me to serve "in the new way of the Spirit": not out of compulsion but out of desire. — Philip Yancey

Pain narrows vision. The most private of sensations, it forces us to think of ourselves and little else. — Philip Yancey

The more Christians focus on tangential issues, the less we will be heard on matters of true moral significance. — Philip Yancey

What I see in the Bible, especially in the book of Psalms, which is a book of gratitude for the created world, is a recognition that all good things on Earth are God's, every good gift is from above. They are good if we recognize where they came from and if we treat them the way the Designer intended them to be treated. — Philip Yancey

instruct the ignorant, counsel the doubtful, admonish sinners, bear wrongs patiently, forgive offences willingly, comfort the afflicted, pray for the living and the dead. — Philip Yancey

Religious faith - for all its problems, despite its maddening tendency to replicate ungrace - lives on because we sense the numinous beauty of a gift undeserved that comes at unexpected moments from Outside. Refusing to believe that our lives of guilt and shame lead to nothing but annihilation, we hope against hope for another place run by different rules. 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

The surgery of life hurts. It helps me, though, to know that the surgeon himself, the Wounded Surgeon, has felt every stab of pain and every sorrow. — Philip Yancey

I could no more pray the Our Father, I could no longer call myself a Christian, if I refuse to forgive. Humanly speaking, I cannot do it, but God will give us his strength! — Philip Yancey

There is but one true Giver in the universe; all else are debtors. — Philip Yancey

I have written about the "toxic church" I grew up in: a legalistic, angry, racist church in the South. I joke about being "in recovery" from that church, learning along the way that much presented as absolute truth was in fact wrong. As a result, when I began writing I saw myself as someone on the edge, more comfortable asking questions than proposing answers. My early book titles (Where Is God When It Hurts, Disappointment with God) betray what I struggled with and how I — Philip Yancey

Imposition stands starkly at odds with the basic character of the Christian faith, which is at its heart about self-giving - God's self-giving and human self-giving - and not about self-imposing. — Philip Yancey

Everywhere a greater joy is preceded by a greater suffering, — Philip Yancey

Much of the misgiving that Muslims feel for the West stems from our strong emphasis on freedom, always a risky enterprise. I've heard some say they would rather rear their children in a closely guarded Islamic society than in the United States, where freedom so often leads to decadence. — Philip Yancey

We tend to think, 'Life should be fair because God is fair.' But God is not life. And if I confuse God with the physical reality of life- by expecting constant good health for example- then I set myself up for crashing disappointment. — Philip Yancey

When I don't know the answer to something, I write a book about it because it gives me a chance to explore it and go to some people who do have the answers. — Philip Yancey

If God doesn't want something for me, then I shouldn't want it either. — Philip Yancey

The essence of Christian faith has come to us in story form, the story of a God who will go to any lengths to get his family back. The Bible tells of flawed people
people just like me
who make shockingly bad choices and yet still find themselves pursued by God. As they receive grace and forgiveness, naturally they want to give it to others, and a thread of hope and transformation weaves its way throughout the Bible's accounts. — Philip Yancey

Grace, like water, flows to the lowest part. — Philip Yancey

My mother believed he would be healed. She counted on God, and the worst thing happened, the impact of that error in theology, in thinking, impacted my life from the very beginning. — Philip Yancey

In no other arena is the church at greater risk of losing its calling than in the public square. — Philip Yancey

Jesus honored the dignity of people, whether he agreed with them or not. He would not found his kingdom on the basis of race or class or other such divisions. — Philip Yancey

At the heart of sin lies a lack of trust that God intends the best for us. — Philip Yancey

The main purpose of prayer is not to make life easier, nor to gain magical powers, but to know God. — Philip Yancey

Some things just have to be believed to be seen. — Philip Yancey

As Dennis Covington has written, "Mystery is not the absence of meaning, but the presence of more meaning than we can comprehend." 7-20 — Philip Yancey

There's a cardinal rule in book publishing that applies equally to brain surgery and auto mechanics: "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." Since people are still buying the original Where Is God When It Hurts? — Philip Yancey

if I care to listen, I hear a loud whisper from the gospel that I did not get what I deserved. I deserved punishment and got forgiveness. I deserved wrath and got love. I deserved debtor's prison and got instead a clean credit history. I deserved stern lectures and crawl-on-your-knees repentance; I got a banquet - Babette's feast - spread for me. — Philip Yancey

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

All of the images of Jesus and of the kingdom are small things: be a light in the darkness. — Philip Yancey

Power can do everything but the most important thing: it cannot control love. — Philip Yancey

In the move The Last Emperor, the young child anointed as the last emperor of China lives a magical life of luxury with a thousand eunuch servants at his command. "What happens when you do wrong?" his brother asks. "When I do wrong, someone else is punished," the boy emperor replies. To demonstrate, he breaks a jar, and one of the servants is beaten. In Christian theology, Jesus reversed that ancient pattern: when the servants erred, the King was punished. Grace is free only because the giver himself has borned the cost. — Philip Yancey

Could it be that Christians, eager to point out how good we are, neglect the basic fact that the gospel sounds like good news only to bad people? — Philip Yancey

God already knows the naked truth about us, of course. Why not acknowledge it? — Philip Yancey

God's visit to earth took place in an animal shelter with no attendants present and nowhere to lay the newborn king but a feed trough ... For just an instant the sky grew luminous with angels, yet who saw the spectacle? Illiterate hirelings who watched the flocks of others, "nobodies" who failed to leave their names ... — Philip Yancey

At Calvary, God accepted his own unbreakable terms of justice. — Philip Yancey

The Bible never belittles human disappointment ... but it does add one key word: temporary. — Philip Yancey

Don't judge Christ by those of us who imperfectly bear his name. — Philip Yancey

I do not know if that theory is correct, but I do know that singling out one behavior as "sin" and emphasizing it over others provides a convenient way of dodging our own need for grace. High-minded moralism and shrill pronouncements of judgment may help fundraising, but they undermine a gospel of grace. — Philip Yancey

For the LORD your God is a merciful God; he will not abandon or destroy you or forget the covenant with your forefathers, which he confirmed to them by oath. — Philip Yancey

As we rely on God, and trust his Spirit to mold us in his image, true hope takes shape within us, "a hope that does not disappoint."We can literally become better persons because of suffering. Pain, however meaningless it may seem at the time, can be transformed. Where is God when it hurts? He is in us - not in the things that hurt - helping to transform bad into good.We can safely say that God can bring good out of evil; we cannot say that God brings about the evil in hopes of producing good. — Philip Yancey

Prayer is - not just bowing your head a few times a day, it pervades all of life. — Philip Yancey

Always, no matter the circumstances, we have the assurance of "Immanuel," which simply means "God with us. — Philip Yancey

The storm laid bare an unmistakable truth. More and more Christians have decided that the only way to reconquer America is through service. The faith no longer travels by the word. It moves by the deed. — Philip Yancey

Grace is heartfelt, tinged with love, a spillover gift of the God who extended undeserved favor toward us. — Philip Yancey

When I write, I try to represent the ordinary person in the pew, which means that, ironically, I'm qualified to write about prayer by being unqualified! — Philip Yancey

It took time for the church to come to terms with the ignominy of the cross. Church fathers forbade its depiction in art until the reign of the Roman emperor Constantine ... Now, though, the symbol is everywhere: artists beat gold into the shape of the Roman execution device, baseball players cross themselves before batting, and cancy confectioners even make chocolate crosses for the faithful to eat during Holy Week. Strange as it may seem, Christianity has become a religion of the cross
the gallows, the electric chair, the gas chamber, in modern terms. — Philip Yancey

I fell in love. It felt exactly like a fall, a head-over-heels tumble into a state of unbearable lightness. The earth tilted on its axis. I did not believe in romantic love at the time, thinking it a human construct, an invention of fourteenth century Italian poets. I was as unprepared for love as I had been for goodness and beauty. Suddenly, my heart seemed swollen, too large for my chest. — Philip Yancey

God is present in the hungry, the homeless, the sick, and the imprisoned, as Jesus claimed in Matthew 25, and we serve God when we serve them. — Philip Yancey

Evil's greatest triumph may be its success in portraying religion as an enemy of pleasure when, in fact, religion accounts for its source: every good and enjoyable thing is the invention of a Creator who lavished gifts on the world. — Philip Yancey

Culture? As Lesslie Newbigin poses the question, Can one who goes the way of the Cross sit in the seat of Pilate when it falls vacant? — Philip Yancey

Repentance, not proper behavior or even holiness, is the doorway to grace. And the opposite of sin is grace, not virtue. — Philip Yancey

The proof of spiritual maturity, Tolstoy contended, is not how "pure" you are but awareness of your impurity. That very awareness opens the door to grace. — Philip Yancey

I would far rather convey grace than explain it. — Philip Yancey

Muslims have great reverence in their prayers but not much intimacy. — Philip Yancey

What we have to go through to commit sin distances us from God - we change in the very act of rebellion - and there is no guarantee we will ever come back. You ask me about forgiveness now, but will you even want it later, especially if it involves repentance? — Philip Yancey

Never do I see Jesus lecturing people on the need to accept blindness or lameness as an expression of God's secret will; rather, he healed them. — Philip Yancey

Maybe God isn't trying to tell us anything specific each time we hurt. Pain and suffering are part and parcel of our planet, and Christians are not exempt. — Philip Yancey

A Franciscan Benediction — Philip Yancey

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

As I look around on Sunday morning at the people populating the pews, I see the risk that God has assumed. For whatever reason, God now reveals himself in the world not through a pillar of smoke and fire, not even through the physical body of his Son in Galilee, but through the mongrel collection that comprises my local church and every other such gathering in God's name. (p. 68, Church: Why Bother?) — Philip Yancey

The Old Testament anticipates [Jesus] all the way through. — Philip Yancey

Jesus used small things to describe his kingdom: a sprinkling of yeast that causes the whole loaf to rise, a pinch of salt that preserves a slab of meat, the smallest seed in the garden that grows into a great bush in which the birds of the air come to nest. Practices that used to be common - human sacrifice, slavery, duels to the death, child labor, exploitation of women, racial apartheid, debtors' prisons, the killing of the elderly and incurably ill - have been banned, in large part because of a gospel stream running through cultures influenced by the Christian faith. Once salted and yeasted, society is difficult to un-salt and un-yeast. Many — Philip Yancey

Jesus declared that we should have one distinguishing mark: not political correctness or moral superiority, but love. — Philip Yancey

Virtually every passage on suffering in the New Testament deflects the emphasis from cause to response. Although we cannot grasp the master plan of the universe, which allows for so much evil and pain (the Why? question), we can nevertheless respond in two important ways. First, we can find meaning in the midst of suffering. Second, we can offer real and practical help to those in need. — Philip Yancey

Christians should not compromise in hating sin, says Lewis. Rather we should hate the sins in others in the same way we hate them in ourselves: being sorry the person has done such things and hoping that somehow, sometime, somewhere, that person will be cured. — Philip Yancey

The Italian novelist Ignazio Silone wrote about a revolutionary hunted by the police. In order to hide him, his comrades dressed him in the garb of a priest and sent him to a remote village in the foothills of the Alps. Word got out, and soon a long line of peasants appeared at his door, full of stories of their sins and broken lives. The "priest" protested and tried to turn them away, to no avail. He had no recourse but to sit and listen to the stories of people starving for grace. — Philip Yancey

John Wesley taught that the gospel of Christ involved more than saving souls. It should have an impact on all of society, and his followers worked to accomplish just that. They were dispensing grace to the broader world, and in the process their spirit helped change a nation, saving it from the revolutionary chaos that had spread across Europe. — Philip Yancey

Politics draws lines between people; in contrast, Jesus' love cuts across those lines and dispenses grace. That does not mean, of course, that Christians should not involve themselves in politics. It simply means that as we do so we must not let the rules of power displace the command to love. — Philip Yancey