Accepted By God Quotes & Sayings

In our own day He has said, "The whole world lieth in sin, and groaneth under darkness and under the bondage of sin." by and large the modern world has not come unto Him, has not accepted the atonement of Jesus Christ, has not received the voice of His prophets, has not made covenants or kept His commandments, has not remembered Him always or claimed the promises of exaltation in the kingdom of heaven. So He has offered us one last covenant, given us one last testament, as part of His final outreach to fallen man. He has offered us one last written witness of His love and His mercy extended for the final time, speaking dispensationally. As one Book of Mormon prophet foresaw it, God is sending laborers into the vineyard one final time, and "then cometh the season and the end." That testament and culminating witness, that "new covenant" offered to the children of men but once more, is the message of the Book of Mormon. — Jeffrey R. Holland

Believers obey Christ as the one whom our obedience is accepted by God. Believers know all their duties are weak, imperfect, and unable to abide in God's presence. Therefore they look to Christ as the one who bears the iniquity of their holy things, who adds incense to their prayers, gathers out all the weeds from their duties and makes them acceptable to God. — John Owen

I'm accepted by God and it has nothing to do with me. — Matt Chandler

We will never fully explain the world by appealing to something outside it that must simply be accepted on faith, be it an unexplained God or an unexplained set of mathematical laws. — Paul Davies

Science and The Word of God There is a constant effort made to explain the work of creation as the result of natural causes; and human reasoning is accepted even by professed Christians, in opposition to plain Scripture facts. There are many who oppose the investigation of the prophecies, especially those of Daniel — Ellen G. White

You were poor So that I might enjoy The wealth of Your creation. You were punished For all my mistakes So I'd be declared not guilty By association. You took all that I am heir to And gave me all that belonged to You. What more could anyone do? When I accepted You I never realized That I'd be accepted, too. It took awhile to see That You bore God's rejection So He'd never turn away from me. I never knew I would receive so much When I accepted You. You met death So that I might know life And eternal restoration. You took on the world So the likeness of God Could be drawn on my being Like a blood relation. The deepest needs my lifetime through Were all met on the cross by You. What more could anyone do? You are the adopted son or daughter of God, who is — Stormie O'martian

The god of Moses would brusquely call for other tribes, including his favorite one, to suffer massacre and plague and even extirpation, but when the grave closed over his victims he was essentially finished with them unless he remembered to curse their succeeding progeny. Not until the advent of the Prince of Peace do we hear of the ghastly idea of further punishing and torturing the dead. First presaged by the rantings of John the Baptist, the son of god is revealed as one who, if his milder words are not accepted straightaway, will condemn the inattentive to everlasting fire. — Christopher Hitchens

But the ultimate reason for our hope is not to be found at all in what we want, wish for and wait for; the ultimate reason is that we are wanted and wished for and waited for. What is it that awaits us? Does anything await us at all, or are we alone? Whenever we base our hope on trust in the divine mystery, we feel deep down in our hearts: there is someone who is waiting for you, who is hoping for you, who believes in you. We are waited for as the prodigal son in the parable is waited for by his father. We are accepted and received, as a mother takes her children into her arms and comforts them. God is our last hope because we are God's
first love. — Jurgen Moltmann

God in his infinite mercy has devised a way by which justice can be satisfied, and yet mercy can be triumphant. Jesus Christ, the only begotten of the Father, took upon himself the form of man, and offered unto Divine Justice that which was accepted as an equivalent for the punishment due to all his people. — Charles Spurgeon

Renewing the mind is a little like refinishing furniture. It is a two-stage process. It involves taking off the old and replacing it with the new. The old is the lies you have learned to tell or were taught by those around you; it is the attitudes and ideas that have become a part of your thinking but do not reflect reality. The new is the truth. To renew your mind is to involve yourself in the process of allowing God to bring to the surface the lies you have mistakenly accepted and replace them with truth. To the degree that you do this, your behavior will be transformed. — Charles Stanley

The observations and experiments of science are so wonderful that the truth that they establish can surely be accepted as another manifestation of God. God shows himself by allowing man to establish truth. — Derek Barton

41. Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day. The Fellowship of the Believers 42. They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. 43Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. 44. All the believers were together and had everything in common. 45They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. 46. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, 47. praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved. — Anonymous

Suggested that Gnosticism expressed a specific religious experience, which was frequently turned into a myth ... It seems clear that at least some of the major Gnostic systems were inspired by vivid emotions and personal experience. And it is now generally accepted that Gnosticism was not a philosophy, or even a Christian heresy, but a religion with its own specific views about God, the world, and man. ("Gnosticism," in Cavendish, Man, Myth, and Magic 1115) And, we might add, Gnosticism is a religion replete with sacraments that liberate the soul. — Stephan A. Hoeller

I profess no belief in God, which by definition is true, especially if we take the accepted definition of God. But to be an atheist is to also have a belief, and have a system, and I don't know that I like that either. — George Carlin

It is one thing, then, to say, "The Bible contains the religion revealed by God ," and quite another to say, "Whatever is contained in the Bible is religion, and was revealed by God." If the latter be accepted, metaphor and allegory become literal statements and the errors and absurdities of bibliolatry follow. — Lionel Trilling

Universally accepted, microevolution has limits for what it can explain. These limits do not reach the center where the controversy lies - the Thesis of Common Ancestry was popularized by Charles Darwin. Darwin believed that the world we see today has come to us through an evolutionary process called natural selection. Through genetic mutation, species adapt and develop because the strongest of a species will survive and pass on their DNA to their successors. Macroevolution is the belief that all development - from the first moments of the universe, the formation of stars and planets, to the eventual emergence of simple bacteria, to the most complex human being is explainable through this naturalistic transformational process. — Jon Morrison

Holiness is not a bid to be noticed or loved or accepted by God. Holiness, rather, is acting out and acting upon the truth that God has noticed, loved and accepted us long before we did anything to warrant that. — Mark Buchanan

Abel's sacrifice was accepted by God because it was made according to God's instructions. Cain, however, tried to approach God in his own way and was rejected by God (Genesis 4:3-5). From that point on, Cain became a symbol of those who try to approach God on their own terms. — Robert Jeffress

The first way to balance stress in my life is to get an internal balance of who I am. And I know who I am by knowing whose I am. I am a child of God. I was put on earth not by accident, but for a purpose. I am deeply loved by God. I am accepted by him. He has a plan for my life, and because he put me here, I am significant. — Rick Warren

The verb 'highly favored' (Luke 1:28) is the same as 'made us accepted' in Ephesians 1:6, referring to all of God's children. All true believers have been 'highly graced' by the Lord. — Charles Spurgeon

If there is one thought with regard to the Church of Christ, which at times comes to me with overwhelming sorrow; if there is one thought in regard to my own life of which I am ashamed; if there is one thought of which I feel that the Church of Christ has not accepted it and not grasped it; if there is one thought which makes me pray to God: "Oh, teach us by Thy grace, new things" - it is the wonderful power that prayer is meant to have in the kingdom. [ ... ] And that is the law of the kingdom - the King upon the throne, the servants upon the footstool. — Andrew Murray

He lay wracked with pain and in moral despair; they told him about themselves, and when he felt even worse, he got an answer from God saying, Who on earth do you think you are? Question me? Let me give you a hint of who I am and what I know. But a peek into Divine knowledge was less important than gaining, at last, the Lord's attention. Which ... was all Job ever wanted. Not proof of His existence
he never questioned that. Nor proof of His power- everyone accepted that. He simply wanted to catch His eye. To be recognized not as worthy or worthless, but to be noticed as a life-form by the One who made and unmade it. — Toni Morrison

Let's say that the God the Christians pray to is real. He actually exists. But this God is the same as the one that the Jews pray to and the same as the one that the Muslims pray to and whatever other religions are praying to a God, He is the one. One God with many faces. Most of these religions contain the myth of the Anti-Christ, a being who will come one day and lead the world astray, lead the world to a place of sin and evil. Who could this Anti-Christ be ... Consider the God with many faces. How many wars have been fought in His Name? How many people have been beaten, jailed, and maimed to prove His points. Think of the Inquisition, the Holocaust, Salem, and the Sudan. All of these tragedies carried out in His name. Why is it accepted that He is a force for good? If we were to look for the Anti-Christ just by his accomplishments, wouldn't we clearly suspect the being who is the cause of so much woe? — S.T. Rogers

The Samaritan woman grasped what He said with fervor that came from an awareness of her real need. The transaction was fascinating. She has come with a buket. He sent her back with a spring of living water. She had come as a reject. He sent her back being accepted by God Himself. She came wounded. He sent her back whole. She came laden with questions. He sent her back as a source for answers. She came living a life of quiet desperation. She ran back overflowing with hope. The disciples missed it all. It was lunchtime for them. — Ravi Zacharias

And God accepted Abel and rejected Cain. I never thought that was a just thing. I never understood it. Do you?" "Maybe we think out of a different background," said Lee. "I remember that this story was written by and for a shepherd people. They were not farmers. Wouldn't the god of shepherds find a fat lamb more valuable than a sheaf of barley? A sacrifice must be the best and most — John Steinbeck

We shouldn't have tried to create new symbols," he said. We should've realized we weren't supposed to introduce uncertainties into accepted belief, that we weren't supposed to stir up curiosity about God. We are daily confronted by the terrifying instability of all things human, yet we permit our religions to grow more rigid and controlled, more conforming and oppressive. What is this shadow across the highway of Divine Command? It is a warning that institutions endure, that symbols endure when their meaning is lost, that there is no summa of all attainable knowledge.
"Admission" of C.E.T. Chairman Toure Bomoko, in "Appendix II: The Religion of Dune — Frank Herbert

In my old easy-going theism, I had regarded Christianity as a sort of fairy tale; and I had neither accepted nor rejected Jesus, since I had never, in fact, encountered him. Now I had. The position was not, as I had been comfortably thinking all these months, merely a question of whether I was to accept the Messiah or not. It was a question of whether I was to accept Him
or reject>. My God! There was a gap behind me too. Perhaps the leap to acceptance was a horrifying gamble-but what of the leap to rejection? There might be no certainty that Christ was God-but, by God, there was no certainty that He was not. — Sheldon Vanauken

I believe that our ability to worship God, to reaffirm our covenants and receive the healing power of the Holy Ghost, to receive the instruction we need in order to make personal progress - all of these things are greatly affected by how secure and safe we feel in our Church environment during the three-hour block of time on Sundays. If we have to spend our energy dealing with feelings that we are not accepted, being concerned about our appearance, or worrying that what we do or say will be judged harshly, in other words that the fellowship of our ward members is anything but "fixed, immovable, and unchangeable", we certainly won't be able to make the kind of progress we could make otherwise. — Virginia H. Pearce

God's slavation is not a purchase to be made, nor wages to be earned, nor a summit to be climbed, nor a task to be accomplished; but it is simply and only a gift to be accepted, and can only be accepted by faith. — Hannah Whitall Smith

For the most part we've dumbed-down New Testament Christianity and accepted our reality as theology rather than biblical theology as our reality. We've reversed the standard, walking by sight and not by faith. We want to be the best of what we see, but frankly what we see is far removed from God's best. — Beth Moore

But little or great, suffering accepted and offered to Our Lord produces peace and serenity. When it is not accepted, the soul is out of tune and its internal rebellion is shown externally in gloom or bad temper. We have to make a conscious decision to take up and carry the little Cross of every day with determination. Suffering can be sent to us by God to purify many things in our past life or to strengthen our virtues and to unite us to the sufferings of Christ our Redeemer, who, in his innocence, suffered the punishment due to our sins. — Francis Fernandez

Jesus accepted the plenary [i.e., complete, extending to all its parts] inspiration of the Bible; when first approached by the devil to turn stones into bread, our Lord replied that man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God (Matt. 4:4 quoting Deut. 8:3). He did not say, "some words" but "every word." If Scripture is breathed out from God (2 Tim. 3:16), then Scripture must be included in what sustains man, not only parts of Scripture but all of it. — Charles Caldwell Ryrie

The world would be a vastly better place if people saw their need for God and accepted Him as Savior and Lord. And then lived by His rule of Love being the most important thing. Can you imagine the world if everyone was motivated by love for others? — Mary Engelbreit

It is at this very point that the Spirit of God helps us so much. In each text, Paul links a willing "servant heart" to the gospel itself. And what is that gospel? It is that you are so lost and flawed, so sinful, that Jesus had to die for you, but you are also so loved and valued that Jesus was glad to die for you. Now you are fully accepted and delighted in by the Father, not because you deserve it but only by free grace. My reluctance to let Kathy serve me was, in the end, a refusal to live my life on the basis of grace. I wanted to earn everything. I wanted no one to give me any favors. — Timothy Keller

When I know that Christ is the one real sacrifice for my sins, that His work on my behalf has been accepted by God, that He is my heavenly Intercessor - then His blood is the antidote to the poison in the voices that echo in my conscience, condemning me for my many failures. Indeed, Christ's shed blood chokes them into silence! — Sinclair B. Ferguson

Live in the wisdom of accepted tenderness. Tenderness awakens within the security of knowing we are thoroughly and sincerely liked by someone ...
Scripture suggests that the essence of the divine nature is compassion and that the heart of God is defined by tenderness. — Brennan Manning

For us the true measure of our wisdom will never be the grade point average we covet, a degree or rank, the right job, the book accepted by a prestigious press. No, we will be wise when we desire with heart, soul, mind, and strength only the things that God also desires for us--and nothing else compels us, or ever catches our wandering eye. (pg. 151) — Ellen F. Davis

the ultimate design of God was to give salvation to the world at large. If the Jews were to have the peculiar glory of giving birth to the Saviour, and of having the Gospel first ministered to them, they were not to engross all the benefits of his mission. The Gentiles, who sat in darkness and the shadow of death, were to behold his light, and to be guided by him into the paths of peace. Wherever there is a fallen child of Adam, there is a person for whom Christ came into the world, and to whom the Gospel, if thankfully accepted, shall become the power of God unto salvation. We are — Anonymous

As believers in Christ, we are part of Him-God the Father decided before the foundation of the world that anyone who loved Christ would be loved and accepted by Him. — Joyce Meyer

I am accepted by God through the work of Jesus Christ - therefore I obey — Timothy Keller

Religion to Be a Part of Home Education - Home religion is fearfully neglected. Men and women show much interest in foreign missions. They give liberally to them and thus seek to satisfy their conscience, thinking that giving to the cause of God will atone for their neglect to set a right example in the home. But the home is their special field, and no excuse is accepted by God for neglecting this field. — Ellen G. White

There is nothing in us or done by us, at any stage of our earthly development, because of which we are acceptable to God. We must always be accepted for Christ's sake, or we cannot ever be accepted at all. This is not true of us only when we believe. It is just as true after we have believed. It will continue to be trust as long as we live. Our need of Christ does not cease with our believing; nor does the nature of our relation to Him or to God through Him ever alter, no matter what our attainments in Christian graces or our achievements in behavior may be. It is always on His "blood and righteousness" alone that we can rest. — Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield

A true and safe leader is likely to be one who has no desire to lead, but is forced into a position of leadership by the inward pressure of the Holy Spirit and the press of the external situation. Such were Moses and David and the Old Testament prophets. I think there was hardly a great leader from Paul to the present day but that was drafted by the Holy Spirit for the task, and commissioned by the Lord of the Church to fill a position he had little heart for. I believe it might be accepted as a fairly reliable rule of thumb that the man who is ambitious to lead is disqualified as a leader. The true leader will have no desire to lord it over God's heritage, but will be humble, gentle, self-sacrificing, and altogether as ready to follow as to lead, when the Spirit makes it clear that a wiser and more gifted man than himself has appeared. — A.W. Tozer

God is always present, always available. At whatever moment in which one turns to him the prayer is received, is heard, is authenticated, for it is God who gives our prayer its value and its character, not our interior dispositions, not our fervor, not our lucidity. The prayer which is pronounced for God and accepted by him becomes, by that very fact, a true prayer. — Jacques Ellul

When we have accepted Jesus Christ, we have become akin to the Father; having become real children of God, we then have the spirit of sonship by which we can come into His presence and make known our wants in a familiar way. — A.C. Dixon

The gospel is saying that, what man cannot do in order to be accepted with God, this God Himself has done for us in the person of Jesus Christ. To be acceptable to God we must present to God a life of perfect and unceasing obedience to his will. The gospel declares that Jesus has done this for us. For God to be righteous he must deal with our sin. This also he has done for us in Jesus. The holy law of God was lived out perfectly for us by Christ, and its penalty was paid perfectly for us by Christ. The living and dying of Christ for us, and this alone is the basis of our acceptance with God — Graeme Goldsworthy

To repress rebellion is to maintain the status quo, a condition which binds the mortal creature in a state of intellectual or physical slavery. But it is impossible to chain man merely by slaving his body; the mind also must be held, and to accomplish this, fear is the accepted weapon. The common man must fear life, fear death, fear God, fear the Devil, and fear most the overlords, the keepers of his destiny. — Manly Hall

Was I the rebel kid? The lost college student who just wanted to be accepted? The legalistic man who battled self-righteousness? Was I a husband or a father or a hip-hop artist? Like a tree trunk, all those people were a part of me. They are a part of me. But more than anything, Lecrae is a child who is unconditionally loved by God. I'm a sinner who has been rescued by God from my brokenness and called to glorify the One who has never left my side. That's who Lecrae is, and that's who I'll always be. — Lecrae Moore

People can waste a large amount of their time trying to be accepted by people. Sometimes, God meant for you not to fit. You never know, you may hold the unique perspective that when voiced or demonstrated will change generations. — Shannon L. Alder

If our stubborn minds would absorb that we are accepted by God because of Jesus Christ, our choices and subsequent behaviors would be profoundly affected. — Beth Moore

Moralism beats this drum: If I improve, then I'll be accepted - by God, by others, even by myself. But the gospel says something radically different. The gospel announces that everyone "in Christ" is already accepted by God because of Jesus's work for them. Therefore, no improvement, good behavior, or performance is necessary in order to experience the deep acceptance we long for and in fact strive for on a daily basis. — Tullian Tchividjian

I have decided on my destiny; accepted by calling as writing for God. — Lailah Gifty Akita

I know that God is putting me through the fire of afflictions. I've accepted the blows that life has dealt me, and sometimes I feel as cold and indifferent as the water that inflicts such pain on the steel. But my one prayer is this: 'Please, God, my Mother, don't give up until I've taken on the shape that you wish for me. Do this by whatever means you think best, for as long as you like but never ever throw me on the scrap heap of souls. — Paulo Coelho

There are two decisions you need to make after you have accepted Jesus into your life. One: You need to make the decision to get over your past. You will not grow unless you make a conscious decision to get over your past. Two: Once you have made that decision, you need to trust God to help you get over your past ...
You didn't just automatically become a Christian, did you? You weren't made a Christian by just going to church. Just like you are not made a car by sitting in a garage all day! You have to make a decision. — Corallie Buchanan

When the term Christian or even Protestant is used, it seldom refers to any particularly evangelical doctrine or way of life. More often it refers to a religion accepted by the large majority, which assures them that God is not so much a Lord who demands obedience as a handyman who is available whenever we need help. — John Howard Yoder

There is, then, a great gulf between the understanding that God accepts us because of our efforts and the understanding that God accepts us because of what Jesus has done. 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

To an age which has unashamedly sold itself to the gods of greed, pride, sex, and self-will, the church mumbles on about God's kindness but says virtually nothing about his judgment ... The fact is that the subject of divine wrath has become taboo in modern society, and Christians by and large have accepted the taboo and conditioned themselves never to raise the matter. — J.I. Packer

God's love sets us free from the need to seek approval. Knowing that we are loved by God, accepted by God, approved by God, and that we are new creations in Christ empowers us to reject self-rejection and embrace a healthy self-love. Being secure in God's love for us, our love for Him, and our love for ourselves, prepares us to fulfill the second greatest commandment: To love our neighbor as ourselves. — Myles Munroe

Accepted - and treasured." "Treasured?" "Our men - our fathers, our brothers, and our husbands protect and care for us." "And that is shown by hiding you under this shawl?" "It's not hiding us, Leah. The shawl, this head covering, is a declaration before man and God. His divine Law proclaims women to be of great worth and orders that they be protected. First through their father, then their husband. If the husband dies, then women are protected through next of kin. And if there are no next of kin, the community. If this is not fulfilled, Leah, it is not the fault of God's Law, it is the fault of those to whom his Law was given. — Janette Oke

A man can have no greater honour than to be accepted by God as an able Minister of the gospel — Obameso Sunkanmi

It doesn't really matter how much of the rules or the dogma we accepted and lived by if we're not really living by the fundamental creed of the Catholic Church, which is service to others and finding God in ourselves and then seeing God in everyone - including our enemies. — Martin Sheen

The strongest language to be found in The God Delusion is tame and measured by comparison. If it sounds intemperate, it is only because of the weird convention, almost universally accepted (see the quotation from Douglas Adams here), that religious faith is uniquely privileged: above and beyond criticism. Insulting a restaurant might seem trivial compared to insulting God. But restaurateurs and chefs really exist and they have feelings to be hurt, whereas blasphemy, as the witty bumper sticker puts it, is a victimless crime. — Richard Dawkins

I'm accepted by God, not on the basis of my personal performance, but on the basis of the infinitely perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ. — Jerry Bridges

It all begins, I maintain, with that powerful and underutilized thing called love. God's love for the individual is displayed by those people who reflect his love in their words and deeds. It ultimately gets understood and accepted by the child in poverty, and through that individual's love for others, the world gets changed. — Wess Stafford

It was only by faith in Christ that they could secure pardon of sin and receive strength to obey God's law. They must cease to rely upon their own efforts for salvation, they must trust wholly in the merits of the promised Saviour, if they would be accepted of God. — Ellen G. White

To be accepted by others is a small achievement.
To accept yourself is a great achievement.
To be accepted by God is the greatest achievement. — Matshona Dhliwayo

The great prophetic work of the modern world is Goethe's Faust, so little appreciated among the Anglo-Saxons. Mephistopheles offers Faust unlimited knowledge and unlimited power in exchange for his soul. Modern man has accepted that bargain ...
I believe in what the Germans term Ehrfurcht: reverence for things one cannot understand. Faust's error was an aspiration to understand, and therefore master, things which, by God or by nature, are set beyond the human compass. He could only achieve this at the cost of making the achievement pointless. Once again, it is exactly what modern man has done. — Robert Aickman

He was standing in the Inner Court, shouting for his enemy. When Guenever saw him, and he saw her, the electric message went between their eyes before they spoke a word. It was as if Elaine and the whole Quest for the Grail had never been. So far as we can make it out, she had accepted her defeat. He must have seen in her eyes that she had given in to him, that she was prepared to leave him to be himself-to love God, and to do whatever he pleased-so long as he was only Lancelot. she was serene and sane again. she had renounced her possessive madness and was joyful to see him living, whatever he did. They were young creatures-the same creatures whose eyes had met with the almost forgotten click of magnets in the smoky Hall of Camelot so long ago. And, in truly yielding, she had won the battle by mistake. — T.H. White

I made one mistake. Who doesn't? But I despised men who accepted their fate. I shaped mine twenty times and had it broken twenty times in my hands. Of course it left me deformed and unserviceable, defective and dangerous to associate with. ... But what in God's name has happened to charity? ... Self-interest guides me like the next man but not invariably; not all the time. I use compassion more than you do; I have loyalties and I keep by them; I serve honesty in a crooked way, but as best I can; and I don't plague my debtors or even make them aware of their debt. ... Why is it so impossible to trust me? — Dorothy Dunnett

Our sins are forgiven and we are accepted as righteous by God because of both the sinless life and sin-bearing death of our Lord Jesus Christ. There is no greater motivation for dealing with sin in our lives than the realization of these two glorious truths of the gospel. — Jerry Bridges

Being, so, by the same principle, it was moved to love him in all his manifestations in the visible world; that, as by his breath the flame of life was kindled in all animal sensible creatures, to say we love God as unseen, and at the same time exercise cruelty toward the least creature moving by his life, or by life derived from him, was a contradiction in itself. I found no narrowness respecting sects and opinions, but believed that sincere, upright-hearted people, in every society, who truly love God, were accepted of him. — Various

This sentiment has very simple characteristics, such as worship of a being supposed superior, fear of the power with which the being is credited, blind submission to its commands, inability to discuss its dogmas, the desire to spread them, and a tendency to consider as enemies all by whom they are not accepted. Whether such a sentiment apply to an invisible God, to a wooden or stone idol, to a hero or to a political conception, provided that it presents the preceding characteristics, its essence always remains religious. — Gustave Le Bon

What I believe is so magnificent, so glorious, that it is beyond finite comprehension. To believe that the universe was created by a purposeful, benign Creator is one thing. To believe that this Creator took on human vesture, accepted death and mortality, was tempted, betrayed, broken, and all for love of us, defies reason. It is so wild that it terrifies some Christians who try to dogmatize their fear by lashing out at other Christians, because tidy Christianity with all answers given is easier than one which reaches out to the wild wonder of God's love, a love we don't even have to earn. — Madeleine L'Engle

firmly believe science is yet in its infancy concerning the cosmology of the earth. There is so much that is unaccounted for by the world's accepted knowledge of to-day, and will ever remain so until the land of "The Smoky God" is known and recognized by our geographers. — Willis George Emerson

The inner life is bruised by a running against the laws of the Kingdom. The bruises are guilt complexes, a sense of inferiority, of missing the mark, of being out of harmony with God and with oneself, a sense of wrongness. Divine forgiveness wipes out all that sense of inner hurt and condemnation. Brings a sense of at-homeness- at home with God and oneself and with life. The universe opens its arms and takes one in. You are accepted- by God, by yourself, and by life. All self-loathing, self-rejection, all inferiorities drop away. You are a child of God; born from above, you walk the earth, a conqueror, afraid of nothing. Healed at the heart, you can say to life: Come on, I'm ready for anything. — E. Stanley Jones

The lusts of this world leads us to fulfill our carnal need to be accepted, but as children of God we are already accepted by a Heavenly Father who is over and above all things. — Monica Johnson

We may not be the kind of people we want to be, we may be a long way from our goals, we may have more failures than achievements, we may not be wealthy or powerful or spiritual, we may not even be happy, but we are nonetheless accepted by God, held in his hands. — Brennan Manning

Religion operates on the principle: I obey; therefore I am accepted (by God). The gospel operates on the principle: I am accepted through the costly grace of God; therefore I obey. Two people operating on these two principles can sit beside each other in church on Sunday trying to do many of the same things
read the Bible, obey the Ten Commandments, be active in church, and pray
but out of two entirely different motivations. Religion moves you to do what you do out of fear, insecurity, and self-righteousness, but the gospel moves you to do what you do more and more out of grateful joy in who God is in himself. Times — John Piper

By faith I accepted Him for what He claimed to be, the Son of the Living God. That simple decision changed my life - and I have seen it change the lives of countless others across the world. — Billy Graham

Oh, my God!" I covered my mouth with my hand as a shocked gasp escaped my lungs. "What if he becomes desperate, Kline? What if he has no other choice but to start prostituting himself for food? You know he's not good at making new friends! There's no way he's been accepted by the good crowd. He's probably already addicted to heroin!" "Georgie, — Max Monroe

Many historians regard him [Offa] as the most powerful Anglo-Saxon king before Alfred the Great. In the 780s he extended his power over most of Southern England. One of the most remarkable extantfrom King Offa's reign is a gold coin that is kept in the British Museum. On one side, it carries the inscription Offa Rex (Offa the King). But, turn it over and you are in for a surprise, for in badly copied Arabic are the words La Illaha Illa Allah ('There is no god but Allah alone'). This coin is a copy of an Abbasid dinarfrom the reign of Al-Mansur, dating to 773, and was most probably used by Anglo-Saxon traders. It would have been known even in Anglo-Saxon England that Islamic gold dinars were the most important coinage in the world at that time and Offa's coin looked enough like the original that it would have been readily accepted abroad. — Jim Al-Khalili

Grace is not against good works! It simply does not bless on the basis of good works. We receive blessing from God based solely on the merits of His Son
blessings freely given to us in Christ and nowhere else. The completeness that is in Christ mean deliverance from trying to 'be good' and 'do right' in order to be accepted by God. — Richard Jordan

Yet the saint obediently accepted the destruction of his plans and blessed God. Because of this kind of detachment from his own will and attachment to God's, Louis became an instrument used by God to accomplish even mightier works. — Michael Gaitley

The decrees of the Sovereign Ordainer, as related to fate and predestination, are of two kinds. Both are to be obeyed and accepted. The one is irrevocable, the other is, as termed by men, impending. To the former all must unreservedly submit, inasmuch as it is fixed and settled. God however, is able to alter or repeal it. As the harm that must result from such a change will be greater than if the decree had remained unaltered, all, therefore, should willingly acquiesce in what God hath willed and confidently abide by the same. — Baha'u'llah

In a way, underdevelopment is a paradox. Many parts of the world that are naturally rich are actually poor and parts that are not so well off in wealth of soil and sun-soil are enjoying the highest standards of living. When the capitalists from the developed parts of the world try to explain this paradox, they often make it sound as though there is something "God-given" about the situation. One bourgeois economist, in a book on development, accepted that the comparative statistics of the world today show a gap that is much larger than it was before. By his own admission, the gap between the developed and underdeveloped countries has increased by at least 15 to 20 times over the last 150 years. However, the bourgeois economist in question does not give a historical explanation, nor does he consider that there is a relationship of exploitation which allowed capitalist parasites to grow fat and impoverished the dependencies. Instead he puts forward a biblical explanation! Pg. 21 — Walter Rodney

On the other hand, inspiration - a criterion for canonization we might expect to play a great role - is not a factor. The Shepherd of Hermas and many writings either claimed inspiration or had it claimed for them, yet were neither universally nor ultimately accepted as canonical. In contrast, no NT writing claims inspiration for itself. The statement in 2 Tim. 3:16 that all Scripture is inspired by God (theopneustos) refers to Torah. Second Peter 3:16 refers to Paul's letters as though they were Scripture but does not say they were 'inspired.' In Revelation, 'inspiration' is certainly implied but not explicitly claimed. No doubt there was an increasingly widespread conviction that the NT writings were divinely inspired, but that notion did not appear to factor in as a criterion for canonization. — Luke Timothy Johnson

The core problem seems to lie in the classical-philosophical equation of power with control, and thus omnipotence with omnicontrol, an equation that forces the problem of evil to be seen as a problem of God's sovereignty. If it is accepted that God is all-loving and all-powerful, and if maximum power is defined as maximum control, then by definition there seems to be no place for evil. If goodness controls all things, all things must me good. — Gregory A. Boyd

You might think that, by now, people would have become accustomed to the idea of natural catastrophes. We live on a planet that is still cooling and which has fissures and faults in its crust; this much is accepted even by those who think that the globe is only six thousand years old, as well as by those who believe that the earth was "designed" to be this way. Even in such a case, it is to be expected that earthquakes will occur and that, if they occur under the seabed, tidal waves will occur also. Yet two sorts of error are still absolutely commonplace. The first of these is the idiotic belief that seismic events are somehow "timed" to express the will of God. Thus, reasoning back from the effect, people will seriously attempt to guess what sin or which profanity led to the verdict of the tectonic plates. The second error, common even among humanists, is to borrow the same fallacy for satirical purposes and to employ it to disprove a benign deity. — Christopher Hitchens

Most people in the world believe that if there is a God, you relate to God by being good. Most religions are based on that principle, though there are a million different variations on it ... But they all have the same logic: If I perform, if I obey, I'm accepted. The gospel of Jesus is not only different from that but diametrically opposed to it: I'm fully accepted in Jesus Christ, and therefore I obey. — Timothy Keller