Defined By Christ Quotes & Sayings

The Church of Christ, zealous and cautious guardian of the dogmas deposited with it, never changes any phase of them. It does not diminish them or add to them; it neither trims what seems necessary now grafts things superfluous ... but it devotes all its diligence to one aim: To treat tradition faithfully and wisely; to consolidate and to strengthen what already was clear; and to guard what already was confirmed and defined. — St. Vincent

The Resurrection revealed a defined God who resist violence with powerful nonviolence and refuses to allow death to keep its grip on His child. And by raising Jesus from the dead, He raised every story He ever told, every sermon He ever preached, every value He ever stood for, every preference for the poor and the outcast that He espoused. — Megan McKenna

The highway is walled on both sides to indicate that for Christian, the way forward is secure and certain. After experiencing all the uncertainties and spiritual upheaval surrounding his conversion, the path ahead is well-defined and clear. Christian is about to experience deliverance and relief from the burden that has so grieved his soul. Christian fixes his eyes on the cross of Christ, and his burden falls off his back.
2. — John Bunyan

The Cross of Christ is the crux of history. Without the Cross, history cannot be defined or corrected. — Ravi Zacharias

Life is too short to be anything but real with the cast of characters God has placed in the story of your life. Love well, laugh often, and find your life in Christ. Don't hide away or be a follower. Be the wonderful unique person God made you to be, and know that your purpose will always be best when defined by your faith in him — Karen Kingsbury

While contemporary Christians tend to equate morality with sexual ethics, our ancestors defined morality as welcoming the stranger. Unlike almost every other contested idea in early Christianity, including the nature of Christ and the doctrine of the Trinity, the unanimous witness of the ancient fathers and mothers was that hospitality was the primary Christian virtue. — Diana Butler Bass

Having convictions can be defined as being so thoroughly convinced that Christ and His Word are both objectively true and relationally meaningful that you act on your beliefs regardless of the consequences. — Josh McDowell

True Christianity is not defined on the basis of external moralism, religious traditionalism, or partisan politics, but on the basis of a personal love for Jesus Christ and a desire to follow Him no matter what the cost (John 14:15). — John F. MacArthur Jr.

Christ remains the most influential figure in history. Any list of world-transforming individuals would no doubt include Moses, Buddha, and Muhammad. Moses, Buddha, and Muhammad, however occupy totally different places in Judaism, Buddhism, and Islam than Christ occupies in Christianity. Moses, Buddha, and Muhammad never professed to perform miracles; indeed they never claimed to be anything more than men. They viewed themselves simply as God's messengers. Christ is the only person in history who has defined a whole religion around his person. — Dinesh D'Souza

All too frequently in today's world, a Christian is defined on the basis of the horizontal relationship between oneself and "neighbor" rather than the vertical relationship with Deity. In this distorted view of Christianity, our relationship with others becomes more important than loving God, having faith in Christ, and being a devoted disciple of His gospel. If God isn't first, sooner or later He will simply be a nice embellishment to our lives. When we put God first, we are empowered to love each other better, even if our love is not at first understood. The trouble is that too often we ignore things that should be first in our lives and go after secondary things, thereby losing both. — Camille Fronk Olson

In THE INHERITANCE readers will see the dangers associated with counterfeit spiritual experience; but they'll also see the beauty of a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, and what it means to walk in His resurrection power, which is the inheritance of all believers. The resurrection of Jesus Christ is genuine, which means authentic and real. Occult power is counterfeit, which is best defined as 'made in imitation of something else with intent to deceive'. — Brian Williams

In a society where the degradation of man was (and is still) being proclaimed, humans defined in lowly terms, and Deity described as an abstract, impersonal concept, the heavens were opened and God and his Son Jesus Christ appeared to Joseph Smith and taught him the real nature of man. 14. — Gilbert W. Scharffs

The pilgrimage of the Christian life is a pilgrimage of faith. It begins when God creates faith in our hearts. In the first stage of our Christian experience, we embrace Christ and trust Him for our redemption, but the whole pilgrimage of the Christian is rooted and grounded in that
confidence, that trust. The whole process is defined by living in faith — R.C. Sproul

Hawaii was defined by its isolation. Its first settlers, probably Polynesians from islands to the south, are thought to have arrived roughly around the time of Christ. Over the centuries, Hawaiians had little contact with anyone else because almost no one could cross the vast expanse of ocean that surrounded their islands. Thousands of unique plants and animal species evolved, more than almost anywhere else on earth. — Stephen Kinzer

Following Jesus Christ was the sum of their entire existence. At the moment when life itself was on the line, nothing else mattered besides identifying themselves with Him. For these faithful believers, the name "Christian" was much more than a religious designation. It defined everything about them, including how they viewed both themselves and the world around them. The label underscored their love for a crucified Messiah along with their willingness to follow Him no matter the cost. It told of the wholesale transformation God had produced in their hearts, and witnessed to the fact that they had been made completely new in Him. They had died to their old way of life, having been born again into the family of God. Christian was not simply a title, but an entirely new way of thinking - one that had serious implications for how they lived - and ultimately how they died. — Mark Howell

We're not to do everything man tells us to do. We are to obey the Lord Jesus Christ, and our allegiance to the state is limited and defined by our superior allegiance to the Lord Jesus Christ. — Joseph C. Morecraft III

The statement serves as the basis for what is commonly called the Doctrine of Discovery, the teaching that whatever Christians "discover," they can take and use as they wish. It is breathtaking in its theological horror. Muslims (then called Saracens) and all other non-Christians are reduced to "enemies of Christ." Christians, even as they plunder, enslave, and kill, count themselves friends of Christ by contrast. Christian global mission is defined as to "invade, search out, capture, vanquish, and subdue" non-Christians around the world, and to steal "all movable and immovable goods" and to "reduce their persons to perpetual slavery" - and not only them, but their descendants. And notice the stunning use of the word convert: "to convert them to his and their use and profit. — Brian D. McLaren

The offspring of the woman, Jesus Christ, came into the world to save women who have dethroned God, taken His place, defined personhood as tissue, and willed the death of their own child. It can't be reversed, but it can be forgiven. That is why Christ died. — John Piper

We live in a day of abounding vagueness and indistinctness on doctrinal subjects in religion. Now, if ever, it is the duty of all advocates of clear, well-defined, sharply-cut theology, to supply proof that their views are thoroughly borne out by Scripture. — J.C. Ryle

By way of contrast he wanted to stress that the gospel's center is found in Jesus Christ himself, who has been crucified for sin and raised for justification, with the inbuilt implication that Christ himself thus defined and described should be proclaimed as able to save all who come to him. — Sinclair B. Ferguson

Christ taught that the kingdom of God was a community where each member served the others. He defined His ultimate purpose using that term. But in most churches, a few people carry the load. — J. Oswald Sanders

I was recently providing music at a conference where one of the speakers, a noted professor of theology, remarked that we are in the "Experiential Age" of the Christian faith, an age that is defined by a professed personal relationship with Christ. Then she threw up her hands and said: "What does that mean? — Ashley Cleveland

When the Christian faith becomes defined by who we are and what we do and not by who Christ is and what he did for us, we miss the gospel - and we, ironically, become more disobedient. — Tullian Tchividjian

We must never confuse the positive things that America does with the kingdom of God, for the kingdom of God is not centered on being morally, politically, or socially positive *relative* to other versions of the kingdom of the world. Rather, the kingdom of God is centered on being *beautiful*, as defined by Jesus Christ dying on a cross for those who crucified him. — Gregory A. Boyd

Although I claim to be a Christian, I live at a moment in time when the Christian faith is being defined by fundamentalists who have dishonored Christ and are in the process of destroying His church. I refuse to wear the 'Christian' label without redefining it. — Mel White

To bring myself back to a perspective of all that I am in Christ - not according to the world. I need it to remind myself that the world doesn't define me. I am defined by my relationship with Jesus Christ. — Tony Dungy

Christians are soldiers of Christ on active duty. As citizens of heaven, they long for their homeland and readily acknowledge their status as pilgrims and sojourners in this present world. One day in the future, Jesus will return to withdraw His troops from this temporary tour of duty called "life." Until that time, the church serves as His outpost on earth. That colony of heaven cannot be defined geographically, but it is no less real. The Lord reigns in the hearts of men and women who have been redeemed by His Son. — Aubrey Johnson

What is sure is what God has revealed. With that we can start our exploration. In our exploring what is sure is that what the Church has defined is true, what the Church has condemned is false: Christ established a Church that could do us this essential service. For most of us, exploration will be only the effort to understand as much as is thus certain. And it is immensely rewarding. — Frank Sheed

Nets are generally defined as devices for capturing something. In a more narrow but more important sense, we might define a net as anything that entices or prevents us from following the call of Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God. — Joseph B. Wirthlin

Family is the one human institution we have no choice over. We get in simply by being born, and as a result we are involuntarily thrown together with a menagerie of strange and unlike people. Church calls for another step: to voluntarily choose to band together with a strange menagerie because of a common bond in Jesus Christ. I have found that such a community more resembles a family than any other human institution. Henri Nouwen once defined a community as "a place where the person you least want to live with always lives." His definition applies equally to the group that gathers each Thanksgiving and the group that congregates each Sunday morning. (p. 64-65, Church: Why Bother?) — Philip Yancey