God Society Of Jesus Quotes & Sayings

Even if they were society's pariahs, they were going to be angels in a marble white heaven and sit on the right hand of Jesus, the Son of God. — Maya Angelou

The fundamentalists, in their struggle against the modernists, had identified the "Social Gospel" and the concern for social justice expressed in Charles Sheldon's seminal work asking "What would Jesus do?" as a hallmark of heresy. Rice and other fundamentalists viewed the "Social Gospel" as tantamount to believing in salvation through "works" rather than faith. Salvation, they averred, was the result of God's unearned grace rather than anything humans might do for themselves. They charged the modernists with imagining salvation might be achieved by working to improve society. — Andrew Himes

The world put's too much emphasis on what a person does in terms of monetary value and social status as opposed to who they are. If I was to ask you if you would be loved for who you are or what you do (eg. your occupation), I would guess that you would say who you are. Things are the wrong way around unless you follow Jesus.

God cares about who we are primarily, not what we do. It is our character and approach to life that he cares about. God wants us to choose him and put him first which ultimately means being a servant to him and others. — Tim Crawshaw

It strikes me often while I am in Iran that were Christian evangelicals to take a tour of Iran today, they might find it the model for an ideal society they seek in America. Replace Allah with God, Mohammad with Jesus, keep the same public and private notions of chastity, sin, salvation, and God's will, and a Christian Republic is born. — Hooman Majd

Because we lack a divine Center our need for security has led us into an insane attachment to things. We really must understand that the lust for affluence in contemporary society is psychotic. It is psychotic because it has completely lost touch with reality. We crave things we neither need nor enjoy. 'We buy things we do not want to impress people we do not like'. Where planned obsolescence leaves off, psychological obsolescence takes over. We are made to feel ashamed to wear clothes or drive cars until they are worn out. The mass media have convinced us that to be out of step with fashion is to be out of step with reality. It is time we awaken to the fact that conformity to a sick society is to be sick. Until we see how unbalanced our culture has become at this point, we will not be able to deal with the mammon spirit within ourselves nor will we desire Christian simplicity. — Richard J. Foster

Jesus revealed a face of God that bothered society profoundly! (Carlos Mesters, p. 122) — Mev Puleo

Paul valued his life, but the doing of God's will was his highest priority.Jehovah's Witnesses worldwide feel the smae. Although, as Jesus foretold, they are 'objects of hatred by all the nations'. — Watch Tower Bible And Tract Society

The more deeply one enters into the experience of the sacred the more one is aware of one's own personal evil and the destructive forces in society. The fact that one is alive to what is possible for humankind sharpens one's sense that we are fallen people. The awareness of sin is the inevitable consequence of having met grace... This grace-judgment dynamic reveals that the center of Christian life is repentance. This does not mean that the distinguishing mark of the Christian is breast-beating. Feeling sorry, acknowledging guilt, and prolonging regret may be components of the human condition, but they are not what Jesus means by repentance. Repentance is the response to grace that overcomes the past and opens out to a new future. Repentance distinguishes Christian life as one of struggle and conversion and pervades it, not with remorse, but with hope. The message of Jesus is not "Repent," but "Repent for the Kingdom of God is near. — John Shea

Christianity's first apostles evangelized, not by trying to sign people up for an apocalyptic evacuation, but by announcing the arrival of a new world order. The apostles understood the kingdom of God as a new arrangement of human society where Jesus is the world's true King. Put simply: because Jesus is Lord, the world is to be redeemed and not left in ruin. — Brian Zahnd

I am now convinced that children should not be subjected to the frightfulness of the Christian religion [ ... ]. If the concept of a father who plots to have his own son put to death is presented to children as beautiful and as worthy of society's admiration, what types of human behavior can be presented to them as reprehensible? — Ruth Hurmence Green

This is our part in spiritual war. We proclaim Christ's truth by praying it, speaking it and (undoubtedly most importantly) by demonstrating it. We are not to accept with sere pious resignation the evil aspects of our world as "coming from a father's hand." Rather, following the example of our Lord and Savior, and going forth with the confidence that he has in principle already defeated his (and our) foes, we are to revolt against the evil aspects of our world as coming from the devil's hand. Our revolt is to be broad
as broad as the evil we seek to confront, and as broad as the work of the cross we seek to proclaim. Wherever there is destruction, hated, apathy, injustice, pain or hopelessness, whether it concerns God's creation, a structural feature of society, or the physical, psychological or spiritual aspect of an individual, we are in word and deed to proclaim to the evil powers that be, "You are defeated." As Jesus did, we proclaim this by demonstrating it. — Gregory A. Boyd

The brutal fact is that in this Christian country not one person in a hundred has the faintest notion what the Church teaches about God or man or society or the person of Jesus Christ. — Dorothy L. Sayers

There are certain roles in our society deemed necessary to advocate social, economic, political and, or ecological preservation. However, never feel the calling to exponent spiritual salvation through Jesus Christ is unworthy in itself, or less then. The Gospel doesn't necessitate a revolution, or rebellion; precept, or edict generated through culture popularity, or insecurities to validate it's power. God's word is strong enough to standard alone! Though it is honorable to link the power of Christ to a particular cause, Jesus is seeking vessel's who are unashamed to share His "unadulterated" Gospel, allowing the purity of His message to heal, restore and provide! — Angela Monique Crudupt

For years, the church has emphasized evangelism, teaching, fellowship, missions, and service to society to the neglect of the very source of its power
worship. — Robert E. Webber

We have become the revisionist society. We rewrite history in favor of viewpoints. We rewrite ethics in favor of "what's right is what makes you feel good after." Political correctness puts Jesus and Buddha on the same low shelf. Gender inclusivity has us tied up in proper pronouns. Since God goes undefined, His expectations have been missing for some time, and sin is what you do that hurts others. — Calvin Miller

We need to shed our unearthly and nonsocial and idealistic and romantic and uber-spiritual visions of kingdom and get back to what Jesus meant. By kingdom, Jesus means: God's Dream Society on earth, spreading out from the land of Israel to encompass the whole world. — Scot McKnight

Despite the fact that Christianity initially was a non-violent radical movement of God's people, many today who claim to be of Christ seem to see war as needed and even God ordained. Such blasphemy is hardly new. Since the days of Constantine (I) when the State and the Church made an unholy alliance, the deception of redemptive warfare has been clung to as if it were a life belt. Yet, ever since the time of Jesus the Messiah and prophets before Him many radicals (often persecuted and outcast) have questioned the morality of war. Now in the 21st Century generations are also rising up against the war machine among both the secular and spiritual sector of society. They recognise that war is for power, economy and pride, not justice or peace. Long may the voices in the wilderness be heard, as they prepare the way for the Lord, who when he comes again will be the undoing of evil and the establisher of a kingdom not of this world that will live in peace forever!!! — David Holdsworth

We are soon approaching a refined holiday, "Merry Mas," where Christ will be taken out of its context. — Anthony Liccione

God's Kingdom is not built on the profit motive. The world's favorite verb is get. The verb of the Christian is give. Self-interest is basic in modern society. Everyone asks, "What's in it for me?" In a world founded on materialism, this is natural and normal. But in God's Kingdom self-interest is not basic - selflessness is. The Founder, Jesus Christ, was rich, and yet He became poor that we "through his poverty might be rich" (2 Corinthians 8:9). — Billy Graham

When we look closely, not only at what Jesus taught but at how he went about disseminating his message, time and again we find that what he was preaching was the gospel of a partnership society. He rejected the dogma that high-ranking men - in Jesus' day, priests, nobles, rich men, and kings - are the favorites of God. He mingled freely with women, thus openly rejecting the male-supremacist norms of his time. And in sharp contrast to the views of later Christian sages, who actually debated whether woman has an immortal soul, Jesus did not preach the ultimate dominator message: that women are spiritually inferior to men. — Riane Eisler

Little children, keep yourselves from idols." And let this be the test or criterion of what an idol is. Whatever worship or fellowship or companionship, whatever System or society, whatever work or way, whatever habit or pursuit or occupation, is of such a sort in itself, or has such influence over you, that you cannot be in it and at the same time be in God, or that you may be in it and yet not be in God, as little children in a loving Father; that to you is idolatry, be the object of your regard what it may. From all such idols keep yourselves. And that you may keep yourselves from them ail, abide evermore in the Son of God, your Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To be in him is your only security, to be always "found in him." For to be in him is to be in the Father, even as he is in the Father. And there can be no idolatry in that. AMEN. — Robert Smith Candlish

Solitude is the furnace of transformation. Without solitude we remain victims of our society and continue to be entangled in the illusions of the false self. Jesus himself entered into this furnace. There he was tempted with the three compulsions of the world: to be relevant ('turn stones into loaves'), to be spectacular ('throw yourself down'), and to be powerful ('I will give you all these kingdoms'). There he affirmed God as the only source of his identity ('You must worship the Lord your God and serve him alone'). Solitude is the place of the great struggle and the great encounter - the struggle against the compulsions of the false self, and the encounter with the loving God who offers himself as the substance of the new self. — Henri J.M. Nouwen

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

How differently would the world view Christians if we focused on our own failings rather than on society's? As I read the New Testament I am struck by how little attention it gives to the faults of the surrounding culture. Jesus and Paul say nothing about violent gladiator games or infanticide, both common practices among the Romans. In a telling passage, the apostle Paul responds fiercely to a report of incest in the Corinthian church. He urges strong action against those involved but quickly clarifies, "not at all meaning the people of this world. . . . What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? God will judge those outside. — Philip Yancey

You are the salt of the earth." Some modern teachers seem to think our Lord said, You are the sugar of the earth, meaning that gentleness and winsomeness without curativeness is the ideal of the Christian. Our Lord's illustration of a Christian is salt, and salt is the most concentrated thing known. Salt preserves wholesomeness and prevents decay. It is a disadvantage to be salt. Think of the action of salt on a wound, and you will realize this. If you get salt into a wound, it hurts, and when God's children are amongst those who are "raw" towards God, their presence hurts. The person who is wrong with God is like an open wound, and when salt gets in it causes annoyance and distress and the person is spiteful and bitter. The disciples of Jesus in the present dispensation preserve society from corruption; the salt causes excessive irritation, which spells persecution for the saint. — Oswald Chambers

Today our (Society of Jesus) prime educational objective must be to form men (and women) for others; men (and women) who will live not for themselves but for God and his Christ - for the God-man who lived and died for all the world; men (and women) who cannot even conceive of love of God which does not include love for the least of their neighbors; men (and women) completely convinced that love of God which does not issue in justice for others is a farce. — Pedro Arrupe

the society in which the people of God will seek to implement this justice is one that remains sinful. It is in fact fortunate that, as Jesus puts it, the Torah is written for people who have stubborn wills. The Torah seeks to pull people toward God's creation intent, but it makes realistic allowance for their stubbornness (e.g., Mt 19:1-12). The empire and every other society remains a mixed entity, which makes the First Testament distinctively useful in this connection. Further, — John E. Goldingay

As an epiphany of God, Jesus discloses that at the center of everything is a reality that is in love with us and wills our well-being, both as individuals and as individuals within society. As an image of God, Jesus challenges the most widespread image of reality in both the ancient and modern world, countering conventional wisdom's understanding of God as one with demands that must be met by the anxious self in search of its own security. In its place is an image of God as the compassionate one who invites people into a relationship which is the source of transformation of human life in both its individual and social aspects. — Marcus J. Borg

The kingdom of God must be a continuing revolution against the norms of the society that fall below the standards that are set for us in the gospel of Jesus Christ. In the field of public life, it must be a continuing revolution against proposals that contradict the fundamental principles as laid down in the Constitution of the United States, which was written by men whom God raised up for this very purpose. If we remember that, we will be in the forefront of every battle against the things that are tearing down our society. — Harold B. Lee

Jesus had an affinity for prisoners. He had been one, after all. He must have often felt anxiety and isolation in jail, but He identified with the prisoners. He made a point of befriending the worst and most hated, because His message was that no one was beyond reach of divine love, despite society's way of stating the opposite. God, what a nut.
Finally we stood outside an inner gate, showed our IDs to the guards, and got our hands stamped with fluorescent ink. "You don't glow, you don't go," said one cheerful, pockmarked guard, which was the best spiritual advice I'd had in a long time. — Anne Lamott

God says it is our duty as Christians to take care of widows and orphans and to help the poor within the Christian society ... And Jesus said, "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me" Matthew 25:40 KJV]. — Billy Graham

Jesus indicated that there will be a permissive society just before He comes back ... the world today is on an immoral binge such as has not been known since the days of Rome. We are in a hedonistic society, and what we are seeing is human nature expressing itself without God. — Billy Graham

I've heard plenty of Christians try to answer the why question by going back to the what. "You have to believe because Jesus is the Son of God." But that's answering the why with more what. Increasingly we live in a time in which you can't avoid the why question. Just giving the what (for example, a vivid gospel presentation) worked in the days when the cultural institutions created an environment in which Christianity just felt true or at least honorable. But in a post-Christendom society, in the marketplace of ideas, you have to explain why this is true, or people will just dismiss it. — Timothy Keller

Joseph Campbell understood critical doctrines of Christianity as myth and maintained that understanding myth was a key to making sense of key doctrines of Christianity in any society, including a highly-technological one. C. S. Lewis understood myth as one means among many used by God to point people to His Son, Jesus Christ. — James W Menzies