Living For Christ Quotes & Sayings

Jesus didn't die to keep us safe. He died to make us dangerous. Faithfulness is not holding the fort. It's storming the gates of hell. The will of God is not an insurance plan. It's a daring plan. The complete surrender of your life to the cause of Christ isn't radical. It's normal. It's time to quit living as if the purpose of life is to arrive safely at death. It's time to go all in and all out for the All in All. Pack your coffin! — Mark Batterson

What does it look like to live life in a manner worthy of the gospel? It looks like dying with Christ to one's self and being raised in Christ to walk in the newness of life with our brothers and sisters. It means living grace-filled lives that grant patience and mercy and gentleness for the spiritual journeys of others and a respect for the differences and idiosyncrasies we all bring to the Lord's table. — Matt Chandler

....let me tell you that the one sin I have come to fear more than any other is certainty. Certainty is the great enemy of unity. Certainty is the deadly enemy of tolerance. Even Christ was not certain at the end........Our faith is a living thing precisely because it walks hand in hand with doubt. If there was only certainty, and if there was no doubt, there would be no mystery, and therefore no need for faith. — Robert Harris

It's like living in a retirement home! Clarence is taking a nap right now, and he eats at five. It's so boring."
"You've only been here for two days."
"And that's been more than enough. The only thing keeping me alive is that he keeps a hefty supply of liquor on hand. But at the rate I'm going, that'll be gone by the weekend. Jesus Christ, I'm climbing the walls." His eyes fell on the cross at my neck. "Oh. Sorry. No offense to Jesus. — Richelle Mead

But sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence. 1 Peter 3:15 — Anonymous

Bring into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ. Take what I cannot give - my heart, body, thoughts, time, abilities, money, health, strength, nights, days, youth, age - and spend them in Thy service, O my crucified Master, Redeemer, God. Oh, let not these be mere words! Whom have I in the heaven but Thee? And there is no one upon earth that I desire in comparison to Thee. My heart is athirst for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God? — Elizabeth Prentiss

When we come to Christ, we're no longer the most important person in the world to us; Christ is. Instead of living only for ourselves, we have a higher goal: to live for Jesus. — Billy Graham

Resurrection. In the crude form in which it is preached to console the weak, it is alien to me. I have always understood Christ's words about the living and the dead in a different sense. Where could you find room for all these hordes of people accumulated over thousands of years? The universe isn't big enough for them; God, the good, and meaningful purpose would be crowded out. They'd be crushed by these throngs greedy merely for the animal life.
But all the time, life, one, immense, identical throughout its innumerable combinations and transformations, fills the universe and is continually reborn. You are anxious about whether you will rise from the dead or not, but you rose from the dead when you were born and you didn't notice it. — Boris Pasternak

Christ was on display early in my childhood. Both my mother and father were living examples of what it meant to live for Christ and have Him be the focal point of decisions, actions, thoughts and words. It was a blessing but not entirely unexpected when very young I also came to the faith. — Aaron Kampman

God, you alone are the judge of humankind, yet you call us to work toward justice. Help us make the judgments necessary for faithful living without becoming judgmental, that we may celebrate the mystery by which your justice is your mercy, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. — Shane Claiborne

A side note, if I may. Yes, we're all responsible for our own lives and our individual walk with Christ. But I think a certain responsibility also falls on those who are called to preach and teach. For hundreds of years far too many men and women who have preached to us and taught us God's Word have taken the most important message in all of history and made it dry as sawdust. They've made the Living Word of Life so parched and tasteless it's a wonder anyone still listens. — Diane Moody

Listen to the present tense gospel in the words of Galatians 2:20: "I have been crucified with Christ [a statement of historical redemptive fact]. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me [a statement of present redemptive reality]. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me [living in light of the gospel right here, right now]. — Paul David Tripp

I have now been an officer in this Church for a very long time. I am an old man who cannot deny the calendar. I have lived long enough and served in enough different capacities to have removed from my mind, if such were necessary, any doubt of the divinity of this, the work of God. We respect those of other churches. We desire their friendship and hope to render meaningful service with them. We know they all do good, but we unabashedly state - and this frequently brings criticism upon us - that this is the true and living Church of our Father in Heaven and His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. — Gordon B. Hinckley

[Peter] testified to [the Jews in Acts 2] that Jesus Christ was the Son of God, the Judge of the living and dead, into whom he did also command them to be baptized for the remission of sins. — Irenaeus Of Lyons

God is our Creator. He is loving, holy, and just. One day he will execute perfect justice against all sin. People are made in the image of God. We are beautiful and amazing creatures with dignity, worth, and value. But through our willful, sinful rebellion against God, we have turned from being his children to his enemies. Still, all people have the capacity to be in a restored loving relationship with the living God. Christ is the Son of God, whose sinless life gave him the ability to become the perfect sacrifice. Through his death on the cross, he ransomed sinful people. Christ's death paid for the sins of all who come to him in faith. Christ's resurrection from the dead is the ultimate vindication of the truth of these claims. The response God requires from us is to acknowledge our sin, repent, and believe in Christ. So we turn from sin, especially the sin of unbelief, and turn to God in faith, with the understanding that we will follow him the rest of our days. — J. Mack Stiles

But the things that Christ taught are still true, of that I am absolutely certain. Meet me at the end of the world when we stand at the abyss ... Honor is still worth living or dying for; no matter how tired or hurt or frightened you are, face forward and seek the light. — Anne Perry

Let us realize that we can only fulfill our calling to bear much fruit by praying much. In Christ are hidden all the treasures that the people around us need. In Him, all God's children are blessed with all spiritual blessings. He is full of grace and truth. But, prayer, much prayer, strong believing prayer, is needed to bring about these blessings. And let us equally remember that we cannot appropriate the promise without first living a life given up for men. Many try to take the promise and then look around for what they can ask. This is not the way, but the very opposite. Get the heart burdened with the need of souls, and the command and power to save them will come to claim the promise. — Andrew Murray

Gandhi, Harlem, Christ, Jews in Europe, a black man living over there on Broadway in the Union Theological Seminary in 1930: you never know the connections between things, people, places, ideas. You never know where you'll find them.most people don't know where to find them or even that there's any point to finding them. Who even looks? Who's got time to look? Whose job is it to look? Ours. Historians. It's part of our job. The more you know, the more you read, the better will be your intuition. You can use your intuition as first order Geiger counter of likelihood, of probability and also for starting new lines of enquiry. But whatever you end up doing for a living, wherever you do it, you'll need intuition and curiosity, add much of it as you can muster. Develop these as an athlete develops muscles and impulses. — Elliot Perlman

Christ can be trusted to keep His Word that He will exchange our drab existence for joyous living, abundant life! And while true love, total acceptance, and complete security are rare in our frantic world, the biblical evidence that our desires in these areas will be fulfilled in Christ is abundant. — Josh McDowell

A dead Christ I must do everything for; a living Christ does everything for me. — Andrew Murray

What is the secret to great living? Entire separation to Christ and devotion to Him. Thus speaks every man and woman whose life has made more than a passing flicker in the spiritual realm. It is the life that has no time for trifling that counts. — Amy Carmichael

By creating the Third Order, though, Francis did accept the distinction between radical commitment and the necessity of living in the world. The point of the Third Order is to accept with humility the task of one's secular profession and its requirements, wherever one happens to be, while directing one's whole life to that deep interior communion with Christ that Francis showed us. "To own goods as if you owned nothing" (cf. 1 Cor 7:29ff.) - to master this inner tension, which is perhaps the more difficult challenge, and, sustained by those pledged to follow Christ radically, truly to live it out ever anew - that is what the third orders are for. And they open up for us what this Beatitude can mean for all. — Pope Benedict XVI

Devotion to the Blessed Sacrament is the queen of all devotions. It is the central devotion of the Church. All others gather round it, and group themselves there as satellites; for others celebrate his mysteries; this is Himself. It is the universal devotion. No one can be without it, in order to be a Christian. How can a man be a Christian who does not worship the living Presence of Christ? — Frederick William Faber

A Christian is one who recognizes Jesus as the Christ, the Son of the living God, as God manifested in the flesh, loving us and dying for our redemption; and who is so affected by a sense of the love of this incarnate God as to be constrained to make the will of Christ the rule of his obedience, and the glory of Christ the great end for which He lives. — Charles Hodge

Jesus Christ! hAccording to his great mercy, ihe has caused us to be born again to a living hope jthrough the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4to kan inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and lunfading, mkept in heaven for you, 5 — Anonymous

The reason we recoil from this is that we have in our day started by getting the whole picture upside down. Starting with the doctrine that every individuality is 'of infinite value,' we then picture God as a kind of employment committee whose business it is to find suitable careers for souls, square holes for square pegs. In fact, however, the value of the individual does not lie in him. He is capable of receiving value. He receives it by union with Christ. There is no question of finding for him a place in the living temple which will do justice to his inherent value and give scope to his natural idiosyncrasy. The place was there first. The man was created for it. He will not be himself till he is there. We shall be true and everlasting and really divine persons only in Heaven, just as we are, even now, coloured bodies only in the light. — C.S. Lewis

Nothing, surely, is so likely to prepare us for that heaven where Christ's personal presence will be all, and that glory where we shall meet Christ face to face, as to realize communion with Christ, as an actual living Person here on earth. There is all the difference in the world between an idea and a person. — J.C. Ryle

We pray Thee, O Christ, to keep us under the spell of immortality. My we never again think and act as if Thou were dead. Let us more and more come to know Thee as a living Lord who hath promised to them that believe: "Because I live, ye shall live also." Help us to remember that we are praying to the Conqueror of Death, that we may no longer be afraid nor dismayed by the world's problems and threats, since Thou hast overcome the world. In Thy strong name, we ask for Thy living presence and Thy victorious power. Amen. — Peter Marshall

We also wish warmly to affirm those sisters and brothers, already in membership with orthodox churches, who - while experiencing same-sex desires and feelings - nevertheless battle with the rest of us, in repentance and faith, for a lifestyle that affirms marriage [between a man and woman] and celibacy as the two given norms for sexual expression. There is room for every kind of background and past sinful experience among members of Christ's flock as we learn the way of repentance and renewed lives, for "such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God" (1 Corinthians 6:11).
This is true inclusivity. — Richard Bewes

Our conduct is an advertisement for or against Jesus Christ. That's why unity in the body of Christ is so important. — Elizabeth George

12. Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from e the living God. 13But f exhort one another every day, as long as it is called "today," that none of you may be hardened by g the deceitfulness of sin. 14. For we have come to share in Christ, h if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end. 15. As it is said, b "Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion. — Anonymous

Except the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ Jesus make a man sick of his opinions, he may hold them to doomsday for me; for no opinion, I repeat is Christianity, and no preaching of any plan of salvation is the preaching of the glorious gospel of the living God. — George MacDonald

The truth is that each of us fall short of loving unconditionally. We don't love others the way God loves us. Yet Jesus extended perfect love by living and dying for all of our sins. In spite of our failures, weaknesses, and selfishness, He sacrificed His own life so we could have eternal life. — Dana Arcuri

Radical obedience to Christ is not easy ... It's not comfort, not health, not wealth, and not prosperity in this world. Radical obedience to Christ risks losing all these things. But in the end, such risk finds its reward in Christ. And he is more than enough for us. — David Platt

The Bible became a jewel in the hands of the Reformers not because it was a "handbook for happy living" or a "primer of metaphysics about God," but because in it the Christian possessed the "the swaddling clothes in which Christ lies."85 — Matthew Barrett

This is what it means, for me, to be called. This is what it means to follow the living Lord...It meant letting go of everything in my life that I thought might give me security, and coming to the realization that such trust ought never be placed in anything but the living Son of God.

Being called by God, I learned...means being called to surrender - not just surrendering once, and then returning to our former way of life, but an entire life of surrender...

Christian calling means being called by the living, resurrected Christ to follow Him. And it is in following Christ, through continual self-surrender, that we begin to realize who we are, and what it means to walk with God day by day. — Ryan J. Pemberton

I did not even know who Christ was, that He was God. I had not the faintest idea that there existed such a thing as the Blessed Sacrament. I thought churches were simply places where people got together and sang a few hymns. And yet now I tell you, you who are now what I once was, unbelievers, it is that Sacrament, and that alone, the Christ living in our midst, and sacrificed by us, and for us and with us, in the clean and perpetual Sacrifice, it is He alone Who holds our world together, and keeps us all from being poured headlong and immediately into the pit of our eternal destruction. And I tell you there is a power that goes forth from that Sacrament, a power of light and truth, even into the hearts of those who have heard nothing of Him and seem to be incapable of belief. — Thomas Merton

Some people have a warped idea of living the Christian life. Seeing talented, successful Christians, they attempt to imitate them. For them, the grass on the other side of the fence is always greener. But when they discover that their own gifts are different or their contributions are more modest (or even invisible), they collapse in discouragement and overlook genuine opportunities that are open to them. They have forgotten that they are here to serve Christ, not themselves. — Billy Graham

If there is no deep yearning for a life that is well pleasing to Him, if there is no
stimulating desire to know Him and His Word, church membership is just like
a young man falling in love with a furnished apartment and marrying an electric
stove, a refrigerator, a vacuum cleaner, a garbage disposal, and a wet mop!
That is just about all it amounts to. Let's stop playing church today and start
loving Christ and living for Him! — J. Vernon McGee

But whatever you do, find the God-centered, Christ-exalting, Bible-saturated passion of your life, and find your way to say it and live for it and die for it. And you will make a difference that lasts. You will not waste your life. — John Piper

Is the distinction between living for Christ and dying for Him so great? Is not the second the logical conclusion of the first? — Elisabeth Elliot

The only excuse for even a single ounce of victory in my life is the supernatural delivering power of Jesus Christ. I was in the clutches of a real, live devil, living in a perpetual cycle of defeat. Only a miracle-working God could have set me free, then dared to use me. You may remark, "That's not a real miracle!" but Scripture suggests that no greater work exists. The most profound miracles of God will always be those within the hearts and souls of people. Moving a mountain is nothing compared to changing a selfish, destructive human heart into something He can use. — Beth Moore

We have trials to face because our Heavenly Father loves us. His purpose is to help us qualify for the blessing of living with Him and His Son, Jesus Christ, forever in glory and in families. — Henry B. Eyring

The Christian mystic therefore is one for whom God and Christ are not merely objects of belief, but living facts experimentally known first hand; and mysticism for him becomes, in so far as he responds to its demands, a life based on this conscious communion with God — Carl McColman

Material objectives consume too much of our attention. The struggle for what we need or for more than we need exhausts our time and energy. We pursue pleasure or entertainment, or become very involved in associations or civic matters. Of course, people need recreation, need to be achieving, need to contribute, but if these come at the cost of friendship with Christ, the price is much too high. The substitutions we fashion to take the place of God in our lives truly hold no water. To the measure we thus refuse the "living water," we miss the joy we could have. — Marion D. Hanks

Any objection to the carryings on of our present golden-calf Christianity is met with the triumphant reply, "But we are winning them!" And winning them to what? To true discipleship? To cross-carrying? To self-denial? To separation from the world? To crucifixion of the flesh? To holy living? To nobility of character? To a despising of the world's treasures? To hard self-discipline? To love for God? To total committal to Christ? Of course the answer to all these questions is no. — A.W. Tozer

It is important that parents pour out their love self-sacrificially for their children, which includes practicing what they preach, i.e. living in the love of Christ and seeking to emulate His example in their daily lives. — Joseph Pearce

Because I am not yet living up to what Jesus expects me to be in those red letters in the Bible, I always define myself as somebody who is saved by God's grace and is on his way to becoming a Christian. ( ... ) Being saved is trusting in what Christ did for us, but being Christian is dependent on the way we respond to what he did for us. — Tony Campolo

Christ managed to boil down an awful lot of commandments to a few very simple rules for living. It's when you go backwards through the 'begats' and the Garden of Eden, and you start thinking, 'Hang on, that's a big punishment for eating one lousy apple ... There's a human-rights issue.' — Terry Pratchett

Husbands and wives, recognize that in marriage you have become one flesh. If you live for your private pleasure at the expense of your spouse, you are living against yourself and destroying your joy. But if you devote yourself with all your heart to the holy joy of your spouse, you will also be living for your joy and making a marriage after the image of Christ and His church. — John Piper

The Christian life is the life of Jesus in me by the Holy Spirit. Christianity is not me striving to live like Jesus as a "thank-you" for saving me. Christianity is Christ taking up residence in me by the Holy Spirit and living His resurrection life through me. — James MacDonald

Being happy in God and living righteously tastes far better for far longer than sin does. When my hunger and thirst for joy is satisfied by Christ, sin becomes unattractive. I say no to immorality not because I hate pleasure but because I want the enduring pleasure found in Christ. — Randy Alcorn

Americans are finally coming to a point where they're accepting of religious criticism, is because George Bush is the first president who really put religion so front-and-center. He's the most Christ-y president we've ever had - and he is, not uncoincidentally, the biggest disaster we've ever had. I think even people who are religious don't like it shoved down their throat. I think people kind of get it on a certain level, that this is an antiscience administration, and we're living in a time where we can't afford to be antiscience - for environmental reasons, for educational reasons. — Bill Maher

CHAPTER THREE SIN USHERS MAN TO DEATH But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. -Romans 6:22-23 As Lust got older, Grandpa Earth would yield his treasures to her; everything precious that he stored, he would render to his firstborn grandchild. Lust became very wealthy incomparable to every other living being including her dad. She employed many of her siblings, and advised them of how to make great success as her employees. Despite her favour with her granddad, she did not receive the same preferential treatment from Grandma Sun. — Stephen Domena

So we see, brethren and sisters that the words of Christ can be a personal Liahona for each of us, showing us the way. Let us now be slothful because of the easiness of the way. Let us in faith take the words of Christ into our minds and into our hearts as they are recorded in sacred scripture and as they are uttered by living prophets, seers, and revelators. Let us with faith and diligence feast upon the words of Christ, for the words of Christ will be our spiritual Liahona telling us all things what we should do. — W. Rolfe Kerr

For 2,000 years, the Church has been the cradle in which Mary places Jesus and entrusts Him to the adoration and contemplation of all peoples. May the humility of the Bride cause to shine forth still more brightly the glory and power of the Eucharist, which she celebrates and treasures in her heart. In the sign of the consecrated Bread and Wine, Christ Jesus risen and glorified, the light of the nations, reveals the enduring reality of His Incarnation. He remains living and real in our midst in order to nourish the faithful with His Body and Blood. — Pope John Paul II

There is indescribable joy, deep satisfaction and an eternal purpose in dying to ourselves and living for Christ. — David Platt

It is one thing for the living water to descend from Christ into the heart, and another thing how-when it has descended-it moves the heart to worship. All power of worship in the soul, is the result of the waters flowing into it, and their flowing back again to God. — George Wigram

I believe in my heart that faith in Jesus Christ can and will lead us beyond an exclusive concern for the well-being of other human beings to the broader concern for the well-being of the birds in our backyards, the fish in our rivers, and every living creature on the face of the earth. — John Wesley

In the light of His example we can see, in the faith of His power we too can prove, that suffering is to God's child the token of the Father's love, and the channel of His richest blessing. [ ... ]
Suffering is the way of the rent veil, the new and living way Jesus walked in and opened for us. — Andrew Murray

You don't understand that one can be an atheist, one can not know whether God exists or why, and at the same time know that man does not live in nature but in history, and that in present-day understanding it was founded by Christ, that its foundation is the Gospel. And what is history? It is the setting in motion of centuries of work at the gradual unriddling of death and its eventual overcoming. Hence the discovery of mathematical infinity and electromagnetic waves, hence the writing of symphonies. It is impossible to move on in that direction without a certain uplift. These discoveries call for spiritual equipment. The grounds for it are contained in the Gospel. They are these. First, love of one's neighbor, that highest form of living energy, overflowing man's heart and demanding to be let out and spent, and then the main component parts of modern man, without which he is unthinkable
namely, the idea of the free person and the idea of life as sacrifice. — Boris Pasternak

If Jesus Christ was a substitute for sin as clearly seen on Calvary
Then why is sin now a substitute for our daily living, moving and being instead — Louis

Christ is the bread of life (John 6:35). Whatever we take into us as food will be assimilated into our being. This is very meaningful and significant. God is life to us in the form of food. We need to receive Him by eating Him. Once God enters into us, He becomes the flow of life within us. For proper eating we need food and drink. John 6 covers the bread of life for our eating, and John 7 covers the living water for our drinking. — Witness Lee

I don't know one thing about the future. I don't know what the next hour will hold. There may be sickness, accident, personal or world catastrophe. Before this day is over I may have to deal with death, pain, loss, rejection. I don't know what the future holds for me, for those I love, for my nation, for this world. Still, despite my ignorance and surrounded by tinny optimists and cowardly pessimists, I say that God will accomplish his will, and I cheerfully persist in living in the hope that nothing will separate me from Christ's love. — Eugene H. Peterson

Whenever Christ, the Bridegroom of pure souls, is mystically united with each soul, He gives the Father occasion to rejoice over this as at a wedding. It is Christ Himself Who says, 'Joy shall be in heaven over one sinner who repents' (Lk. 15:7). For joy, according to the Apostle, is the fruit of the Holy Spirit (Gal. 5:22), Who through conversion brings back to Christ those living in repentance, and reunites them with Him. And this joy embraces both those in heaven and godly men on earth. That is why there is joy in heaven over one repentant sinner. — Gregory Palamas

I have learned that I will not change the world, Jesus will do that. I can however, change the world for one person. I can change the world for fourteen little girls and for four hundred schoolchildren and for a sick and dying grandmother and for a malnourished, neglected, abused five-year old. And if one persons sees the love of Christ in me, it is worth every minute. In fact, it is worth spending my life for. — Katie J. Davis

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

The "romance" of a missionary is often made up of monotony and drudgery; there often is no glamour in it; it doesn't stir a man's spirit or blood. So don't come out to be a missionary as an experiment; it is useless and dangerous. Only come if you feel you would rather die than not come. Don't come if you want to make a great name or want to live long. Come if you feel there is no greater honor, after living for Christ, than to die for Him. — C.T. Studd

When I look back upon my own religious experience," says Andrew Murray, "or round upon the Church of Christ in the world, I stand amazed at the thought of how little humility is sought after as the distinguishing feature of the discipleship of Jesus. In preaching and living, in the daily intercourse of the home and social life, in the more special fellowship with Christians, in the direction and performance of work for Christ - alas! how much proof there is that humility is not esteemed the cardinal virtue, the only root from which the graces can grow, the one indispensable condition of true fellowship with Jesus. — D.L. Moody

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

Remember again the principle: We will never be over those things that God has set under us until we learn to be under those things that God has placed over us. There is strength through surrender. Are you under the Word of God? Is the Bible your mandate for life? Are you loving it, reading it, obeying it, and living it? Are you consciously filled with the Holy Spirit? Have you yielded every part of the temple of your body to him? Are you grieving him in any way? Are you graciously submitting to those human authorities that God has set over you: in the home, in the church, in civil government, and in the workplace? Have you made Jesus Christ the absolute Lord over everything in your life? — Adrian Rogers

we can conclude that a professed Christian who is not committed to a life of generosity and justice toward the poor and marginalized is, at the very least, a living contradiction of the Gospel of Christ, the Son of God, whose Father "executes justice for the oppressed, who gives food to the hungry — Timothy J. Keller

While the Christian message is increasingly becoming less acceptable in fashionable society, we must be always living according to Scripture and prepared to be apologists for Jesus Christ in all aspects of our lives. — Jonathan Falwell

The sacred rites, although not instituted specifically for proving the truth of the dogmas of the Catholic Faith incontrovertibly, are effectively the living voice of Catholic Truth, the oft-sounded expression of it. For that very reason the true Church of Christ, even as she shows great zeal to guard inviolate those forms of divine worship - since they are hallowed and are not to be changed - sometimes grants or permits something novel in the performance of them in certain instances. This she does especially when they are in conformity with their venerable antiquity. — Pope Leo XIII

And what is the joy of Christ? The joy and delight which springs forever in His great heart, from feeling that He is forever doing good; from loving all, and living for all; from knowing that if not all, yet millions on millions are grateful to Him, and will be forever. — Charles Kingsley

The only chains God wants us to wear are the chains of righteousness
not the chains of hopeless subjectivism, not the shackles of risk-free living, not the fetters of horoscope decision making
just the chains befitting a bond servant of Christ Jesus. Die to self. Live for Christ. And then do what you want, and go where you want, for God's glory. — Kevin DeYoung

Living for Christ is a day-to-day going on with Him. It is a continuous dependence upon the Spirit of God. It is believing in His faithfulness. — Billy Graham

The Christian ... way of daily living must be distinct from the world. While some will think you "peculiar," do not let this disturb you, for just as many others will secretly admire you for your stand. It is possible you will be persecuted by jokes and be misunderstood ... but if you accept this with patience and in the spirit of love, God can use this very thing to help you win some of your friends [to Christ]. — Billy Graham

I'm well aware that it's life I need, and it's life I'm looking for. But the offer has gotten "interpreted" by well-meaning people to say, "Oh, well. Yes, of course ... God intends life for you. But that is eternal life, meaning, because of the death of Jesus Christ you can go to heaven when you die." And that's true ... in a way. But it's like saying getting married means, "Because I've given you this ring, you will be taken care of in your retirement." And in the meantime? Isn't there a whole lot more to the relationship in the meantime? (It's in the meantime that we're living out our days, by the way.) Are we just lost at sea? What did Jesus mean when he promised us life? I go back to the source, and what I find is just astounding. — John Eldredge

G Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! h According to his great mercy, i he has caused us to be born again to a living hope j through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4. to k an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and l unfading, m kept in heaven for you, — Anonymous

Holy Communion is offered to all, as surely as the living Jesus Christ is for all, as surely as all of us are not divided in him, but belong together as brothers and sisters, all of us poor sinners, all of us rich through his mercy. Amen. — Karl Barth

Has God no living church? He has a church, but it is the church militant, not the church triumphant. We are sorry that there are defective members ... While the Lord brings into the church those who are truly converted, Satan at the same time brings persons who are not converted into its fellowship. While Christ is sowing the good seed, Satan is sowing the tares. There are two opposing influences continually exerted on the members of the church. One influence is working for the purification of the church, and the other for the corrupting of the people of God ... — Ellen G. White

For many Christ-followers, the Bible is a book of principles to show us how to live. No wonder we struggle to spend time in the Word - how excited are you about spending time reading a to-do list that's 1,500 pages long? When we view the Bible primarily as a book of principles for living, we miss the point. The point of the Bible is not principles but a Person. Jesus said in John 5:39, "These are the Scriptures that testify about me." He is the point. If our interaction with the Word isn't resulting in a deepening intimacy with Jesus, a deepening experience of His love and grace, we are missing something huge. — Alan Kraft

What does repentance mean? It means to change - to change your mind, change the way that you're living - and to determine that with God's help you will live for Christ. — Billy Graham

There is complete hope for terminal illness in the power of the Almighty God. The hands of Jesus are healing hands...the hands of Jesus are saving hands. Jesus brought peace and restoration, reconciliation, power, purpose, love, understading, purity and compatibility with him and the world we live in. we are healed through him. He mends brokenness and gives us back our lives which are stollen by the trials and suffering of this dark world. He is the light and life giving God. We ought to pray in our daily lives to receive from God, his help, upholding power and healing in the Name of Jesus Christ his one and only Son. When we ask from him...then we receive healing, relief from suffering, we stop living in fear of death. Read these books and experience the real presence of the supernatural, almighty sovereign and loving God. — Stellah Mupanduki

There's a time in every Christian's life that can only be described as a period of walking through a thirsty and dry desert. This is where God teaches every believer the need for faith. God has to strip away every emotion, every feeling, and every physical thing that makes you comfortable serving Him. His voice grows quiet, His Presence lonely, His ear seems deaf, and it will do either one of two things: It will either make you find a comfortable rock and wait for God to show up, or it will create such a hunger and thirst after Him, just Him, that you abandon all the "things" of Christ for Christ alone. — Alan De Jager

People have no idea of the things that don't happen to them - the lives they're not living, the deaths stalking them - and thank Christ for that. Hard enough to get through each day without glimpsing all the hovering possibilities, like insects thickening the air. — Emma Donoghue

I am a fool for Christ...whose fool are you? — Brother Andrew

With all of our doing. With all of our leading. With all of our teaching, the most important thing we can do for those whom we lead is to cultivate in their hearts a living, vital, vibrant testimony and knowledge of the Son of God, Jesus Christ, the Redeemer of the world, the Author of our salvation, He who atoned for the sins of the world and opened the way of salvation and eternal life. I would hope that in all we do we would somehow constantly nourish the testimony of our people concerning the Savior. I am satisfied--I know it's so--that whenever a man has a true witness in his heart of the living reality of the Lord Jesus Christ, all else will come together as it should... That is the root from which all virtue springs among those who call themselves Latter-day Saints. — Gordon B. Hinckley

when you are surrendering your all to God and if God is taking you somewhere, focus less where He is taking you to, For He will definitely take you somewhere. Only surrender — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

There was to be nothing special about it, nothing that savored of a religious Order, no special rule, no distinctive habit. She, and those who joined her, would simply be poor
there was no choice on that score, for they were that already
but they would embrace their poverty, and the life of the proletariat in all its misery and insecurity and dead, drab monotony. They would live and work in the slums, lose themselves, in the huge anonymous mass of the forgotten and the derelict, for the only purpose of living the complete, integral Christian life in that environment
loving those around them, sacrificing themselves for those around them, and spreading the Gospel and the truth of Christ most of all by being saints, by living in union with Him, by being full of His Holy Ghost, His charity. — Thomas Merton

We are sad for the hurting couples; it breaks our hearts, actually. But we are even more brokenhearted about the effect it has on the Kingdom. We are sad because godly marriages magnify God's ingenious creation, but few marriages radiate that glory. We are sad about the victory Satan enjoys in watching couples call themselves "Christian" while living idly, living for themselves. We are devastated by how many choose divorce over obeying the King. The sad state of marriage makes the bride of Christ look dirty and unattractive. We write in hopes of changing some of this. — Francis Chan

Our God, You open Your hand, and fill all things living with plenteousness; to You I commit all those who are dear to me; watch over them, I pray, and provide all things needful for their souls and bodies, now and for evermore; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. - NERSES (4TH C.) — David P. Gushee

Christ Jesus said: "I am the Vine, ye are the branches." In other words: "I, the living One who have so completely given myself to you, am the Vine. You cannot trust me too much. I am the Almighty Worker, full of a divine life and power." You are the branches of the Lord Jesus Christ. If there is in your heart the consciousness that you are not a strong, healthy, fruit-bearing branch, not closely linked with Jesus, not living in Him as you should be - then listen to Him say: "I am the Vine, I will receive you, I will draw you to myself, I will bless you, I will strengthen you, I will fill you with my Spirit. I, the Vine, have taken you to be my branches, I have given myself utterly to you; children, give yourselves utterly to me. I have surrendered myself as God absolutely to you; I became man and died for you that I might be entirely yours. Come and surrender yourselves entirely to be mine. — Andrew Murray

The two most important things in our holy religion are the life of faith and the walk of faith. He who shall rightly understand these is not far from being a master in experimental theology, for they are vital points to a Christian. You will never find true faith unattended by true godliness; on the other hand, you will never discover a truly holy life which has not for its root a living faith upon the righteousness of Christ. — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

And this food is called among us the Eucharist, of which no one is allowed to partake but the man who believes that the things which we teach are true, who has been washed with the washing that is for the remission of sins and to regeneration, and who is so living as Christ has enjoined. — Justin Martyr

Today isn't a "waiting period" before real life begins. Right now has Christ's name written all over it. Living passionately for God starts at this moment. Joy and satisfaction can be found in God today. I love what C.H. Spurgeon wrote, determining to make the monst of his time, "the truest lengthening of life is to live while we live, wasting no time but using every hour for the highest ends. So be it this day." And so be it tomorrow, the next day, and the next. — Hannah Farver

When we begin to reflect Christ, the Bible, when more understood as being centered around Christ, seems to be potentially every man's biography regarding God's promised experiences and truth for him - his individual, unique path of humbling oneself before the Lord and then being exalted by the Lord back into his true and righteous personhood. Many followers may speak of it merely to try to change other people (before changing themselves), but the prophets speak of it as a living word which miraculously tells their very own experiences. — Criss Jami

I may ... pass for being a relatively successful man. People occasionally stare at me in the streets-that's fame. I can fairly easily earn enough to qualify for admission to the higher slopes of the Inland Revenue-that's success. Furnished with money and a little fame ... [I] may partake of trendy diversions-that's pleasure. It might happen once in a while that something I said or wrote ... represented a serious impact on our time-that's fulfillment. Yet I say to you, and I beg you to believe me, multiply these tiny triumphs by a million, add them all together, and they are nothing-less than nothing, a positive impediment-measured against one draught of that living water Christ offers to the spiritually thirsty.8 — Richard D. Phillips

This gospel I preach to you. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. Trust him quietly, humbly, simply, immediately. Trust him to make you a holy man - to deliver you from the power of the devil and the power of sin, and he will do it: I will be bound for him that he will keep his word. Jesus is truth itself, and never breaks his word. He never boasts that he can do what he cannot do. He has gone into heaven, and he is therefore "able to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them." Only trust him. Trust him to overcome the evil you have to fight with. You will conquer it, man, if you will only trust Jesus. Woman, there is hope for you if you will trust the wounded, bleeding, dying, risen, living Savior. He will battle for you, and you shall get the victory. — Charles Haddon Spurgeon