Recognize Jesus Quotes & Sayings

Perhaps because our culture and politics have gone so off course, with values so contrary to those of Jesus, more and more people intuitively recognize that His vision of God's kingdom-a new world of compassion, justice, integrity and peace- is the Good News they've been searching and waiting for. — Tony Campolo

What a scathing exposure! It was as if Jesus said, Listen, you say you want God, but your actions and words expose that you don't. You talk about God's judgment, but you did not willingly accept one who proclaimed it and called all of you to repentance. You say you long for the Messiah to come, but when He is here you search for reasons to reject Him. You are childish! If you had the wisdom of God, you would recognize His truth in the messenger sent to prepare the way for the Messiah and in the Messiah Himself. You have developed the miserable sickness of religious pretense and no longer desire what you prattle about aimlessly in what you pretend is prayer! — Lloyd John Ogilvie

Three centuries of early Christian and Jewish documentation, not to mention the nearly unanimous opinion of contemporary scholars, recognize James the brother of Jesus as the head of the first Christian community ... Why then has James been almost wholly excised from the New Testament and his role in the early church displaced by Peter and Paul in the imaginations of most modern Christians? — Reza Aslan

In the heart of Jesus, we recognize that God himself has a heart (cor) for us, who are poor (miseri), in the broadest sense of the word, and that he is, therefore, merciful (misericors). — Walter Kasper

* Recognize that God is with you.
* Acknowledge God knows what He's doing.
* Search for God's will: the path He desires you to take in life.
* Consider what God did for you when He sent Jesus to die on the cross (forgiveness and righteousness) — Brennan Manning

To pray in Jesus' name means to come to God in prayer consciously trusting in Christ for our salvation and acceptance and not relying on our own credibility or record. It is, essentially, to reground our relationship with God in the saving work of Jesus over and over again. It also means to recognize your status as a child of God, regardless of your inner state. God our Father is committed to his children's good, as any good father would be. — Timothy Keller

Jesus said, "Do not throw your pearls to pigs" (Matt. 7:6). By this we don't think he was calling some people pigs. He was saying, "Look - be careful that you do not give something precious to someone who, at best, cannot recognize its beauty, or at worst, will trample on it." Consider your feminine heart and beauty your treasure, your pearls. — John Eldredge

Live in such a way that men may recognize that you have been with Jesus. — Charles Spurgeon

We are children, perhaps, at the very moment when we know that it is as children that God loves us - not because we have deserved his love and not in spite of our undeserving; not because we try and not because we recognize the futility of our trying; but simply because he has chosen to love us. We are children because he is our father; and all of our efforts, fruitful and fruitless, to do good, to speak truth, to understand, are the efforts of children who, for all their precocity, are children still in that before we loved him, he loved us, as children, through Jesus Christ our lord. — Frederick Buechner

Let us return to Jesus' prayer that, through the unity of the disciples, the world may recognize him as the one sent by the Father. This recognizing and believing is not something merely intellectual; it is about being touched by God's love and therefore changed; it is about the gift of true life. — Pope Benedict XVI

Intentionally or involuntarily, your earthly and spiritual fathers will lead you the perfect Father. You might not recognize it, but even when they fail, they create the perfect scenario for you to run into your Heavenly Daddy's arms.

When they reject you, He will receive you. When they fail at meeting you, He will open up His schedule. When they miscommunicate with you, He will share His heart of love for you and, His heart of love for them. — Carlos A. Rodriguez

When I hear Christians say, "I don't do this, and I don't do that, and I am following a set of rules," I immediately recognize that they know very little about the grace of God. They are trying to live the Christian life in their own strength. But Paul says, "Be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus." — J. Vernon McGee

Part of coming to know Jesus is coming to know ourselves, Papa. Seeing all the things that we otherwise might wish to keep hidden. Even from our own minds." Jamal lifted his face, creased in sorrows only he could know, to hers. He shook his head as if to clear it. Julia said, "The closer we come to Jesus, the more we recognize his perfect love. And the more we see how far removed we are from this perfection. He calls to us with that love and forgiveness. He invites us to grow, to become more than we ever could be on our own. — Davis Bunn

Minister every day. Opportunities are all around you. Look for them. Ask the Lord to help you recognize them. You will find that most consist of small, sincere acts that help others become followers of Jesus Christ. — David L. Beck

Another way Christ affects us is by inspiring our gratitude. He left the glories of heaven in order to become our Savior, and when we recognize that sacrifice, we are filled with thankfulness and praise. — Charles Stanley

The powerful changes that happen in the life of a disciple never come from the disciple working hard at doing anything. They come from arriving at a place where Jesus is everything, and we are simply overwhelmed with the gift. Sometimes it seems as if God loves us too much. His love goes far beyond our ability to stop being moral, religious, obedient, and victorious, and we just collapse in his arms.
Out of the gospel that Jesus is the only Mediator between God and humanity comes a Christian life that looks like Jesus, a life Jesus would recognize. It's a life that looks like Jesus, because Jesus does everything, and all we do is accept his gift. And to accept his gift, we have to give up trying to be Jesus.
Out of that discovery comes a Christian life that is free from the tyranny of unnecessary adjectives - even my preferred modified, Jesus-shaped - and simply follows after the One who loves us beyond words or repayment. — Michael Spencer

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

We can only be used by God after we allow Him to show us the deep, hidden areas of our own character. It is astounding how ignorant we are about ourselves! We don't even recognize the envy, laziness, or pride within us when we see it. But Jesus will reveal to us everything we have held within ourselves before His grace began to work. How many of us have learned to look inwardly with courage? — Oswald Chambers

We Recognize No Sovereign but God, and no King but Jesus! — John Adams

Are you trying to be who Jesus wants you to be? Or do you trust him to bring out who he has already created you to be? It is vital to recognize the difference between these two questions because one leads to death, the other leads to life. — Emily P. Freeman

Help us to recognize your voice, help us not to be allured by the madness of the world, so that we may never fall away from you, O Lord Jesus Christ. — Albrecht Durer

But this does not take away the fact that Luke sees the frustrations women face, including the constant discipline of being quietly useful while others crowd in to take the more obviously attractive roles. Furthermore, he remembers Jesus as a teacher who was willing to recognize the value of women's contribution. Working in partnership with a man also protected the women from being bothered by other men who resented their independent activity or simply wanted to meddle. For the women of Galilee, Jesus was invaluable as a sympathetic male focal point around which their activity could be organized. The presence of such a person in their midst would have been a godsend even if the man in question had not been a miracle-worker. — Kate Cooper

15-2 See, your faith anchors you in Christ. That's intellectual. You believe it. You accept it. You say that it's right. You recognize it to be the truth, and you're a Christian. And you've got Everlasting Life by believing it. You've entered to God. You're on the campgrounds. Manna's falling, and you're eating it.
And did you notice: the strange thing, there was a mixed multitude eating the same manna? People who are sinners, who does not accept the Lord Jesus can still enjoy the--seeing the moving of the miracle of God, healing the sick; can rejoice in people doing right; can open their hearts and rejoice in a sermon that's preached under the anointing. And that's the same type of manna that the Christian is eating. You see it? ( See "Why are people so tossed about ?" Preached on Sunday, 1st January 1956 at the Branham Tabernacle in Jeffersonville, Indiana, U.S.A. - Paragraph 15:2 ) — William Marrion Branham

As we day by day receive grace from Jesus, and more constantly recognize it as coming from Him, we shall behold Him in communion with us, and enjoy the felicity of communion with Him. Let us make daily use of our riches, and ever repair to Him as to our own Lord in covenant, taking from Him the supply of all we need with as much boldness as men take money from their own purse. — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Again, as stated above, if we recognize that our particular interpretation and application of Scripture is leading to observable harm, this necessarily means that we need to stop and reassess our course. Scripture, as Jesus read it, needs to lead us to love God, others, and ourselves. If we find that it is leading instead to causing harm then we are getting it wrong. — Derek Flood

Christian people of the Western world - have not been ready to recognize Jesus himself. We want a "religious" leader, not a king! We want someone to save our souls, not rule our world! Or, if we want a king, someone to take charge of our world, what we want is someone to implement the policies we already embrace, just as Jesus's contemporaries did. But if Christians don't get Jesus right, what chance is there that other people will bother much with him? — N. T. Wright

Where do you find hope, and in what shape or form does it rest?
I say to you now that absolute and genuine hope is found only in Christ Jesus. He is never far way and always within your grasp. He expects you to seek Him, but when you do He is quickly found. Only upon your discovery of Christ will you recognize the desperate condition of your soul, and through glorious and supernatural revelation comprehend that it was this living Hope who graciously discovered and delivered you. — Cheryl Zelenka

O Mary Mother of Mercy and Refuge of Sinners! We beseech thee to look with pitying eyes on poor heretics and schismatics. Do thou, who art the Seat of Wisdom, enlighten the minds wretchedly enfolded in the darkness of ignorance and sin, that they may clearly recognize the Holy, Catholic, Roman Church to be the only true Church of Jesus Christ, outside of which neither sanctity nor salvation can be found. — Pope Pius XII

I would know any man as a Christian, would rejoice to know any man as a Christian, whom Jesus would recognize as a Christian; and Jesus Christ, I am sure, in these old days recognized His followers even if they came after Him with the blindest sight, with the most imperfect recognition and acknowledgment of what He was and of what He could do. — Phillips Brooks

The fundamentalists may have created a personalized Jesus we don't even recognize, but the liberals' Jesus, too, is an individualized Jesus who serves the empire - a Jesus painfully divorced from his ministry of justice. — Allan Boesak

Jesus Christ is still manifesting himself in many thousands of ways. He is manifesting himself all around you. We need to be alert in order to recognize his manifestations. If you are not mindful or attentive, you will miss him because you will miss his manifestations. — Thich Nhat Hanh

His true Being comes to light and even penetrates his clothing. We should not limit ourselves to Jesus. We have to recognize ourselves, our own true form ... Life would be so simple if we could always see what we are; if we could recognize what our neighbors are. If we could see the beams of light that pass through their clothing; if we could not only see their external form, but also experience their true being ... — Willigis Jager

It is so easy to take the violet flame and to use it that I am certain that once you begin you will recognize that the violet flame and the angels of the violet flame are the servants of the sons and daughters of God and the children of the Light, that the violet flame joyously serves you and acts to cleanse your entire being so that, as Jesus said, your whole body can be full of light. — Elizabeth Clare Prophet

In Christ the middle wall of partition has been broken down. There is no Jew, no Gentile - no black, white, yellow, or red. We could be one great brotherhood in Jesus Christ. However, until we come to recognize Him as the Prince of Peace and receive His love in our hearts, the racial tensions will increase, racial demands will become more militant, and a great deal of blood will be shed. The race problem could become another flame out of control! — Billy Graham

I have electricity in my home, but if I don't plug into it, I don't see the light. I have Jesus in my heart, but if I don't plug into Him daily, I won't see His light either, even though it is there. I have to connect with Him. Talk to Him. Worship Him. Spend time with Him. Bask in His radiance like bathing in the sun. Become so familiar with His illumination of my soul that I immediately recognize any counterfeit. — Stormie O'martian

Dearest Lord, may I see you today and every day in the person of your sick, and, whilst nursing them, minister unto you. Though you hide yourself behind the unattractive disguise of the irritable, the exacting, the unreasonable, may I still recognize you, and say: Jesus, my patient, how sweet it is to serve you. — Mother Teresa

Difficulties and obstacles are God's challenges to faith. When hindrances confront us in the path of duty, we are to recognize them as vessels for faith to fill with the fullness and all-sufficiency of Jesus. — A.B. Simpson

Why do we judge Jesus' criterion for authentic discipleship irrelevant? Jesus said the world is going to recognize you as His by only one sign: the way you are with one another on the street every day. — Brennan Manning

To those who recognize in Jesus the wonder of the Son of God, every one of his words and deeds becomes a wonder; they find in him the last, most profound, most helpful counsel for all needs and questions. Yes, before the child can open his lips, he is full of wonder and full of counsel. Go to the child in the manger. Believe him to be the Son of God, and you will find in him wonder upon wonder, counsel upon counsel. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

As followers of Christ, we are to be careful not to remain victims of the many cultural presuppositions of who he is, and what he teaches, insofar as taking for granted our own caricatures of him. Let it boil in both mind and heart the question, 'If Jesus were to appear today, how many of us would actually recognize him and his teachings (or would it simply be a recount of his first visit)? — Criss Jami

The key to recognizing who Jesus was is to recognize this fundamental truth: He was a Jew. — Reza Aslan

When the winds blow and the rains pour, they blow and pour on all. Those who have built their foundations on bedrock rather than sand survive the storms. There is a way to build on bedrock by developing a deep personal conversion to the gospel of Jesus Christ and knowing how to receive inspiration ... We need to learn how to recognize and apply these promptings. — Allan F. Packer

The whole point of the Resurrection stories - and the Resurrection itself - is that we don't recognize Jesus when he comes back to us. — Jay Parini

It is no great hermeneutic feat to recognize that Rome crucified Jesus because of His claim to be king. The charge was posted over His head, after all. What is often overlooked, however, is that it is precisely because of their allegiance to that king - Jesus - that Rome persecuted His followers.
That the God of the Jews should father a son with magical powers was no more offensive to the Romans than the idea that Zeus should father Hercules. But what was intolerable was the fact that Jesus' followers did not stop with recognizing Him as divine; they had the audacity to claim He was their actual sovereign.
In short, while the Jews preserved their religion by shouting, "We have no king but Caesar," the early Christians sealed their fate by unabashedly declaring, "We have no king but Jesus! — Christopher Gorton

I believe that whether we recognize him or not, or believe in him or not, or even know his name, again and again he comes and walks a little way with us along whatever road we're following. And I believe that through something that happens to us, or something we see, or somebody we know
who can ever guess how or when or where?
he offers us, the way he did at Emmaus, the bread of life, offers us new hope, a new vision of light that not even the dark world can overcome. — Frederick Buechner

Perhaps even "his own people" - this time not the Jewish people of the first century, but the would-be Christian people of the Western world - have not been ready to recognize Jesus himself. We want a "religious" leader, not a king! We want someone to save our souls, not rule our world! Or, if we want a king, someone to take charge of our world, what we want is someone to implement the policies we already embrace, just as Jesus's contemporaries did. — N. T. Wright

Everyday I encounter well-meaning Christians who call out to God to save them from a demon who has long since been defeated. It's time for the body of Christ to recognize what the blood of Jesus has done and stop running from his attacks in fear. It's time for us to realize that every attack from the enemy is an attack on the blood of Jesus. It's a form of rebellion from a defiant demon that is skilled in using the power of fear to intimidate Christians into giving up on their blood-bought rights. — Jesse Duplantis

If I am preoccupied with the changes my storm has created and concentrating on my scars, I will not be able to recognize Jesus. — Jan Harrison

I finish where I began: Jesus' statement "Come and see" provides both an invitation and a promise to all people everywhere. Come to Him; see Him as King of Kings and Lord of Lords; recognize in Him the great Messiah who will come again with healing in His wings, to set His people free. He will wrap you about in the cloak of His redeeming love, and your life will be changed forever. — Alexander B. Morrison

Any teachings that fail to recognize Jesus Christ as the author of life, is absolutely antichrist.John 1:1-13. — Felix Wantang

Spirit-led Jesus followers recognize that they are imperfect Christians working with other imperfect Christians to serve a perfect Christ. When we love and give to one another, then we grow as individuals and as the family of God.136 — Mark Driscoll

When we meet Christ and get on the right side of the cross, our goal isn't to get everyone to think we're perfect and have it all together. Rather, this is where we recognize how much we need Jesus and learn to fall more in love with Him every single day. — Perry Noble

So do not expect always to get an emotional charge or a feeling of quiet peace when you read the Bible. By the grace of God you may expect that to be a frequent experience, but often you will get no emotional response at all. Let the Word break over your heart and mind again and again as the years go by, and imperceptibly there will come great changes in your attitude and outlook and conduct. You will probably be the last to recognize these. Often you will feel very, very small, because when your eyes close for the last time in death, and never again read the Word of God in Scripture you will open them to the Word of God in the flesh, that same Jesus of the Bible whom you have known for so lng, standing before you to take you for ever to His eternal home. — Geoffrey Thomas

What if we in the Body of Christ could get past the doctrinal debates that have divided us and pray that the Holy Spirit would do it again? What if we asked Him to empower us to bring hope to the thousands - millions even - who are coming to recognize the spiritual void in their lives and are just waiting for someone to help? What if the church went out to tell people about Jesus in confidence that the Holy Spirit had already gone before them to prepare the way? — Jim Wall

Thus began the long process of transforming Jesus from a revolutionary Jewish nationalist into a peaceful spiritual leader with no interest in any earthly matter. That was a Jesus the Romans could accept, and in fact did accept three centuries later when the Roman emperor Flavius Theodosius (d. 395) made the itinerant Jewish preacher's movement the official religion of the state, and what we now recognize as orthodox Christianity was born. — Reza Aslan

The quickest way to recognize a cult is its treatment of Jesus. — Pat Robertson

You've got a friend in God and He's the most powerful entity the universe has ever known, the One that created it all. So, you are strong with Jesus by your side, if you just recognize it and open your heart to Him. — William Tucci

Do not look for Jesus away from yourselves. He is not out there; He is in you. Keep your lamp burning, and you will recognize him. — Mother Teresa

It is such a letdown to rise from the dead and have your friends not recognize you. — Rob Bell

To commit one's life to the Jesus Reality is far more than an intellectual undertaking. While the Reality of Jesus is a perspective, it is not a worldview in the sense of a particular cosmology, or a body of doctrinal knowledge requiring assent. Rather it is a Word that addresses our lives and speaks to our human condition. It demands that we examine our own hearts, take inventory of our human failings, and open our lives to forgiveness and grace. It breaks the illusions of our self-importance and self-reliance, and calls us to recognize the Spirit reality that already exists in our midst and already lives in our hearts. — John F. Baggett

Fortunately Jesus didn't leave [the disciples]-or any of us-without hope or direction. Where we fail, Jesus succeeded. The only One who as able to recognize and follow His purpose from the beginning was Jesus. He alone was able to obey consistently and please God completely. And His divine mission was to make a way for each of us to do the same. — Charles R. Swindoll

The mistake made by all previous systems of ethics has been the failure to recognize that life as such is the mysterious value with which they have to deal. All spiritual life meets us within natural life. Reverence for life, therefore, is applied to natural life and spiritual life alike. In the parable of Jesus, the shepherd saves not merely the soul of the lost sheep but the whole animal. The stronger the reverence for natural life, the stronger grows also that for spiritual life. — Albert Schweitzer

The call of Jesus teaches us that our relation to the world has been built on an illusion. All the time we thought was had enjoyed a direct relation with men and things. This is what had hindered us from faith and obedience. Now we learn that in the most intimate relationships of life, in our kinship with father and mother, brothers and sisters, in married love, and in our duty to the community, direct relationships are impossible. Since the coming of Christ, his followers have no more immediate realities of their own, not in their family relationships nor in the ties with their nation nor in the relationships formed in the process of living. Between father and son, husband and wife, the individual and the nation, stands Christ the Mediator, whether they are able to recognize him or not. We cannot establish direct contact outside ourselves except through him, through his word, and through our following of him. To think otherwise is to deceive ourselves. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

After Peter came to recognize his own inadequacy, his utter inability to fulfill his destiny apart from obedience to his only true responsibility, he became a rock-solid leader. As his story unfolds in the book of acts, we can clearly see that when Peter kept his eyes on Jesus and followed Him, others followed to. And they followed by the thousands. Needed today: more Peters. — Charles R. Swindoll

Only when we have felt the terror of the matter, can we recognize the incomparable kindness. God comes into the very midst of evil and death, and judges the evil in us and in the world. And by judging us, God cleanses and sanctifies us, comes to us with grace and love ... . God wants to always be with us, wherever we may be - in our sin, suffering, and death. We are no longer alone; God is with us.6 The Coming of Jesus in Our Midst — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

We have organized a social order which we cherish and look upon as sacred. Jesus, whom we recognize as God, comes and tells us that our social organization is wrong. We recognize him as God, but we are not willing to renounce our social institutions. What, then, are we to do? Add, if we can, the words "without a cause" to render void the command against anger; mutilate the sense of another law, as audacious prevaricators have done by substituting for the command absolutely forbidding divorce, phraseology which permits divorce; and if there is no possible way of deriving an equivocal meaning, as in the case of the commands, "Judge not, condemn not," and "Swear not at all," then with the utmost effrontery openly violate the rule while affirming that we obey it. — Leo Tolstoy

We can be reluctant to recognize how much of our culture was literary, particularly now that so many of the institutional purveyors of literature happily have joined in proclaiming its death. A substantial number of Americans who believe they worship God actually worship three major literary characters: the Yahweh of the J Writer (earliest author of Genesis, Exodus, Numbers), the Jesus of the Gospel of Mark, and Allah of the Koran. — Harold Bloom

The gospel is not about ... pie-in-the-sky when they die ... It is imperative that the up and coming generation recognize that the biblical Jesus was committed to the realization of a new social order in this world ... Becoming a Christian, therefore, is a call to social action. — Tony Campolo

Certainly we should be very active in seeking God, and Jesus himself called us to 'ask, seek, knock' in order to find him. Yet those who enter a relationship with God inevitably look back and recognize that God's grace had sought them out, breaking them open to new realities. — Timothy Keller

Once we recognize our need for Jesus, then the building of our faith begins. It is a daily, moment-by-moment life of absolute dependence upon Him for everything — Catherine Marshall

We must also recognize that people who have diametrically opposing views may believe *they too* are advancing the kingdom, which is all well and good so long as we don't christen our views as *the* Christian view. As people whose citizenship is in heaven before it is in any nation (Phil 3:20), and whose kingdom identity is rooted in Jesus rather than in a political agenda, we must never forget that the only way we individually and collectively represent the kingdom of God is through loving, Christlike, sacrificial acts of service to others. Anything and everything else, however good and noble, lies outside the kingdom of God. — Gregory A. Boyd

Too often, and in too many ways, we remain timid when we should be bold, fearful when we are called to be unafraid, and beholden to the principalities and powers when both the prophets of scripture and the prophets of today exhort us to rethink our allegiances. We have become the church of the Empire, the very thing Jesus urged both Jews and Gentiles of his own time to rise up against. We go through great theological contortions to prod the gospel into a justification for our comfort and complacency, and fail to recognize the vast spiritual pit that we dig for ourselves in the process. — Rick Ufford-Chase

There are times when I hear my name, turn, and recognize Jesus. There are times when faith feels like a friendship with God. But there are many other times when it feels more adversarial or even vacant. Yet none of that matters in the end. How we feel about Jesus or how close we feel to God is meaningless next to how God acts upon us. How God indeed enters into our messy lives and loves us through them, whether we want God's help or not. And how, even after we've experienced some sort of resurrection, it's never perfect or impressive like an Easter bonnet, because, like Jesus, resurrected bodies are always in rough shape. — Nadia Bolz-Weber

Jesus brings a kingdom ruled by the crucified one and populated by the unclean and always found in the unexpected. I'd expected to look at the past and see only mistakes that I'd moved on from, to see only damage and addiction and tragic self-delusion. But by thinking that way, I'd assumed that God was nowhere to be found back then. But that's kind of an insult to God. It's like saying, 'You only exist when I recognize you.' The kingdom of heaven, which Jesus talked about all the time, is, as he said, here. At hand. It's now. Wherever you are. In ways you'd never expect. — Nadia Bolz-Weber

Jesus came as a servant, so many did not recognize or acknowledge him as the Messiah. We must be careful that we also don't reject God or his will because he doesn't quite fit our image of what God should be. — Anonymous

Christian brotherhood is not an ideal which we must realize; it is rather a reality created by God in Christ in which we may participate. The more clearly we learn to recognize that the ground and strength and promise of all our fellowship is in Jesus Christ alone, the more serenely shall we think of our fellowship and pray and hope for it. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

To understand Jesus when he stated that he was the way, the truth and the life, one must first recognize his manner of a walk and believe firmly that his manner is true. — The Tru Sum

Good soldiers know that if they don't recognize who their enemy is, they are destined to lose the war. That is also true for those of us who battle in God's army. Even though Jesus put the enemy under His feet and won the victory for us, we still must move into that victory. There are still battles to be fought in prayer. — Stormie O'martian