Redemptive Life Quotes & Sayings

Agape is something of the understanding, creative, redemptive goodwill for all men. It is a love that seeks nothing in return. It is an overflowing love; it's what theologians would call the love of God working in the lives of men. And when you rise to love on this level, you begin to love men, not because they are likeable, but because God loves them. — Martin Luther King Jr.

Our big and good God is at work in the world, and we have been invited to participate fully - however God has gifted and equipped and called each of us. One needn't identify as a feminist to participate in the redemptive movement of God for women in the world. The gospel is more than enough. Of course it is! But as long as I know how important maternal health is to Haiti's future, and as long as I know that women are being abused and raped, as long as I know girls are being denied life itself through selective abortion, abandonment, and abuse, as long as brave little girls in Afghanistan are attacked with acid for the crime of going to school, and until being a Christian is synonymous with doing something about these things, you can also call me a feminist.23 — Sarah Bessey

Art should be beautiful, not ugly. It should be uplifting and redemptive. Art reassures us that life is good and that, however bad things may look at the moment, everything works out for the best in the end. — Michael Swanwick

If life is really as purposeless, unfair, and uncontrollable ... ,then life is simply too terrifying to be managed. So we search for a redemptive narrative ... That search is a survival mechanism. — Amanda Ripley

To make sense of plastic on the mind and to develop a resistance to the perverse patterns that will otherwise run our world for us, I believe an activity of this sort - by way of a blog, an especially redemptive conversation with a coworker, a water coloring or a playlist - is absolutely crucial. It can be done. And when we do it, we begin to see things we didn't know. We have to try to make sense. We have to make time for artful analysis, which is the way we clear a space for the possibility of sanity. It is an outlet for honesty. — David Dark

Never talk about submission without talking about Jesus, and in particular of the cross. Jesus' version of submission is thoughtful, strong, purposeful, and sacrificial. It involves the full and determined embrace of his Father's will (which governs everything Jesus does)3 and the voluntary pouring out of his life to rescue a lost world.4 Submission is both. It is redemptive. It is the gospel. It is a way of showing Jesus to the world. — Carolyn Custis James

What I'm resistant to is the 'Walk the Line' biopic, where you have this redemptive life done in two hours. It just doesn't wash with me. I've been there and things don't work out that way. — Nick Cave

Eve means "giver of life." I don't think this redemptive calling to be a life giver is only biological. The life of Christ in us enables women to be life givers, rather than life-takers, in every relationship, circumstance, and season of life. — Gloria Furman

One needn't identify as a feminist to participate in the redemptive movement of God for women in the world, The gospel is more than enough. Of course it is! But as long as I know how important maternal health is to Haiti's future, and as long as I know that women are being abused and raped, as long as I know girls are being denied life itself through selective abortion, abandonment, and abuse, as long as brave little girls in Afghanistan are attacked with acid for the crime of going to school, and until being a Christian is synonymous with doing something about these things, you can also call me a feminist. — Sarah Bessey

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

'Lean on Pete' is the story of a boy and his horse, but it is never heart-warming - it ranges in tone from desperate to merely painful - and, while fascinating, it is never entertaining or redemptive. But if you want an unadorned portrait of American life (at least in some places) at the beginning of the 21st century, this is the book for you. — Jane Smiley

When life is so harsh that a man loses all hope in himself, then he raises his eyes to a shining rock, worshipping it, just to find hope again, rather than looking to his own acts for hope and salvation. Yes, atheism IS a redemptive belief. It is theism that denies man's own redemptive nature. — Isaac Asimov

But none of these treatments have fundamentally reduced the underlying anxiety that seems woven into my soul and hardwired into my body and that at times makes my life a misery. As the years pass, the hope of being cured of my anxiety has faded into a resigned desire to come to terms with it, to find some redemptive quality or mitigating benefit to my being, too often, a quivering, quaking, neurotic wreck. — Scott Stossel

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

It is my assumption that growth in faith is the root of all spiritual growth and is prior to all disciplines of works. True spirituality is not a superhuman religiosity; it is simply true humanity released from bondage to sin and renewed by the Holy Spirit. This is given to us as we grasp by faith the full content of Christ's redemptive work: freedom from the guilt and power of sin, and newness of life through the indwelling and outpouring of his Spirit. — Richard Lovelace

We must discover the power of love, the power, the redemptive power of love. And when we discover that we will be able to make of this old world a new world. We will be able to make men better. Love is the only way. — Martin Luther King Jr.

Until all students are faced by the tragedies, the contradictions and the stark questions of life, they cannot understand the need for redemption or God's redemptive action. — Reuel Howe

Single parents, I testify that as you do your very best in the most difficult of human challenges, heaven will smile upon you. Truly you are not alone. Let the redemptive, loving power of Jesus Christ brighten your life now and fill you with the hope of eternal promise. Take courage. Have faith and hope. Consider the present with fortitude and look to the future with confidence. — David S. Baxter

People who succeed in life do not go around settling scores. They do not even keep score. They "run up the score" by doing good to others, even when the others do not deserve it. They give them better than they are given. And as a result, they often bring the other person up to their level instead of being brought down to the level of the other. They are a redemptive force carrying a good infection wherever they go, infusing relationships with health; infusing businesses with health; and infusing communities with health. They change things for the better. — Henry Cloud

Contemplation, as it has come to be understood in the Christian tradition, is a return to the paradisiacal state of union with God, which brings to fulfillment the redemptive act of Christ. It is the beginning of a level of consciousness, beyond ordinary consciousness, in which one begins to experience the reality of new life, of risen life. It is an experience of union with God and a realization of our oneness with our brothers and sisters. — William Shannon

By the way, don't ever let someone convince you that there's anything - and I mean anything - good about dying. There is nothing redemptive in decline and decay. The hard candy of necrosis has no nougat center where the human spirit prevails over all. Death is not a 'journey,' a 'part of life,' a 'release from suffering,' or any other such bullshit euphemism we employ to comfort and delude ourselves. And while we're on the subject, no one 'passes on' or 'passes away,' either, and they sure as fuck don't 'cross over.' They die, and then they start to swell and stink in the very moment. — Ron Currie Jr.

The images of the Jubilee traditions highlight the fact that in Christ people are met by the healing, freeing, redeeming presence of God at their points of greatest pain. The redemptive work of Christ is depicted as touching all of human life. The Jubilee images point towards God's liberating and healing intent wherever institutions, customs, or physical conditions are seen to limit human life. Divisions between sacred and secular are removed. The political, economic, and social realities of life do not provide mere illustrations of the way in which God's reign is experienced. Rather they are identified as the precise arenas where the impact of God's reign is felt. — Sharon H. Ringe

By affirming that all 'meaning,' every assertion about the significance of life and reality, must be judged by reference to a brief succession of contingent events in Palestine, Christianity - almost without realizing it - closed off the path to 'timeless truth.' That is to say, it becomes increasingly difficult in the Christian world to see the ultimately important human experience as an escape into the transcendent, a flight out of history and the flesh. There is a demand for the affirmation of history, and thus of human change and growth, as significant. If the heart of 'meaning' is a human story, a story of growth, conflict and death, every human story with all it's oddity and ambivalence becomes open to interpretation in terms of God's redemptive work. — Rowan Williams

This two-kingdoms doctrine strongly affirms that God has made all things, that sin corrupts all aspects of life, that Christians should be active in human culture, that all lawful cultural vocations are honorable, that all people are accountable to God in every activity, and that Christians should seek to live out the implications of their faith in their daily vocations. A Christian, however, does not have to adopt a redemptive vision of culture in order to affirm these important truths. — David VanDrunen

Frankl theorized a sense of meaning was existential, that it was something that passed through us not unlike the recognition of beauty or a feeling of gratitude. And he believed life could be structured in such a way people would experience meaning. His prescription to experience a deep sense of meaning, then, was remarkably pragmatic. He had three recommendations: 1. Have a project to work on, some reason to get out of bed in the morning and preferably something that serves other people. 2. Have a redemptive perspective on life's challenges. That is, when something difficult happens, recognize the ways that difficulty also serves you. 3. Share your life with a person or people who love you unconditionally. — Donald Miller

I encourage anyone who has gone through hardships to look back through their life's chapters and see what can be turned into a book. For you never know what heartache God, one day, can turn into a redemptive story. — Jolina Petersheim

The only true and lasting inspiration for life is genuine love for God, and submitted gratitude that I get to be a part of the redemptive quest. — John Ortberg

I recognized that Christianity had taught me that sacrifice is the way of life. I forgot the neighbor who raped me, but I could see that when theology presents Jesus' death as God's sacrifice of his beloved child for the sake of the world, it teaches that the highest love is sacrifice. To make sacrifice or to be sacrificed is virtuous and redemptive.

But what if this is not true? What if nothing, or very little, is saved? What if the consequence of sacrifice is simply pain, the diminishment of life, fragmentation of the soul, abasement, shame? What if the severing of life is merely destructive of life and is not the path of love, courage, trust, and faith? What if the performance of sacrifice is a ritual in which some human beings bear loss and others are protected from accountability or moral expectations? — Rebecca Ann Parker

The law of thermodynamics, you know, the idea that nothing is lost, that a loss in one area equals a gain in the other, was actually not invented by scientists but by the people who write redemptive fiction. [...] Actually, in real life, we lose things all the time and they're gone. Lost, period. — Jane Hamilton

NOT LONG AGO I WAS READING A PASSAGE IN THE Bible in which Jesus was praying for his disciples. He prayed that they would love each other, as he'd taught them to do. He prayed that they'd embrace a mission to teach other people to create communities that loved each other, as they'd experienced with him. When I read the passage, though, I saw it differently. He wasn't just calling them into a life of sacrifice. He was calling them into a life of meaning, even the kind of meaning that would involve suffering. Suffering for a redemptive reason is hardly suffering, after all. — Donald Miller

Love is understanding, redemptive goodwill for all men, so that you love everybody. — Martin Luther King Jr.

One positive result of past failure is that you surrender the pursuit of perfection and, if you've gained any sense along the way, you replace it with the pursuit of God's redemption. Nothing is more redemptive than faith in God. You learn that failure may be painful, but it's rarely fatal. After coming to grips with the high premium God places on our faith, I refuse to give up a life practice of believing God just because I accidentally swerve off the road a few times in my faith journey. Hebrews 11:6 says faith is what pleases God, not perfection. — Beth Moore

If you give your life to a cause in which you believe, and if it is right and just, and if your life comes to an end as a result of this, then your life could not have been spent in a more redemptive way. I think that is what my husband has done. — Coretta Scott King

From this point of view the hero is symbolical of that divine creative and redemptive image which is hidden within us all, only waiting to be known and rendered into life. — Joseph Campbell

As part of his life-saving therapy with suicidal patients and his own experience in a Nazi concentration camp, Frankl learned there are three things that give meaning to life: first, a project; second, a significant relationship; and third, a redemptive view of suffering. — Jeff Goins

Rick Eldridge over at Reelworks Studios has the same vision that I have. They want to make good family quality product with a redemptive message underneath to allow people to open their hearts and minds. That (mindset) really drew me to The Ultimate Life ... Their vision and what they want to do very similar to me and Erin. — Drew Waters

The current memoir craze has fostered the belief that confession is therapeutic, that therapy is redemptive and that redemption equals art, and it has encouraged the delusion that candor, daring and shamelessness are substitutes for craft, that the exposed life is the same thing as an examined one. — Michiko Kakutani

I suspect almost every day that I'm living for nothing, I get depressed and I feel self-destructive and a lot of the time I don't like myself. What's more, the proximity of other humans often fills me with overwhelming anxiety, but I also feel that this precarious sentience is all we've got and, simplistic as it may seem, it's a person's duty to the potentials of his own soul to make the best of it. We're all stuck on this often miserable earth where life is essentially tragic, but there are glints of beauty and bedrock joy that come shining through from time to precious time to remind anybody who cares to see that there is something higher and larger than ourselves. And I am not talking about your putrefying gods, I am talking about a sense of wonder about life itself and the feeling that there is some redemptive factor you must at least search for until you drop dead of natural causes. — Lester Bangs

Hearts would have to break and be mended, truths would be revealed, risks would be taken. Which, when he thought about it, was simply the way life worked - messy, unpredictable, joyous, mysterious, hurtful and redemptive. — Susan Wiggs

When a lot of athletes get done playing, they end up in some really tough positions. They have a hard time transitioning because their identity is wrapped up in who they are as a player and what they do rather than who they can be in Christ. We desire to help people understand the invitation that God has given each one of us as Christ followers to be a part of this global redemptive story. If you can't give your life to something with meaning and purpose of that magnitude then there's nothing there. — Aaron Kampman

This ancient affirmation of Scripture and the Christian tradition provides a teleological hope and direction that gives meaning to life now and moves us toward the future with faith and confidence in God's redemptive purpose and power. — Cynthia Peters Anderson

God language can tie people into knots, of course. In part, that is because 'God' is not God's name. Referring to the highest power we can imagine, 'God' is our name for that which is greater than all and yet present in each. For some the highest imaginable power will be a petty and angry tribal baron ensconced high above the clouds on a golden throne, visiting punishment on all who don't believe in him. But for others, the highest power is love, goodness, justice, or the spirit of life itself. Each of us projects our limited experience on a cosmic screen in letters as big as our minds can fashion. For those whose vision is constricted (illiberal, narrow-minded people), this can have horrific consequences. But others respond to the munificence of creation with broad imagination and sympathy. Answering to the highest and best within and beyond themselves, they draw lessons and fathom meaning so redemptive that surely it touches the divine. — Forrest Church