Sovereign Grace Quotes & Sayings

This is why it is often called sovereign grace: it raises the dead. The dead do not raise themselves. God does by his grace. And it is this "glorious grace" that will be praised for all eternity. — John Piper

I want to tell you a growing conviction with me, and that is that as we obey the leadings of the Spirit of God, we enable God to answer the prayers of other people. I mean that our lives, my life, is the answer to someone's prayer, prayed perhaps centuries ago.
It is more and more impossible to me to have programmes and plans because God alone has the plan, and our plans are only apt to hinder Him, and make it necessary for Him to break them up. I have the unspeakable knowledge that my life is the answer to prayers, and that God is blessing me and making me a blessing entirely of His sovereign grace and nothing to do with my merits, saving as I am bold enough to trust His leading and not the dictates of my own wisdom and common sense. — Oswald Chambers

Salvation and sanctification are the work of God's sovereign grace; our work as His disciples is to disciple lives until they are wholly yielded to God. — Oswald Chambers

C. Samuel Storms has so aptly written, Grace ceases to be grace if God is compelled to bestow it in the presence of human merit ... Grace ceases to be grace if God is compelled to withdraw it in the presence of human demerit ... [Grace] is treating a person without the slightest reference to desert whatsoever, but solely according to the infinite goodness and sovereign purpose of God.4 — Jerry Bridges

But all the while, there was one thing we most needed even from the start, and certainly will need from here on out into the New Jerusalem: the ability to take our freedom seriously and act on it, to live not in fear of mistakes but in the knowledge that no mistake can hold a candle to the love that draws us home. My repentance, accordingly, is not so much for my failings but for the two-bit attitude toward them by which I made them more sovereign than grace. Grace - the imperative to hear the music, not just listen for errors - makes all infirmities occasions of glory. — Robert Farrar Capon

Grace, then, is grace,
that is to say, it is sovereign, it is free, it is sure, it is unconditional, and it is everlasting. — Alexander Whyte

Guidance, like all God's acts of blessing under the covenant of grace, is a sovereign act. Not merely does God will to guide us in the sense of showing us his way, that we may tread it; he wills also to guide us in the more fundamental sense of ensuring that, whatever happens, whatever mistakes we may make, we shall come safely home. Slippings and strayings there will be, no doubt, but the everlasting arms are beneath us; we shall be caught, rescued, restored. This is God's promise; this is how good he is. — J.I. Packer

Now there was only one hope, the sovereign grace of God. God would have to transform my heart to do what a heart cannot make itself do, namely, want what it ought to want. Only God can make the depraved heart desire God. — John Piper

When the Sovereign pushed against me, I bent like Gold should, with grace, with dignity. But now she cuts at me, and beneath the grace, beneath the aplomb, her knife will strike iron. We make for Mars, and for war. — Pierce Brown

The sovereign electing grace of God chooses us to repentance, to faith, and afterwards to holiness of living, to Christian service, to zeal, and to devotion. — Charles Spurgeon

No matter how good you think yourself to be, you cannot enter heaven unless it is under the terms of sovereign grace. — Charles Spurgeon

Sin is sovereign till sovereign grace dethrones it. — Charles Spurgeon

The very center and core of the whole Bible is the doctrine of the grace of God - the grace of God which depends not one whit upon anything that is in man, but is absolutely undeserved, resistless and sovereign. J. Gresham Machen — Justin S. Holcomb

So saving grace, converting grace, for Augustine, is God's giving us a sovereign joy in God that triumphs over all other joys and therefore sways the will. The will is free to move toward whatever it delights in most fully, but it is not within the power of our will to determine what that sovereign joy will be. — John Piper

Grace is free sovereign favor to the ill-deserving. — B. B. Warfield

Christian hope frees us to act hopefully in the world. It enables us to act humbly and patiently, tackling visible injustices in the world around us without needing to be assured that our skill and our effort will somehow rid the world of injustice altogether. Christian hope, after all, does not need to see what it hopes for (Heb. 11:1); and neither does it require us to comprehend the end of history. Rather, it simply requires us to trust that even the most outwardly insignificant of faithful actions - the cup of cold water given to the child, the widow's mite offered at the temple, the act of hospitality shown to the stranger, none of which has any overall strategic socio-political significance so far as we can now see - will nevertheless be made to contribute in some significant way to the construction of God's kingdom by the action of God's creative and sovereign grace. — Craig M. Gay

Knowing as we do - our secret guiltiness, unfaithfulness, and black-heartedness, we are dissolved in grateful admiration of the matchless freeness and sovereignty of grace! Jesus must have found the cause of His love - in His own heart. He could not have found it in us - for it is not there! Even since our conversion we have been black with sin - though sovereign grace has made us lovely in His sight. — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

There is a warning here for true pilgrims. Beware of the talker, but also be careful not to judge too quickly those whom God has blessed with both genuine grace and a fluency to speak of divine mercy in ways more eloquent than others. The proof is in the life-not a perfect life, but a life that both delights in divine truth and magnifies God, the only giver of the sovereign grace that always produces the truly fruitful, fragrant life. — John Bunyan

Our salvation is a free gift of grace that demanded the work of Jesus alone. God made sure, however, that much of our fulfillment would involve the glorious pursuit of God and His goals so our souls would be filled and thrilled in the constant discoveries. God is sovereign, Dear One. And when all is said and done, He knows what will thrill us the most. — Beth Moore

He writes that synergism gives the "fallen creature . . . ability to control God's free and sovereign work of salvation." Then he audaciously associates all Christians who are not Calvinists with belief in this doctrine. White believes that the act of receiving (as in receiving God's grace) is a type of "work" that takes away from the sovereignty of God. He therefore concludes that a man's free will to receive the gospel somehow "controls God's work of salvation. — Micah Coate

Grace is more than mercy and love. It super-adds to them. It denotes, not simply love, but the love of a sovereign, transcendent Superior. One that may do what He will. That may wholly choose whether He will love or no. Now God, who is an infinite Sovereign, who might have chosen whether ever He would love us or no; for Him to love us, this is Grace. — Thomas Goodwin

Those who are in a state of salvation are to attribute it to sovereign grace alone, and to give all the praise to Him who maketh them to differ from others. — Jonathan Edwards

If on creation's morn the king of heaven
To shrubs and flowers a sovereign lord had given,
O beauteous rose, he had anointed thee
Of shrubs and flowers the sovereign lord to be;
The spotless emblem of unsullied truth,
The smile of beauty and the glow of youth,
The garden's pride, the grace of vernal bowers,
The blush of meadows, and the eye of flowers. — Henry George Bohn

God is sovereign. His grace cannot be tamed. — R. Kent Hughes

It is our confidence in the sovereign grace of God that gives us any hope of success in missions. — Kevin DeYoung

Be true in your relationship with the Sovereign Creator, for He is the greatest one with whom you could relate in all your affairs and states.
Know that He cares for those who turn to Him; relieves difficulties for them; is there for them in every circumstance, condition and change; and He shelters them in His Mercy, Grace, Pardon and Forgiveness. — Habib Umar Bin Hafiz

The key to Christian living is a thirst and hunger for God. And one of the main reasons people do not understand or experience the sovereignty of grace and the way it works through the awakening of sovereign joy is that their hunger and thirst for God is so small. — John Piper

In Jesus' Name eternal grace is sovereign in me and I am sovereign in life now — Cessza Gumede

Judgment, as it is portrayed in the parables of Jesus (not to mention the rest of the New Testament) never comes until after acceptance: grace remains forever the sovereign consideration. The difference between the blessed and the cursed is one thing and one thing only: the blessed accept their acceptance and the cursed reject it; but the acceptance is already in place for both groups before either does anything about it. — Robert Farrar Capon

No sinner has the right to say with impunity, 'God you owe me grace.' If grace is owed, it is not grace. The very essence of grace is its voluntary character. God reserves to himself the sovereign, absolute right to give grace to some and withhold that grace from others. — R.C. Sproul

Every artifact of human culture is a positive response to God's general revelation and simultaneously a rebellious assertion against His sovereign rule over us. — Timothy Keller

We do not make friends with God; God makes friends with us, bringing us to know him by making his love known to us ... The word know, when used of God in this way, is a sovereign-grace word, pointing to God's initiative in loving, choosing, redeeming, calling and preserving. — J.I. Packer

Lord, lead me not into temptation, and when there leave me not there; for unless thou hold me fast I feel I must, I shall decline, and prove an apostate after all. There is enough tinder in the hearts of the best men in the world to light a fire that shall burn to the lowest hell, unless God should quench the sparks as they fall. There is enough corruption, depravity, and wickedness in the heart of the most holy man that is now alive to damn his soul to all eternity, if free and sovereign grace does not prevent. — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

If you are not there for other people, do not expect them to be there for you. In many a case one might conclude that this is part of God's sovereign justice. His grace, however, is that He Himself will always be there for you, no matter what. — Criss Jami

Choose to see the pure Soul within all beings, even though they may not see it within themselves. Choose to honor the sovereign reality of all beings, even though their words or actions may hurt you. Choose to transform through ecstasy and Grace, even though drama and trauma may seem more natural to you. Choose to live in this miraculous Now moment, even though nostalgia, regrets and fear may entice you to not be Present. Choose to be a blessing to the World and All Life, even though circumstances may encourage you to harden your heart. Choose to love others, even though it may seem naive. Choose to love God with all your being, and know that this is all that is really required. Choose to Live Heaven. Aliyah Ziondra — Tachira Tachi-Ren

In this world's endless time and boundless space One may be born at last to match my sovereign grace. — Rabindranath Tagore

They who truly come to God for mercy, come as beggars, and not as creditors: they come for mere mercy, for sovereign grace, and not for anything that is due — Jonathan Edwards

I had to learn how to give my best effort to God and trust him with the results. I have to learn to have enough faith to trust in his grace and to trust in his sovereign and perfect plan. I had to submit my will, my desires, my dreams - give it all up to God and say, Look, I am going to give my best effort, go on the court and play every day for you, and I'm going to let you take care of the rest. — Jeremy Lin

The joy resulting from the diffusion of blessings to all around us is the purest and sublimest that can ever enter the human mind, and can be conceived only by those who have experienced it. Next to the consolations of divine grace, it is the most sovereign balm to the miseries of life, both in him who is the object of it, and in him who exercises it. — Beilby Porteus

If God is present with you everywhere you go (and he is), and if he is sovereign over every situation, relationship, and location of your life (and he is), then when you blame other people for your circumstances or for the wrongs that you do, you are, in fact, blaming God. You are saying that God didn't give you what you needed to be what he has called you to be and to do what he has called you to do. You are essentially saying: "My problem isn't a heart problem; my problem is a poverty of grace problem. If only God had given me _, I wouldn't have had to do what I did." This is the final argument of a self-excusing lifestyle. This argument was first made in the garden of Eden after the rebellion of Adam and Eve. Adam: "The woman you gave me made me do it." Eve: "The Devil made me do it." It is the age-old self-defensive lie of a person who doesn't want to face the ugliness of the sin that still resides in his or her heart. — Paul David Tripp

Our work is not to save souls, but to disciple them. Salvation and sanctification are the work of God's sovereign grace, and our work as His disciples is to disciple others' lives until they are totally yielded to God. One life totally devoted to God is of more value to Him than one hundred lives which have been simply awakened by His Spirit. As workers for God, we must reproduce our own kind spiritually, and those lives will be God's testimony to us as His workers. God brings us up to a standard of life through His grace, and we are responsible for reproducing that same standard in others. — Oswald Chambers

Genius is a sovereign power; it forms schools; it lays hold on the spirits of men, with irresistible might; and it exercises an immeasurable influence on the whole condition of human life. This sovereignty of genius is a gift of God, possessed only by his grace. It is subject to no one and is responsible to him alone who has granted it this ascendancy. — Abraham Kuyper

The one God has chosen unconditionally he keeps invincibly. Being and staying a believer is decisively of sovereign grace. — John Piper