Explore Quotes by Philip Yancey

The world says you gain your life by getting more and more and more and more, but Jesus says, 'No, that leads to death. You get it back by giving it away and when you give it away you get it back.'

Most observers understand the difference between a committed Christian who accepts Jesus as a model for living and a 'cultural Christian' who happens to live in a nation with a Christian heritage. Most Muslims do not.

I think guilt is directional. You should get rid of it, but the way to get rid of it is not to get rid of the guilt feelings. It is to get rid of the wrong that you did that caused the guilt feelings.

The New Testament persistently presses us upward, toward higher motives for being good.

We admit that we will never reach our ideal in this life, a distinctive the church claims that most other human institutions try to deny.

Christians are not perfect, by any means, but they can be people made fully alive.

To some, the image of a pale body glimmering on a dark night whispers of defeat. What good is a God who does not control his Son's suffering? But another sound can be heard: the shout of a God crying out to human beings, "I LOVE YOU." Love was compressed for all history in that lonely figure on the cross, who said that he could call down angels at any moment on a rescue mission, but chose not to - because of us. At Calvary, God accepted his own unbreakable terms of justice. Any discussion of how pain and suffering fit into God's scheme ultimately leads back to the cross.

Grace is the most perplexing, powerful force in the universe, and, I believe, the only hope for our twisted, violent planet.

What I see in the Bible, especially in the book of Psalms, which is a book of gratitude for the created world, is a recognition that all good things on Earth are God's, every good gift is from above. They are good if we recognize where they came from and if we treat them the way the Designer intended them to be treated.

The self-sacrificing, servant aspect of the Christian life has many parallels to parenthood.

All too often the church holds up a mirror _x000D_ reflecting back the society around it, rather than a window revealing a _x000D_ different way.

By focusing too myopically on what we want God to do on our behalf, we may miss the significance of what he has already done.

True faith does not so much attempt to manipulate God to do our will as it does to position us to do his will.

Grace means that God already loves us as much as an infinite God can possibly love.

Sociologists have a theory of the looking-glass self: You become what the most important person in your life (wife, father, boss, etc.) thinks you are. How would my life change if I truly believed the Bible's astounding words about God's love for me, if I looked in the mirror and saw what God sees?

No one ever converted to Christianity because they lost the argument.

Someone asked the Swiss physician & author Paul Tournier how he helped his patients get rid of their fears. He replied, 'I don't. Everything that's worthwhile in life is scary. Choosing a school, choosing a career, getting married, having kids--all those things are scary. If it is not fearful, it is not worthwhile.'

Homeless people bear God's image too.

In the stories of extravagant grace given to us by Jesus, there are no loopholes disqualifying us from God's love.

When I am tempted to complain about God's lack of presence, I remind myself that God has much more reason to complain about my lack of presence.

The Old Testament anticipates [Jesus] all the way through.