God proved His love on the Cross. When Christ hung, and bled, and died, it was God saying to the world, 'I love you.'
Billy GrahamRead
I am not going to Heaven because I have preached to great crowds or read the Bible many times. I'm going to Heaven just like the thief on the cross who said in that last moment: 'Lord, remember me.'
Interpretation
Salvation is based on faith and repentance, not on deeds.
Billy Graham's quote emphasizes that entry into Heaven is not determined by one's achievements or religious practices but rather by genuine faith and a heartfelt request for mercy, as exemplified by the thief on the cross. It highlights the accessibility of grace to everyone, regardless of their past.
In practice
In a sermon about the power of grace, one might reference this quote to illustrate the simplicity of faith.
God proved His love on the Cross. When Christ hung, and bled, and died, it was God saying to the world, 'I love you.'
The wonderful news is that our Lord is a God of mercy, and He responds to repentance.
Don't ever hesitate to take to [God] whatever is on your heart. He already knows it anyway, but He doesn't want you to bear its pain or celebrate its joy alone.
God will not force himself upon us against our will. If we want his love, we need to believe in him. We need to make a definite, positive act of commitment and surrender to the love of God. No one can do it for us.
Success in God's eyes is faithfulness to His calling.
Heaven doesn't make this life less important; it makes it more important.
You only live twice. Once when you are born and once when you look death in the face.
A free press can, of course, be good or bad, but, most certainly without freedom, the press will never be anything but bad.
Isn't it the moment of most profound doubt that gives birth to new certainties? Perhaps hopelessness is the very soil that nourishes human hope; perhaps one could never find sense in life without first experiencing its absurdity.
But that part of us greater than the sum of our parts cannot begin and cannot end, and so it cannot fail
The essential self is innocent, and when it tastes its own innocence knows that it lives for ever.
Much of the conventional analysis of India's stature in the world relies on the all-too-familiar economic assumptions. But we are famously a land of paradoxes, and one of those paradoxes is that so many speak about India as a great power of the 21st century when we are not yet able to feed, educate and employ all our people.
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