The proof of spiritual maturity is not how pure you are but awareness of your impurity. That very awareness opens the door to grace.
Philip YanceyRead
In the stories of extravagant grace given to us by Jesus, there are no loopholes disqualifying us from God's love.
Interpretation
God's love is unconditional and not based on our flaws or circumstances.
This quote emphasizes the idea that divine love, as depicted in the stories told by Jesus, is all-encompassing and free from any conditions that might exclude someone from receiving it. It suggests that regardless of our imperfections or life situations, we are always considered worthy of God's love, highlighting the depth and nature of divine grace.
In practice
This quote can be used in a sermon to inspire the congregation about God's unwavering love.
The proof of spiritual maturity is not how pure you are but awareness of your impurity. That very awareness opens the door to grace.
If my activism, however well-motivated, drives out love, then I have misunderstood Jesusβ gospel. I am stuck with law, not the gospel of grace.
Parents learn the uses of power and its limits. They can insist on certain outward behavior but cannot change inner attitudes. They can require obedience but not goodness - and certainly not love.
Prayer is to the skeptic a delusion, a waste of time. To the believer it represents perhaps the most important use of time.
We grow up hungry for love, and in ways so deep as to remain unexpressed we long for our Maker to love us.
I once heard a theologian remark that in the Gospels people approached Jesus with a question 183 times whereas he replied with a direct answer only three times. Instead, he responded with a different question, a story, or some other indirection. Evidently Jesus wants us to work out answers on our own, using the principles that he taught and lived.
Defer no time, delays have dangerous ends.
The snow goose need not bathe to make itself white. Neither need you do anything but be yourself.
Every man, however wise, needs the advice of some sagacious friend in the affairs of life.
As you recognize that you already own the wholeness you seek, and no one outside you can give you more than you already are, dysfunctional situations will evaporate like bad dreams exposed to the morning sun.
Only after we can learn to forgive ourselves can we accept others as they are because we don't feel threatened by anything about them which is better than us.
I sometimes get up at night when I can't sleep and walk down into my library and open one of my books and read a paragraph and say, 'My God, did I write that?
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