262 results for tag: Quote for today
Reflections Along the Jesus Way
May 23, 2023 - Quote for the Day:
“… make no mistake, there are so many in our world who are not only defined physically as hungry, thirsty, naked, sick and imprisoned (Matthew 25:34-40), but those words define their spiritual state as well. There are many who are spiritually hungry, because they are being fed religious junk food – many who are spiritually thirsty, because they have not yet been given the true Water of life.
Many are classified as spiritual strangers because they have been pronounced as worthless or unfit or unrighteous by a religious institution. Others are spiritually naked, who desperately need the ...
Reflections Along the Jesus Way
May 21, 2023 - Quote for the Day:
“I had a conversation with a friend about God’s love – a part of our discussion went something like this:
You know, God really does like you. He is fond of you. He wants to get to know you and he wants you to come to know him as you never have before. Young people would say that God wants to ‘hang out with you.’
Well, yes, I know that God loves us, the Bible says he does, and I guess because he inspired those words in the Bible God has to love us. He said it, he committed himself to it, he signed the contract, so he has to love us.
So you think God is stuck? He ...
Reflections Along the Jesus Way
May 18, 2023 - Quote for the Day:
“It is not easy to accept God’s grace. Accepting Jesus Christ is itself a repudiation of our world and its religion. Accepting God’s grace is humbling, and leads to deep repentance as we realize, on the one hand, our inadequacy, and on the other, God’s perfect love.”
Originally published in:
Bad News Religion
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Reflections Along the Jesus Way
May 16, 2023 - Quote for the Day:
“God’s grace and legalistic religion are not two equally inadequate spiritual extremes. Grace is the answer for legalism. There are times and places when grace is abused, when it is misunderstood and when it becomes an excuse for ‘do-as-you-please-ism’ – but abuses of God’s grace do not define or nullify it. Misunderstandings of God’s grace do not mean it is permissive. God’s grace is anything but. Legalism, on the other hand, is a virus that can destroy hope, joy and new life in Christ.”
Originally published in:
Between Religious Rocks and Life’s Hard Places
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Reflections Along the Jesus Way
May 14, 2023 - Quote for the Day:
“I do not believe eternal destiny is ‘locked in’ at death. Nothing in Scripture would lead us to assume this, but of course much dogma within Christendom depends upon it. Many believe that their attempts to proclaim the gospel and ‘save’ people are the primary if not the only way God uses to channel his grace and to illuminate the minds of those whose hearts and minds are darkened. I say to that – if eternal destiny depends on religion, then God is not God!”
Originally published in:
Christianity Without the Religion magazine, February 2022
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Reflections Along the Jesus Way
May 11, 2023 - Quote for the Day:
“A Pentecostal Christian was once invited by his friend to attend a staid Presbyterian church, where the services resembled a quiet library. The Pentecostal man was used to exuberant services of his church, which resembled an enthusiastic crowd at a basketball game. When the Presbyterian pastor made a particularly inspiring point in his sermon, the Pentecostal man yelled out ‘Praise the Lord.’
This passion troubled the solemn Presbyterian congregants. When the high-spirited visitor continued to voice his agreement with compelling statements made from the pulpit by yelling out ‘A-men’ ...
Reflections Along the Jesus Way
May 9, 2023 - Quote for the Day:
“Religious zealots who populate Christ-less religion, to use the words of a man named Reinhold Niebuhr, spend much of their time focused on the ‘temperature of hell and the furniture of heaven.’ They can think of little else than the grand rewards God will lavish on them because of their hard work – and the eternal torture to which they presume he will subject others, who fail to meet their religious standards.”
Originally published in:
Spiritual Soup for the Hungry Soul, Volume 1
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Reflections Along the Jesus Way
May 7, 2023 - Quote for the Day:
“Did you ever stop to think that Jesus did not start his ‘professional life’ ministering, teaching, comforting and healing – by posting a sign outside of a building announcing healing services and prophecy seminars? Jesus didn’t wait for people to find him. Instead, he found people in the midst of their daily problems, dilemmas, challenges and struggles. Much of the time Jesus arrived in people’s lives unannounced and unexpected. Jesus didn’t expect people to get in their cars or jump on their donkeys so they could travel to a holy piece of real estate where whey would file into ...
Reflections Along the Jesus Way
May 4, 2023 - Quote for the Day:
“Some people think God must not exist, or if he does, he doesn’t care because he allows disasters and accidents to happen. But God never told us in the Bible that such things would not happen. In fact, he said they would, to those who are believers as well as those who are not.”
Originally published in:
Between Religious Rocks and Life’s Hard Places
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Reflections Along the Jesus Way
May 2, 2023 - Quote for the Day:
“Penal substitution is a legal term, a forensic model of our relationship to and with God. But the gospel is not about forensic punishment, evening the score or paying our debt. The gospel is about forgiveness, grace, mercy and love, so that God seeks our love, not his satisfaction. God in Christ is not worried about the holiness of his name or reputation – they are set aside on the Cross, when Jesus endured and consumed all hatred, evil and sin forever. How? Not by a legal mechanism, but through the overflowing love of the Father, whom Jesus came to reveal.”
Originally ...
Reflections Along the Jesus Way
April 30, 2023 - Quote for the Day:
“Our physical world is filled with death and decay. The cycle of life ensures aging and obsolescence. You buy a shiny new car and five years later it looks like it has been through a war. You move into a new house and you try to maintain it, take care of the plants and the lawn, keep the house painted – but sometimes, in spite of your best efforts, given the time you have, the house seems to start falling apart around you. You buy a computer, only to find out a few years later that it is obsolete. Or, you discover that your still ‘new’ computer needs new software – it ...
Reflections Along the Jesus Way
April 27, 2023 - Quote for the Day:
“Legalistic religion can think of no more stinging rebuke than to call someone failing to measure up to its dictates, dogmas and dictums an antinomian (law breaker). When I tell people that by the grace of God I am part of the body of Christ, and that church is what I am rather than a brick-and-mortar building I attend, they ask me, in all sincerity, ‘Well, how are you going to be accountable? Who will discipline you when you need it?’
What they really want to know is who is going to give me my religious report card? They are concerned that if I’m not a member of a religious institu...
Reflections Along the Jesus Way
April 25, 2023 - Quote for the Day:
“You may have heard the story about St. Peter giving a tour of heaven. New arrivals boarded a tour bus with St. Peter as their guide. Early in their heavenly tour they drove past a gated community, surrounded by ten-foot-high brick walls covered with ivy. The enclave sported manicured lawns and beautiful hedges and flower gardens leading up to the gate where uniformed personnel ensured no one entered who was not worthy.
One new arrival said, ‘Who lives in there?’ St. Peter lowered his voice and in a pious tone said, ‘Please keep your voices down. The religious folks ...
Reflections Along the Jesus Way
April 23, 2023 - Quote for the Day:
“You know, almost every time that God came to someone in the Bible to tell them he wanted them to fulfill a certain responsibility, he received a similar response. Moses said he wasn’t fit for the job because he had a speech impediment. Jonah of course ran away in the opposite direction. When Peter became more aware that Jesus was God in the flesh, he told Jesus to get away – because Peter knew he was a sinful man.
I absolutely relate to such stories. I know that we humans generally feel fearful and intimidated when God seems to be telling us what he has in store for us and ...
Reflections Along the Jesus Way
April 20, 2023 - Quote for the Day:
“The more oppressive and legalistic the church is, the more hell fire and brimstone condemnations will issue from pulpits, effectively trying to scare people into buying ‘fire insurance’ so they won’t be eternally basted on some spit in hell. It’s not a pretty picture, is it? But it is an accurate picture of the state of churchianity in North America today. Legalism has turned many churches into spiritually incestuous clubs of condemnation, where lists are made and modified – lists that condemn outsiders to hell… It’s interesting that legalistic religion focuses on certain external ...
Reflections Along the Jesus Way
April 18, 2023 - Quote for the Day:
“Our world is hopelessly divided, embroiled in continuing controversy. With soul-depressing regularity it seems entire news networks and organizations here in the United States spew out one and only one polarizing political perspective, demonizing all who disagree. Then there is the religious world, where ‘devout’ people whose holy books tell them to love their neighbors are instead terrorizing and persecuting and even killing those who disagree. Politics divides us and Christ-less religion separates us.”
Originally published in:
Letters to My Friends
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Reflections Along the Jesus Way
April 16, 2023 - Quote for the Day:
“The resurrection of Jesus is the spiritual birthplace of grace and faith. The resurrection of Jesus announces and pronounces the end of religion, and the beginning of grace… The resurrection of Jesus is more than a promise of our future resurrection – it is the promise of new life, a new creation – right now.
The resurrection of Jesus is the gateway of new life for the entire universe. The resurrection unleashes the incredible, staggering power of God whereby, as the first chapter of Colossians tells us, all things, things on earth and in heaven, things we see and things we don’t, are ...
Reflections Along the Jesus Way
April 13, 2023 - Quote for the Day:
“Author C.S. Lewis tells a story about a young boy’s first encounter with a pastoral religious authority. At first, the pastor seems to be a warm, engaging personality – initially their discussion centers around fishing and bicycles. But then, without warning, the pastor takes a terrifying mask with a long white beard off the wall of his office. The pastor puts the mask on his face and tells the young boy, named John, he is now going to talk with him about God. He then assured John that God is very kind, but if John doesn’t obey all the rules God will shut him up forever in a ...
Reflections Along the Jesus Way
April 11, 2023 - Quote for the Day:
“Grace is like streams and rivers filled and nourished by the rain. Life-giving rain is given to those whose lives seem to deserve it and to those who do not (Matthew 5:45). The rain (and reign) of God’s grace resists attempts to collect, own and dispense it by those who live in high places of religious pride and announce themselves as God’s representatives.”
Originally published in:
Wonders of His Grace
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Reflections Along the Jesus Way
April 9, 2023 - Quote for the Day:
“The kingdom of Rome, spurred on by the kingdom of the Jewish religious culture, joined forces to get rid of him – through torture, humiliation and publicly shaming him before they finished him off (or so they thought) by mercilessly crucifying him. He responded by accepting and receiving their (and our own) vengeance and hostility. He soaked it in. He absorbed and assimilated all human hostility and hatred … and he forgave it. For Jesus the end of violence is not more violence. The end of violence is love.”
Originally published in:
Beautiful Sayings – Beatitudes of Grace
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