247 results for tag: Quote for today
Reflections Along the Jesus Way
April 24, 2024 - Quote for the Day:
“The cross of Christ was God saying ‘I love you’ when humanity at large said, ‘I hate you and I am going to kill you.’ Jesus didn’t demand that we sign a contract before he gave his life – he did what he did out of love without any guarantee that we humans would respond favorably, and love him back. That’s part of the freedom of God’s love – the grace of God exhibited and demonstrated in his love. God does not force us to do anything – for if force is involved, then by definition, it is not love…
God’s love is profound because he refuses to use force or intimidation ...
Reflections Along the Jesus Way
April 23, 2024 - Quote for the Day:
“God’s grace and his love are intertwined – joined at the hip. You can’t have one without the other. God is love. He doesn’t just have love – love is what God is.
God’s grace delivers and expresses his love. God’s grace, like his love, has no limits or boundaries. Grace defies logic and even offends our sense of fair play. The implications of grace are staggering – scandalous – outrageous.
Christ-less religion has erected its institutions, cathedrals, mosques, synagogues, temples and churches. Christ-less religion has its treasured icons of rituals, customs and ceremonies. ...
Reflections Along the Jesus Way
April 20, 2024 - Quote for the Day:
“God is not just ‘out there’ somewhere – he came to be one of us, to be with us, and for that matter, he’s still here with us. Of course, he is also ‘out there’ – but not at the exclusion of being right here with you and me, right now. By virtue of being God, he is everywhere at once.
How Big Is God? Big enough to hear every prayer that is said. Big enough to be in every hospital room and on every battlefield. He’s in every ghetto and slum where children cry and mothers despair.”
Originally published in:
Spiritual Soup for the Hungry Soul, Volume 2
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Reflections Along the Jesus Way
April 18, 2024 - Quote for the Day:
“Some will say God’s honor and perfection and holiness had been so offended that something had to be done – his good name had been muddled and sullied by humans so that his reputation demanded redemption. But again, that’s not love. That’s retribution – that’s God getting his pound of flesh. That idea of the cross is Jesus getting what we deserved because the Father demanded revenge.”
Originally published in:
Christianity Without the Religion magazine, February 2017
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Reflections Along the Jesus Way
April 16, 2024 - Quote for the Day:
“Christ-less religion is singularly focused on its own growth and its own desire to perpetuate its own institutional legacy, often completely missing the unifying, powerful message of the cross of Christ. Christ-less religion obsesses about wafers or crackers, leavened or unleavened, wine or grape juice, the physical authority performing baptism and how much water must be used – so preoccupied with its dogmas, processions and its holy days that it forgets the holy ground at the foot of the cross of Christ.”
Originally published in:
Letters to My Friends
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Reflections Along the Jesus Way
April 13, 2024 - Quote for the Day:
“…the penal substitutionary theory of the cross Christ introduces some questions:
The cross of Christ was violent. The penal substitutionary theory (taught in the majority of churches) explains that the violence unleased at the cross of Christ was the pouring out of God’s wrath on Jesus, instead of us. Jesus took our place and substituted for us.
First question or problem: The penal substitutionary theory pits God the Father against God the Son – a bad cop against a good cop, if you like. But many Scriptures affirm that the One God is Father, Son and ...
Reflections Along the Jesus Way
April 11, 2024 - Quote for the Day:
“The word hidden makes us think of fascinating images, like hidden treasures, hidden bank accounts, hidden secret compartments, hidden cameras, hidden assets, etc. The word, used as an adjective, piques our interest and curiosity.
The resurrection of our Lord begins with this whole idea of being hidden. His body had been hidden away in a tomb, concealed with a boulder. When some of his followers came to the tomb, they found the stone rolled away (Matthew 28:2 says there had been a violent earthquake) and Jesus’ body was gone. The gospel of John says that Mary Magdalene visited his ...
Reflections Along the Jesus Way
April 9, 2024 - Quote for the Day:
“… instead of thinking of what God was doing on the cross as his way of satisfying his law and justice, we need to realize that Jesus was healing us. Indeed, we are told we are healed by his stripes. Jesus was taking our wrath, taking our evil, and transforming it, by grace, into the love of God. The cross of Christ says ‘No to Wrath and Yes to Love!’ It is the way out of the human dilemma of violence, hatred and warfare – the ever-escalating, unending cycle of retributive violence when we seek justice by repaying an eye-for-an-eye and a tooth-for-a-tooth.
Truly, repaying an eye-for-an-eye ...
Reflections Along the Jesus Way
April 6, 2024 - Quote for the Day:
But if Jesus is alive – if he really did rise from the dead – then death is no longer predictable, and if death isn’t predictable, what is? What other assumptions about our life will we need to re-examine?
And if Jesus is alive, then it means he is out there somewhere – for that matter, it means he is right here, right now.
If Jesus is alive, then that means he can get up close and personal – and meet us exactly where we are.
If Jesus is alive, then he is not far off somewhere.
If Jesus is alive, then it means we can’t control him.
If Jesus is alive, then it means that as ...
Reflections Along the Jesus Way
April 4, 2024 - Quote for the Day:
“The cross of Christ stands eternally as the symbol of the love and grace of God, when Jesus willingly accepted, absorbed and assimilated the hatred and violence poured out on him.”
Originally published in:
Letters to My Friends
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Reflections Along the Jesus Way
April 2, 2024 - Quote for the Day:
“It wasn’t long after the Cross of Christ, and his victorious resurrection that man-made religion started to put its own unique twist on God’s availability. In effect, religion started to teach that we could have an appointment with God, but we would have to call his secretary, which conveniently enough, was a job institutionalized religion appropriated to itself. Not long after the earth-shaking events of the birth, life, death and resurrection of our Lord, which flung open the doors of God’s heaven, religion appointed itself as a gatekeeper.
‘Well sure, God wants to see you,’ ...
Reflections Along the Jesus Way
March 31, 2024 - Quote for the Day:
“Why Did Jesus Die?
He was put to death by religious and political leaders because he opposed the politics and the accepted traditions and culture of religion of his day.
Jesus was rejected by human government and human religion then – as he still is today!
He was despised and rejected of men – because he offered God’s love and God’s grace. As strange as it might seem, humanity cannot abide God’s love (Romans 8:7). Humanity wants to go its own way, serving its own masters, customs and traditions. People are violently opposed to God giving something they are naturally inclined to ...
Reflections Along the Jesus Way
March 28, 2024 - Quote for the Day:
“When we talk about God’s love, we inevitably will find ourselves at the cross of Christ – the greatest singular demonstration of the love of God – when God, in Christ, responded to the hostility and anger of humanity toward Jesus with God’s love.
Many within Christendom, regardless of their denomination, misunderstand the cross of Christ and what actually happened. They have been taught that God the Father was so upset with humanity and our sin that he told Jesus that he would have to come down (from his upstairs bedroom?) here (to the kitchen where we have made a big mess) so that the ...
Reflections Along the Jesus Way
March 26, 2024 - Quote for the Day:
“When we wonder if God knows and cares – when we lose someone we love, when we endure a horrible illness or disease, when people betray us, when we are made fun of and mocked, when we are despised, when we suffer the indignation of poverty – the crib and the cross of Jesus tell us that he knows and cares. The crib and the cross tell us that he not only knows in an academic or cerebral sense, he knows in a participatory and experiential way. He’s here with us.
Jesus knows what it’s like to be homeless – he never had that little cottage with a white picket fence and rose bushes. The cross of ...
Reflections Along the Jesus Way
March 24, 2024 - Quote for the Day:
“We might describe Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem as a satirical parade, on a grand scale. Jesus riding a donkey is but one paradox of the kingdom of heaven where things of God are not as they seem to human eyes and perceptions…
When King Jesus rode into town his purpose was not to overwhelm, conquer and kill those who opposed him. He rode into town to be killed by those who hated and opposed him. King Jesus was no John Wayne, Clint Eastwood or Denzel Washington.”
Originally published in:
Christianity Without the Religion magazine, April 2021
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Reflections Along the Jesus Way
March 21, 2024 - Quote for the Day:
“Our God is a God of loving embrace, not a stern, harsh executioner whose wrath can only be satisfied through the death of his son…
There is no doubt that we have all left havoc in our wake. Guilt and shame exist in all of our lives. We do need to be reconciled with God, but not because our sins have driven him to the point of complete exhaustion.
God didn’t lose his temper because we failed to make the grade. The Cross of Christ was the plan from the foundation of the world, according to Revelation 13:8. God was not caught off guard by Adam and Eve – or, for that matter, by you and me. The ...
Reflections Along the Jesus Way
March 19, 2024 - Quote for the Day:
“The Cross of Christ is not an act of God that balances the books – the Cross of Christ is about forgiveness, not payback.”
Originally published in:
Christianity Without the Religion magazine, June 2022
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Reflections Along the Jesus Way
March 17, 2024 - Quote for the Day:
“Prayer is both vertical and horizontal. Part of prayer is about our relationship with God, so it’s vertical. But in the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus also has us pray about other people, so there’s a horizontal dimension as well. In the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus teaches us that our relationship with God empowers us, so that God’s work will be displayed in our lives.
Because we have been forgiven by God, and because we have received that forgiveness, we will also be enabled to pass that forgiveness on to others. There is no horizontal forgiveness unless and until there is vertical forgive...
Reflections Along the Jesus Way
March 14, 2024 - Quote for the Day:
“While there is no doubt that the Second Coming is a prominent feature of the Book of Revelation, it is not the theme. The theme is not primarily about future fulfillments of prophecy. Instead, the Book of Revelation is centered in the past as well as the present. The past watershed event is the cross of Christ, with the present reality being the Risen Lord who is ever alive and ever present with Christians who encounter the real problems of life in the flesh.
Apocalyptic writing is filled with images of violence and war, with woes, with judgment and battles occupying much of its message. ...
Reflections Along the Jesus Way
March 12, 2024 - Quote for the Day:
“One of my favorite stories concerns a student who asked a seminary professor, ‘When were you saved, Professor?’ The young student, like so many Christians, believed it was important for Christians to pinpoint a time when they believe God saved them, and consequently to tell others of their testimony. That may be a biblically valid assumption. However, many other Christians believe that since we become more like Christ the longer he lives within us, the exact time of our conversion is immaterial. So, the professor asked the young man, ‘When was I saved? Well, I should think my salvation was won ...
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