Category: Quotes

Imagine yourself in a big city in a crowd of people. What it would be like to see all the people in the crowd like Jesus does–an anonymous crowd with old ones and young ones, fat ones and thin ones, attractive ones and ugly ones–think what it would be like to love them. If our faith is true, if there is a God, and if God loves, he loves each one of those. Try to see them as loved. And then try to see them, these faces, as loved by you. What would it be like to love these people, to love these faces–the lovable faces, the kind faces, gentle, compassionate faces? That’s not so hard. But there are lots of other faces–disagreeable faces, frightening fans, frightened faces, cruel faces, closed faces.

The Remarkable Ordinary by Frederick Buechner, p. 42

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The world in which I have grown up is a world so full of grades, scores, and statistics that, consciously or unconsciously, I always try to take my measure against all the others. Much sadness and gladness in my life flows directly from my comparing, and most, if not all, of this comparing is useless and a terrible waste of time and energy.

The Return of the Prodigal Son by Henri Nouwen, p. 103.

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You cannot read the Bible without hearing the loud message that God cares for the displaced, the downtrodden, the oppressed, the humble, the needy–in other words, those who know their lostness and who long to be found.

Philip Yancey, Vanishing Grace, p. 53.

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I can no longer condemn or hate a brother for whom I pray, no matter how much trouble he causes me. His face, that hitherto may have been strange and intolerable to me, is transformed in intercession into the countenance of a brother for whom Christ died, the face of a forgiven sinner. This is a happy discovery for the Christian who begins to pray for others. There is no dislike, no personal tension, no estrangement that cannot be overcome by intercessions as far as our side of it is concerned. Intercessory prayer is the purifying bath into which the individual and the fellowship must enter every day. The struggle we undergo with our brother in intercession may be a hard one, but that struggle has the promise that it will gain its goal.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer in Life Together, p. 86.

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Do not waste time bothering whether you love your neighbor; act as if you did. As soon as we do this we find one of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love him. If you injure someone you dislike, you will find yourself disliking him more. If you do him a good turn, you will find yourself disliking him less.

C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, p. 116.

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The glory with which Jesus was glorified and the glory for which Jesus prayed for us is quite different from the kinds of glory that we are conditioned to want and admire. This glory is not conspicuous. It is not glamorous. It is not the glory that gets featured in glossy magazines or travel posters. It is not a glory noticed by fashion editors. It is not a glory that flatters our lusts and egos.

When we look up the glory in Jesus we find–are we ever ready for this?–obscurity, rejection and humiliation, incomprehension and misapprehension, a sacrificial life and an obedient death: the bright presence of God backlighting what the world despises or ignores.

Eugene Peterson, Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places, p. 103

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