Quotes About Grace

I have no talents. But I do have hope. And wonder. And love. Maybe those are talents?

Many talk much, and indeed well, of what Christ has done for us: but how little is spoken of what he is to do in us! and yet all that he has done for us is in reference to what he is to do in us.

I grew up in a little Methodist church that was very rural, very community support-oriented, made up of great people who talked about love and grace and the spiritual experience, but only in rhetorical terms.

Physical elegance, which is what I am talking about here, comes from the body. This is no superficial matter, but rather the way that man found to honour the way he places his two feet on the ground.

In the book of Colossians, it talks about that because of what Christ did, we are pure. We are without judgment on ourselves. And only through him can we do something like this.

Ballet is good, because it makes you stand up tall.

My legs are ice skaters' legs. No tan in sight.

In drawing after drawing, pastel after pastel, painting after painting, the contours of Degas's dancing figures become, at a certain point, darkly insistent, tangled and dusky. It may be around an elbow, a heel, an armpit, a calf muscle, the nape of a neck.

Freedom in the Gospel does not mean license. It means opportunity.

The purpose of the Disciplines is freedom. Our aim is the freedom, not the Discipline. The moment we make the Discipline our central focus we will turn it into law and lose the corresponding freedom....Let us forever center on Christ and view the Spiritual Disciplines as a way of drawing us closer to His heart.

God has given us the Disciplines of the spiritual life as a means of receiving his grace. The Disciplines allow us to place ourselves before God so that he can transform us.

People need the truth. It does them no good to remain ignorant. They need the freedom that comes through the grace of simplicity. And if we are to bring the whole counsel of God, we must give attention to these issues that enslave people so savagely.

But what I have come to see is that God is big enough to receive us with all our mixture. We do not have to be bright, or pure, or filled with faith, or anything. That is what grace means, and not only are we saved by grace, we live by it as well. And we pray by it.

When we despair of gaining inner transformation through human powers of will and determination, we are open to a wonderful new realization: inner righteousness is a gift from God to be graciously received. The needed change within us is God's work, not ours. The demand is for an inside job, and only God can work from the inside. We cannot attain or earn this righteousness of the kingdom of God; it is a grace that is given.

Lord, take as your right, and receive as my gift, all my freedom, my memory, my understanding and my will. Whatever I am and whatever I possess, you have given it to me; I restore it all to you again, to be at your disposal, according to your will. Give me only a love for you, and the gift of your grace; then I am rich enough, and ask for nothing more. —St. Ignatius of Loyola

Martin Luther declares that the life of the Christian should be one of daily repentance. Daily we confess, daily we repent, daily we "turn, turn, 'til we turn 'round right." The Prayer of Tears is the primary aid to our turning.

Cheap grace is grace without discipleship

we are not just saved by grace; we live by grace. And we pray by grace and fast by grace and study by grace and serve by grace and worship by grace.

The opposite of grace is works, but not effort.

God has given us the Disciplines of the spiritual life as a means of receiving his grace. The Disciplines allow us to place ourselves

God first acts in grace and mercy by delivering the people, and then the people respond in gratitude and thanksgiving by obeying the commandments. Put succinctly: the crossing of the Red Sea comes before the giving of the Ten Commandments. How

God invites us into a variety of Spiritual Disciplines, and we step into them as best we can. These actions place us before God as a living sacrifice. God, in turn, uses our actions to build within us deeply ingrained habit patterns of "righteous and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit" (Rom. 14:17). Back and forth, back and forth, in interactive relationship so that, through time and experience, we are learning to "grow in grace.

God-with-us" is the essence of deliverance regardless of the specific circumstance. As

God has given us the Disciplines of the spiritual life as a means of receiving his grace. The Disciplines allow us to place ourselves before God so that he can transform us. The