Quotes About Sincerity

The noonday devil of the Christian life is the temptation to lose the inner self while preserving the shell of edifying behavior. Suddenly I discover that I am ministering to AIDS victims to enhance my resume. I find I renounced ice cream for Lent to lose five excess pounds... I have fallen victim to what T.S. Eliot calls the greatest sin: to do the right thing for the wrong reason.

On the last day, Jesus will look us over not for medals, diplomas, or honors, but for scars.

Our huffing and puffing to impress God, our scrambling for brownie points, our thrashing about trying to fix ourselves while hiding our pettiness and wallowing in guilt are nauseating to God and are a flat denial of the gospel of grace. Our approach to the Christian life is as absurd as the enthusiastic young man who had just received his plumber's license and was taken to see Niagara Falls. He studied it for a minute and then said, "I think I can fix this."2

it is better to live naked in truth than clothed in fantasy.

Biblically, tenderness is what follows when someone reveals to you your own inner beauty, when you discover your belovedness, when you experience that you are deeply and sincerely liked by someone.

The kingdom belongs to people who aren't trying to look good or impress anybody, even themselves. They are not plotting how they can call attention to themselves, worrying about how their actions will be interpreted or wondering if they will get gold stars for their behavior.

The spirit of Caiaphas lives on in every century of religious bureaucrats who confidently condemn good people who have broken bad religious laws. Always for a good reason of course: for the good of the temple, for the good of the church. How many sincere people have been banished from the Christian community by religious power brokers as numb in spirit as Caiaphas!

Cultic worship is not only hypocritical but absolutely meaningless if it is not accompanied by love for other people; for in such a way it cannot possibly be a way of giving thanks to God.

When the imitation of Christ does not mean to live a life like Christ, but to live your life as authentically as Christ lived his, then there are many ways and forms in which a man can be a Christian."[2]

Henri Nouwen said, "When the imitation of Christ does not mean to live a life like Christ, but to live your life as authentically as Christ lived his, then there are many ways and forms in which a man can be a Christian.

The cardinal rule in prayer remains the dictum of Don Chapman: "Pray as you can; don't pray as you can't.

Words, like anything else used too often, soon depreciate in value, lose their edge, and cease to bite into our lives. When phrases, such as unconditional love, trip too easily off the tongue, the speaker's ego may experience a temporary rush of exhilaration using an in salvation slogan, but his heart remains unchanged.

There is a beautiful transparency to honest disciples who never wear a false face and do not pretend to be anything but who they are.

Do the truth quietly without display.

God knows I never sought anything in you except yourself. I wanted simply you, nothing of yours.

The truth lies in poverty and simplicity.

Often you will catch yourself wanting to receive your loving God by putting on a semblance of beauty, by holding back everything dirty and spoiled, by clearing just a little path that looks proper. But that is a fearful response—forced and artificial. Such a response exhausts you and turns your prayer into torment.

Healing encounters and deep communion with others come about from persons who have experienced at least a taste of love offering love to another, without manipulation or subtle games.

Say what you have to say, not what you ought. Any truth is better than make-believe.

Be resolutely and faithfully what you are; be humbly what you aspire to be.

Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth. I sat at a table where were rich food and wine in abundance, an obsequious attendance, but sincerity and truth were not; and I went away hungry from the inhospitable board. The hospitality was as cold as the ices.

So thoroughly and sincerely are we compelled to live, reverencing our life, and denying the possibility of change. This is the only way, we say; but there are as many ways as there can be drawn radii from one centre.

Did ever a man try heroism, magnanimity, truth, sincerity, and find that there was no advantage in them? that it was a vain endeavor?

The only way to speak the truth is to speak lovingly.