Quotes About Power

El hecho de que el amor no opera bajo las reglas del poder ayudaría a explicar por qué a veces parece como si Dios sintiera timidez en cuanto a utilizar su propio poder.

God does not seek the people most outwardly capable, nor the most naturally "good." He works with the most unlikely material so that everyone can see the glory is his and his alone.

It is difficult, if not impossible, to communicate the message of grace from the corridors of power.

God has entrusted flawed human beings with a message so powerful that it sometimes does its work in spite of us.

Our society arbitrarily defines health as the capacity for work and the capacity for enjoyment, but "true health is something quite different. True health is the strength to live, the strength to suffer, and the strength to die. Health is not a condition of my body; it is the power of my soul to cope with the varying condition of that body.

Grace has its own power, even in international politics.

The church has allowed itself to get so swept up in political issues that it plays by the rules of adversarial power. In no other arena is the church at greater risk of losing its calling than in the public square. Somehow the paramount command to love—even to love our enemies—gets lost.

Forgiveness has its own extraordinary power which reaches beyond law and beyond justice.

Justice has a good and righteous and rational kind of power. The power of grace is different: unworldly, transforming, supernatural.

Grace is Christianity's best gift to the world, a spiritual nova in our midst exerting a force stronger than vengeance, stronger than racism, stronger than hate.

The church works best as a force of resistance, a counterbalance to the consuming power of the state.

Not even God, with all his power, can force a human being to love.

25He jammed[27] the wheels of their chariots so that they had difficulty driving. And the Egyptians said, "Let's get away from the Israelites! The LORD is fighting for them against Egypt.

A church that lives by power dies by power.

Según el rabino Kushner, Dios se siente tan frustrado, incluso tan indignado con la injusticia de este planeta como cualquier otro, pero carece del poder necesario para cambiar las cosas. Millones de lectores han encontrado consuelo en la descripción que hace Kushner de un Dios que parece compasivo, aunque sea débil.

The message of this book has the power to reform the church, one relationship at a time.

see the confusion of politics and religion as one of the greatest barriers to grace. C. S. Lewis once said that almost all crimes of Christian history have come about when religion is confused with politics. Politics, which always runs by the rules of ungrace, allures us to trade away grace for power, a temptation the church has often been unable to resist.

A similar cycle has recurred throughout church history. Christians present an attractive counterculture until they become the dominant culture. Then they divert from their mission, join the power structure, and in the process turn society against them. Rejected, they retreat into a minority subculture, only to start the cycle all over again.

The gospel of grace begins and ends with forgiveness. And people write songs with titles like "Amazing Grace" for one reason: grace is the only force in the universe powerful enough to break the chains that enslave generations. Grace alone melts ungrace.

Según Abraham Heschel, la sociedad antigua apreciaba tres cosas por encima de todo: la sabiduría, la salud y el poder. (¿Ha cambiado algo desde entonces?) Los profetas hebreos atacaban esos tres valores, porque cualquiera de ellos podía convertirse en ídolo.

Rather than looking back nostalgically on a time when Christians wielded more power, I suggest another approach: that we regard ourselves as subversives operating within the broader culture.

Legalism may "work" in an institution such as a Bible college or the Marine Corps. In a world of ungrace, structured shame has considerable power. But there is a cost, an incalculable cost: ungrace does not work in a relationship with God. I have come to see legalism in its pursuit of false purity as an elaborate scheme of grace avoidance. You can know the law by heart without knowing the heart of it

Aun cuando todo parezca fuera de control, Dios sigue dominando con toda firmeza

the gospel of Jesus was not primarily a political platform. In all the talk of voting blocs and culture wars, the message of grace—the main distinctive Christians have to offer—tends to fall aside. It is difficult, if not impossible, to communicate the message of grace from the corridors of power.