Quotes About Faith

My people are crumbling and dying and starving, and you're blessing blessed people and serving the saved.

If people around me aren't moved by my Christ or my church, then I must be doing a miserable job of representing them both.

It's not magic; it's hard work by vested people who share a vision for God's kingdom in their city. An influential church is nothing more than a bunch of believers who get in the game and live on mission.

If the kingdom of God belongs to the poor, the bottom dwellers, then rich American Christians are going to have the hardest time finding it.

There is no time limit, no statute of limitations. Sharing our lives with dear people to win them to Jesus is the substance of Christianity, the delightful work we've been commissioned to.

Serving people is not heaven's requirement, only a response to heaven's mercy.

What makes the gospel good news isn't the concept, but the real-life person who has been changed by it.[90]

The kingdom advances in our small neighborhoods and small acts of love and small moments of faithfulness and small feats of courage. It is not encapsulated in programs and top-down structures but activated through the body of Christ daring to be faithful everywhere we've been planted.

If we took Jesus' famous teachings away and just focused on the way He lived, He would still be radical.

It's about building bridges with those who won't come to us on Sunday, not as a project but because Jesus loves them and told us to. It's a dangerous journey that requires honesty and vulnerability.

I prayed a one-line prayer simply because my Christian labor had failed me and I had no idea what else to do (and I strongly advise against this prayer unless you are quite ready for God to take you seriously and wreck your life): "God, raise up in me a holy passion.

This is my high calling: to live on mission as an adopted daughter of Jesus. If people around me aren't moved by my Christ or my church, then I must be doing a miserable job of representing them both.

For the first time in our lives, we weren't trying to create our own opportunities; we were simply trying to respond to the Spirit's leading.

prestige, and possessions are the three things that prevent us from recognizing and receiving the reign of God. . . .

living on mission where you've been sent will transform your faith journey.

Dreams do come true. If anyone's proof of that, it's me.

My grandmother always taught me, 'If you don't have a home, family, and church, you don't have anything.'

A promise is only as good as the person who makes it. The character of the promiser is what gives the promise its value. His promises are meant to ignite faith and expectation and desire, and then to point us to Him. His promises act to bind our hearts to His. His promises turn our eyes toward Him. When our hearts are occupied with who He is, it will not be hard to believe what He promises to do. The revelation of His person is the secret to trusting His promises.

Much time spent with God is the secret of all successful praying. Prayer which is felt as a mighty force is the mediate or immediate product of much time spent with God. Our short prayers owe their point and efficiency to the long ones that have preceded them. The short prevailing prayer cannot be prayed by one who has not prevailed with God in a mightier struggle of long continuance.

Prayer is not overcoming God's reluctance, but laying hold of God's willingness.

When you delight in the Lord He becomes the desire of your heart

The way I saw it, life wasn't always so clear cut as to call one thing a sin and another thing holy. Sometimes, you just had to give people enough space, time, and grace to find their way to safety. Despite whatever mistakes I had made in my own journey toward faith, I couldn't see how forcing the issue upon others did much to speed up the process. Still, it didn't seem to stop some folks from trying.

It doesn't take long to figure out that in the Christian subculture, the biggest criticism to throw at someone is to question their integrity as a believer.

I had done my best, and it wasn't good enough. I doubted, I pined, I prayed, and I was still me. I was a gay woman, inspired by Jesus in ways beyond my ability to communicate, who failed to live up to the expectations of all that a Christian was supposed to agree with, believe in, and reenact. I was certain I could no longer be the standard-bearer of an institutionalized religion, but I couldn't escape the fact that my faith seeped into my art.