Quotes About Sacrifice

The revolution of the cross sets us free to be the royal priesthood, and the only thing stopping us is our lack of vision and our failure to realize that this was why the Messiah died in the first place.

The Christians would stay and nurse people. Sometimes they caught the disease and died. People were astonished. What was that about? Oh, they replied, we are followers of this man Jesus. He put his life on the line to save us. So that's what we do as well.

will be painful. That is part of the point, not that we seek the pain, but that we seek to follow Jesus.

So what if it were true after all? What if the Creator, all along, had made the world out of overflowing, generous love, so that the overflowing, self-sacrificial love of the Son going to the cross was indeed the accurate and precise self-expression of the love of God for a world radically out of joint?

enjoined on all Jesus followers—takes place in the context of the initial victory won on the cross.

the victory of the cross will be implemented through the means of the cross.

Suffering and dying is the way by which the world is changed. This is how the revolution continues.

The crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth was a one-off event, the one on behalf of the many, the one moment in history on behalf of all others through which sins would be forgiven, the powers robbed of their power, and humans redeemed to take their place as worshippers and stewards, celebrating the powerful victory of God in his Messiah and so gaining the Spirit's power to make his kingdom effective in the world.

The New Testament insists, in book after book, that when Jesus of Nazareth died on the cross, something happened as a result of which the world is a different place. And the early Christians insisted that when people are caught up in the meaning of the cross, they become part of this difference.

When we learn to read the story of Jesus and see it as the story of the love of God, doing for us what we could not do for ourselves--that insight produces, again and again, a sense of astonished gratitude which is very near the heart of authentic Christian experience.

If you desire ease, forsake learning.

On the journey towards the beloved, you live by dying at every step.

There are times in this life when a person must do or say things he doesn't want to. Human beings and chains, it is the oldest acquaintanceship in the world.

All those who love know exactly the limit they're prepared to go to. They know exactly what is required.

There is no moral authority like that of sacrifice.

Loving my Poet as I do, though, I try hard to understand what a poet is. The first clue lies in the fact that my Poet—every poet—is an insomniac. My own reads or wanders about our apartment for the best part of most nights. She told me she often feels she would give up every poem she's ever written for one good night's sleep.

Leadership is the absence of self interest

Be gentle with him, Mercy. He's got a heart as big as Texas— he'll die for you without blinking. But he doesn't expect anyone to do the same for him.

I have something for you." "Yeah? What? Is it shiny?" They both waited until Indigo had jogged away before resuming their conversation. "So," Riley asked, "what have you got for me?" Taking his hand, she placed it palm-down over her heart. It would hurt like a bitch, she thought, but he was hers to protect as much as she was his. "Me." And she opened up her soul, laid herself bare.

Love is the greatest form of loyalty, one that places happiness of the beloved over the lover.

Of course you may go first. When I am dead.

Brenna was fixing some kind of a small computronic device when he found her in her quarters. "Judd," she said, putting down her tools. "You can't be here. The dissonance—" He interrupted her panicked words. "I need to ask you something important." "What could be more important than your life?" She sounded close to tears. "Your life. If you die, I don't know if I'd stay sane." A simple truth.

He would do things for he'd do for no one else, but while he'd empty the sky for her so she could spread her wings, fly, he would not set her free. She belonged to him, would always belong to him

All right." Shimmering droplets on her eyelashes, stars caught in transition. "But will you replace it with something for me?" "Anything." His body was hers. Brushing her fingers over his lips, she said, "You gave me an eagle. I want to give you one, too." A tender kiss pressed to the scar. "I want us to fly together.