Quotes About Spirituality

We have generated a body of people who consume Christian services and think that that is Christian faith. Consumption of Christian services replaces obedience to Christ. And spirituality is one more thing to consume.

The best physical, chemical, and other scientific knowledge will not tell us what to do and who to be.

How to combine faith with obedience is surely the essential task of the church as it enters the twenty-first century.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in the first chapter of his wonderful book Life Together, has a discussion of how Christians never meet one-on-one; they always meet under the presence of Christ. That's the way we escape the dreadful habit that human beings have of sizing one another up. Does that identify anything that you are familiar with? It's one of the most dreadful things in human life, and only the love of Christ and the presence of the kingdom can bring us beyond it.

if we are not prepared to use our power of choice to turn our minds to God, then we do not have contact with God.

Union in action with the triune God is Christian spirituality. That is where the life is drawing its substance from God.

Why is it that we look upon our salvation as a moment that began our religious life instead of the daily life we receive from God?

Those who have attained considerable spiritual stature are frequently noted for their "childlikeness." What this really means is that they do not use their face and body to hide their spiritual reality. In their body they are genuinely present to those around them. That is a great spiritual attainment or gift.

Our mistake is to think that following Jesus consists in loving our enemies, going the "second mile," turning the other cheek, suffering patiently and hopefully—while living the rest of our lives just as everyone around us does.

And in this truth lies the secret of the easy yoke: the secret involves living as he lived in the entirety of his life—adopting his overall life-style. Following "in his steps" cannot be equated with behaving as he did when he was "on the spot." To live as Christ lived is to live as he did all his life.

He has made a way for us into easy and happy obedience—really, into personal fulfillment. And that way is apprenticeship to him. It is Christian "discipleship." His gospel is a gospel for life and Christian discipleship.

Whatever your situation, there is nothing more important on earth than to dwell in the knowledge of Christ and to bring that knowledge to others.

God seeks us. The basic nature of God is one of loving community.

The experience of a life without lack depends first and foremost upon the presence of God in our lives, because the source of this life is God himself.

No good tree produces bad fruit, nor any bad tree good fruit…. The good person, from the good treasured up in his heart, produces what is good. LUKE 6:43–45

Human initiative is not canceled by God redeeming us; it is heightened by immersion in the flow of God's life.

The material universe is both an essential display of the greatness and goodness of God and the arena of the eternal life of finite spirits, including the human.

Love is a gift from God, who is love. We can seek a gift and we can receive a gift, but we do not perform for a gift. So, when we read passages of Scripture like those above, we must remember that the call to us is not to do as much as it is to receive.

The spiritual side of the human being, Christian and non-Christian alike, develops into the reality that it becomes, for good or ill.

They spend their whole earthly existence trying to save, enhance, and enrich their lives. And what happens? They lose the most important things in their life: an intimate relationship with God and with others.

The Beatitudes simply cannot be "good news" if they are understood as a set of "how-tos" for achieving blessedness. They would then only amount to a new legalism. They would not serve to throw open the kingdom—anything but. They would impose a new brand of Phariseeism, a new way of closing the door—as well as some very gratifying new possibilities for the human engineering of righteousness.

A day shared with Jesus is a day of continuous conversation. We will learn to hear his voice.

You cannot drift into a life of constant companionship with Jesus

Christ is the only one capable of communicating to and developing within the believer an accurate image and idea of God.