Quotes About Responsibility

To confuse the potential for resisting (which God provided) with the responsibility for resisting (which is ours) is to court disaster in our pursuit of holiness.

Though the power for godly character comes from Christ, the responsibility for developing and displaying that character is ours.

But on the whole, we appear to be more concerned about the sins of society than we are the sins of the saints. In fact, we often indulge in what I call the "respectable" or "acceptable" sins without any sense of sin. Our

God's sovereignty does not negate our responsibility to pray, but rather makes it possible to pray with confidence.

Whether fellowship is perceived as participation or partnership, in either case it implies a responsibility to fulfill our function in the body. We usually don't think of fellowship in terms of fulfilling a responsibility, but that is because we have lost sight of the biblical meaning of fellowship. Fellowship is not just a social privilege to enjoy; it is more basically a responsibility to assume.

But this is what servant-hood within the fellowship of believers is all about: being alert to the little things that need to be done and then doing them.

we reduce God's control over our lives to a stop-and-go, in-and-out proposition.

God is sovereign over the nations. He is sovereign over the officials of our own government in all their actions as they affect us, directly or indirectly.

Fellowship is not just a social privilege to enjoy; it is more basically a responsibility to assume.

Andrew Murray wrote, "In creating man with a free will and making him a partner in the rule of the earth, God limited himself. He made himself dependent on what man would do. Man by his prayer would hold the measure of what God could do in blessing" (emphasis added).2

It's not enough to agree that we do tolerate at least some of them. Anyone except for the most self-righteous person will acknowledge that. "After all, no one is perfect," may be our attitude. But to honestly face those sins is another matter. For one thing, it is quite humbling. It also implies that we must do something about them. We can no longer continue to ignore them as we have in the past.

But when we complain about the weather, we are actually complaining against God who sent us our weather.

when we complain about the weather, we are actually complaining against God

So while the Bible asserts both God's sovereignty and people's freedom and moral responsibility, it never attempts to explain their relationship.

The relationship of the sovereign will of God to the freedom and moral responsibility of people is one of those mysteries.

The second truth we must keep in mind is that God is never the author of sin.

The third truth to keep before us is that the Bible consistently portrays people as making real choices of their own will.

First, we should never use the doctrine as an excuse for our own shortcomings.

The Bible teaches both the sovereignty of God and the free moral choices of men with equal emphasis.

considered by itself, should never be used to promote passivity.

Third, we must never use the doctrine of God's sovereignty to excuse our own sinful actions or decisions that hurt another person.

In the West, especially, we don't often consciously feel the actions of government impacting our lives from day to day.

Just as we saw in chapter 4 that God is sovereign in the hearts of individuals, whose decisions and actions affect us, so God is also sovereign in the decisions and actions of government as they affect

Historically, God has not spared the righteous when He judges a nation (though He is well able to do so if He chooses, see Exodus 9:5-7).