Quotes About Transformation

No one who meets Jesus ever stays the same.

It was not pastoral teaching, or small group fellowship, or worship services, or books of theology — rather, they mentioned suffering. "People said they grew more during seasons of loss, pain, and crisis than they did at any other time." We discover the hidden value of suffering only by suffering — not as part of God's original or ultimate plan for us, but as a redemptive transformation that takes place in the midst of trial.

The essence of Christian faith has come to us in story form, the story of a God who will go to any lengths to get his family back. The Bible tells of flawed people -- people just like me -- who make shockingly bad choices and yet still find themselves pursued by God. As they receive grace and forgiveness, naturally they want to give it to others, and a thread of hope and transformation weaves its way throughout the Bible's accounts.

Health and life, I would say, in the full and final sense of those words, are not what we die out of, but what we die into

Dependence, sorrow, repentance, a longing to change—these are the gates to God's kingdom.

Does prayer change God or change me?

Change came from below, as it usually does, rather than being imposed from above.

The redemptive way goes through pain, not around it.

Be careful," warned Nietzsche, "lest in fighting the dragon you become the dragon.

27The man asked him, "What is your name?" "Jacob," he answered. 28Then the man said, "Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel,[149] because you have struggled with God and with humans and have overcome." 29Jacob said, "Please tell me your name." But he replied, "Why do you ask my name?" Then he blessed him there.

Be careful," warned Nietzsche, "lest in fighting the dragon you become the dragon." I

I'm simply amazed at how God worked in response to my prayers. I see a softening in my niece's husband, an agnostic. I see transformation in the members of my small group, and spiritual awakenings in my neighbors. I see growth in my own marriage.

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.

The gospel transforms culture by permeating it like yeast, and long after the people abandon belief they tend to live by habits of the soul. Once salted and yeasted, society is difficult to un-salt and un-yeast.

La resistencia no es solo la capacidad para soportar algo difícil, sino también la capacidad para convertirlo en algo glorioso».

Breaking the cycle of ungrace means taking the initiative.

Jesus did not identify the person with his sin, but rather saw in this sin something alien, something that really did not belong to him, something that merely chained and mastered him and from which he would free him and bring him back to his real self.

C. S. Lewis once said that God sometimes shows grace by drawing us to himself while we kick and scream and pummel him with our fists. That is my story.

He transforms pain, using it to teach and strengthen us, if we allow it to turn us toward him.

Unlike the scary movies and sermons from my youth, not one of them focuses on personal salvation as a way of escaping hell in the afterlife. Rather, they present how the good news about eternity should transform this life. The Christian sees the world as a transitional home badly in need of rehab, and we are active agents in that project.

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

Jesus' prayer for Peter shows the same pattern in sharp relief. Satan partially got his way with Peter, sifting him like wheat. But in answer to Jesus' prayer, the sifting rid Peter of his least attractive qualities: blustery self-confidence, a chip on his shoulder, a propensity to violence.

about the key to something many Christ-followers often talk and pray about: genuine revival.

A lo largo de toda la Biblia, en especial en los libros de los profetas, vemos a Dios debatirse en un conflicto interno. Por una parte, amaba apasionadamente a las personas que había creado; por otra, sentía el terrible impulso de destruir al Mal que la esclavizaba. En la cruz, Dios resolvió ese conflicto interno, porque en ella su Hijo absorbió la fuerza destructiva para transformarla en amor. Citas