Quotes About God

Nor is there any valid reason to reject the idea of God or the notion of the sacred just because of the sickly expression Christianity has given to them, any more than it is necessary to break with aristocratic principles on the pretext that they have been caricatured by the bourgeoisie.

One can have a society without God," writes Régis Debray, "but there cannot be a society without religion." He adds, "Those nations on the way to disbelief are on the path to abdication." One can also cite Georges Bataille, according to whom, "religion, whose essence is the search for lost intimacy, boils down to a clearly conscious effort to become entirely self-conscious.

Maybe God is the ultimate bully who teases us with life, then pulls it out of reach. Maybe there's nothing I can do but let life curl up and disappear like an old photograph. Or maybe I can get it back. Maybe imagination gets it back. Perhaps play lets it breath again.

I read somewhere that some people believe that the entire universe is a matrix of living thought. And I said, "Man, if that's not a definition of God, I don't know what is."

But God, whatever else He is, and of course He is everything else, is not a fool.

You know, it's ironic to me that Christians want to keep the Ten Commandments in our schools, because Christianity has abrogated four of the Ten Commandments. For example, the Sabbath day according to the Ten Commandments is Saturday, not Sunday. And the reason is because God rested, not because Jesus was resurrected.

It is not the rights of women to occupy "official" ministerial roles, nor their equality to men in those roles, that set the terms of their service to God and their neighbors. It is their obligations that do so—obligations that derive from their human abilities empowered by divine gifting.

It is only when the people of God as a whole are activated in a movement that real world transformation takes place.

Christianity is concerned with the unfolding of the Kingdom of God in this world, not the longevity of organizations.

There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry, Mine!"19 If the world and everything in it belong to God and come under his direct claim over them in and through Jesus, then there can be no sphere of life that is not radically open to the rule of God. There can be no non-God area in our lives and in our culture.

the church (the ecclesia), when true to its real calling, when it is on about what God is on about, is by far and away the most potent force for transformational change the world has ever seen.

I've always regarded nature as the clothing of God.

I am aware of how often over the past year I have listened to sermons and religious leaders turn the biblical narratives into a useful handbook for making one's life work more successful. I'm aware of how this Oprahization of the Christian narrative has turned us ever more quickly into anxiety-laden, functional atheists needing ways to use God to make our lives work.

Over the past twenty-five years much has been written about the need for the church to change; however, if we are to hear what God might be doing in the massively shifting contexts in which we live, we must move beyond conversations about the church, about how to make it work, and about patterns for success. I find most of these conversations are really seeking to restore the church to some imagined place in culture.

What is God up to in our neighborhoods and communities? How do we join with what God is doing in these places? Church questions are a subset of these far more important questions.

The central statement of faith in Judaism is the Sh'ma, which reads: "Hear Israel, the Lord your God, the Lord is One." Only in silence is it possible to hear.

IF WORRY COMES to your heart, take it as a warning from God who loves you. Examine your deeds and take counsel with those whose advice you seek. When you have fulfilled God's will, trust God and your serenity will return. —RABBI MENACHEM MENDEL LEFFIN (1749–1826)

In Pirkei Avot4 we learn that "the world stands on three things: on the Torah, on the service of God, and upon acts of loving-kindness.

Being a servant of God means striving to align my will to that of the Master. I desire to unify my will with God's will within my own life and to delight in that unification. Rabbi Gamliel used to say: "Do His will as if it were your will that He may do your will as if it were His will.

A year spent in artificial intelligence is enough to make one believe in God.

The Bible NEVER flatters its heroes. It tells us the truth about each one of them in order that against the background of human breakdown and failure we may magnify the grace of God and recognize that it is the delight of the Spirit of God to work upon the platform of human impossibilities.

There is some task which the God of all the Universe, the Great Creator, your Redeemer in Jesus Christ has for you to do--and which will remain undone and incomplete until, by faith and obedience, you step into the will of God.

Let a man be right with God, reconciled through the blood of the cross, humbled at the foot of Calvary; let him be broken, coming to God guilty and hopeless and needy; and at that moment God takes hold of him and transforms and uses all his gifts and qualities, until that man becomes a mighty influence. But he has first to come down from his ladder of pride to the very foot of the cross.

When you are living by faith through the darkness of circumstances, other people become aware of the radiance and sweetness of your life, and they are truly blessed. When you refuse to admit your failure, God cannot be revealed through you to others, and they may be lost for eternity. Oh, the sin of unbelief has desperate consequences, not only for yourself, but for others!