Jesus Quotes - Page 272

Give up your good 'Christian' life and follow Jesus

Every unfulfilled aspiration of humanity in the past; all partial representation of perfect character; all sacrifices, nay, even those of idolatry, point to the fulfillment of what want, the answer to every longing--the type of perfect humanity, the Lord Jesus Christ.

If a spiritual being is naive to the lower aspects of the world, they usually are killed or die young. Did Jesus really know which of the twelve would betray him? I doubt it.

Christianity is a marketable product. It has very little to do with Jesus Christ. I'm sure it has nothing to do with Jesus Christ at all - what the experience was like to be around the guy.

There are physical karmas that carry through death. Jesus Christ may no longer be with us but his effects continue on in the world. Those waves will be passed on from one person to another to another.

Like Buddha under the Bo tree, Jesus, on his tree, has his eyes closed too. The difference is this. The pain and sadness of the world that Buddha's eyes close out is the pain and sadness of the world that the eyes of Jesus close in.

Principles are what people have instead of God. To be a Christian means among other things to be willing if necessary to sacrifice even your highest principles for God's or your neighbour's sake the way a Christian pacifist must be willing to pick up a baseball bat if there's no other way to stop a man from savagely beating a child. Jesus didn't forgive his executioners on principle but because in some unimaginable way he was able to love them. 'Principle' is an even duller word than 'Religion'.

I suspect that Jesus spoke many of his parables as a kind of sad and holy joke and that that may be part of why he seemed reluctant to explain them because if you have to explain a joke, you might as well save your breath.

Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom, the good thief said from his cross (Luke 23:42). There are perhaps no more human words in all of Scripture, no prayer we can pray so well.

In the Christian sense, love is not primarily an emotion but an act of the will. When Jesus tells us to love our neighbors, he is not telling us to love them in the sense of responding to them with a cozy emotional feeling. You can as well produce a cozy emotional feeling as you can a cough or sneeze. On the contrary, he is telling us to love our neighbors in the sense of being willing to work for their well-being even if it means sacrificing our well-being to that end.

I explained we lost the porch to the flood. Father hasn't gotten around to rebuilding it, although he's quite a good carpenter. He says if Jesus was a carpenter, its good enough for a clergyman. But I don't remember that Jesus let his house fall down.

I just think the way (for instance) evangelicals talk about God or Jesus, as in "Jesus says" or "the Bible says" points up a lack of honesty.

Reality is not meant to be only creedal, though the creeds are important. Reality is to be experienced, and experienced on the basis of a restored relationship with God through that finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross.

Because I want to get a lot done, I can sometimes do that in the flesh. If I don't rest in the Lord, and enjoy him as I should, my action doesn't spring from my identity and enjoyment of Christ. When that happens, I end up getting the glory rather than Jesus.

One of my biggest fears - maybe my biggest weakness as a Christian - is that I have a hard time going up to a stranger and talking to them about Jesus.

This book is written for those who want more Jesus. It is for those who are bored with what American Christianity offers. It is for those who don't want to plateau, those who would rather die before their convictions do.

I confess to you guys, I confess to the church, I know I have backed away from certain things because of my arrogance. I thought I could attract more people to Jesus by hiding certain things about him.

We have control over our prayer life, our relationship with Jesus.

I could fill my whole time doing interviews, speaking to crowds, and there's this natural human tendency because of our culture to think that the more people I talk to, the bigger the impact I'll have, and yet Jesus didn't spend His time just speaking to the masses. He spent the bulk of his time with a small group of people.

God gave me the same power He gave Jesus. I ask myself daily, Why do I waste such a priceless gift?

There will be people who will teach for the sake of greed or for the sake of ego. So watch their lives. Do they look and act like Jesus?

Jesus' call to commitment is clear: He wants all or nothing.

You need a relationship with Jesus, and I had never heard that before. So when my mom told me about that, I said, "Okay, let me try this." And so I did.

Jesus was the only One that ever raised the dead," The Misfit continued, "and He shouldn't have done it. He shown everything off balance. If He did what He said, then it's nothing for you to do but throw away everything and follow Him, and if He didn't, then it's nothing for you to do but enjoy the few minutes you got left the best way you can by killing somebody or burning down his house or doing some other meanness to him. No pleasure but meanness," he said and his voice had become almost a snarl.

I'm going to preach there was no Fall because there was nothing to fall from, and no Redemption because there was no Fall, and no Judgment because there wasn't the first two. Nothing matters but that Jesus was a liar.