Philip Yancey Quotes

When I pray for another person, I am praying for God to open my eyes so that I can see that person as God does, and then enter into the stream of love that God already directs toward that person.

I have learned that faith means trusting in advance what will make sense only in reverse.

Yet as I read the birth stories about Jesus I cannot help but conclude that though the world may be tilted toward the rich and powerful, God is tilted toward the underdog.

Grace, like water, flows to the lowest part.

In a nutshell, the Bible from Genesis 3 to Revelation 22 tells the story of a God reckless with desire to get his family back.

The proof of spiritual maturity is not how pure you are but awareness of your impurity. That very awareness opens the door to grace.

Any discussion of how pain and suffering fit into God's scheme ultimately leads back to the cross.

No one ever converted to Christianity because they lost the argument.

In the stories of extravagant grace given to us by Jesus, there are no loopholes disqualifying us from God's love.

I doubt God keeps track of how many arguments we win; God may indeed keep track of how well we love.

I rejected the church for a time because I found so little grace there. I returned because I found grace nowhere else.

Christians get very angry toward other Christians who sin differently than they do.

The giants of the faith all had one thing in common: neither victory nor success, but passion.

Grace means that God already loves us as much as an infinite God can possibly love.

Jesus reserved his hardest words for the hidden sins of hypocrisy, pride, greed and legalism.

When I am tempted to complain about God's lack of presence, I remind myself that God has much more reason to complain about my lack of presence.

Doubt always coexists with faith, for in the presence of certainty who would need faith at all?

Prayer is not a means of removing the unknown and predictable elements in life, but rather a way of including the unknown and unpredictable in the outworking of the grace of God in our lives.

The problem of pain meets its match in the scandal of grace.

The Bible never belittles human disappointment ... but it does add one key word: temporary.

I go to church as an expression of my need for God and for God's family.

Whenever faith seems an entitlement, or a measuring rod, we cast our lots with the Pharisees and grace softly slips away.

For me, prayer is not so much me setting out a shopping list of requests for God to consider as it is a way of keeping company with God.

People who think they are free eventually end up slaves to their own desires, and those who give their freedom away to the only One you can trust with that freedom eventually get it back.

Prayer is to the skeptic a delusion, a waste of time. To the believer it represents perhaps the most important use of time.

At the heart of the gospel is a God who deliberately surrenders to the wild, irresistable power of love.

There is but one true Giver in the universe; all else are debtors.

The more we love, and the more unlikely people we love, the more we resemble God - who, after all, loves ornery creatures like us.

Whatever makes us feel superior to other people, whatever tempts us to convey a sense of superiority, that is the gravity of our sinful nature, not grace.

the promise of pleasures so alluring that we may devote our lives to their pursuit, and then the haunting realization that these pleasures ultimately do not satisfy.

Human beings do not readily admit desperation. When they do, the kingdom of heaven draws near

The surgery of life hurts. It helps me, though, to know that the surgeon himself, the Wounded Surgeon, has felt every stab of pain and every sorrow.

Jesus' response to suffering people and to "nobodies" provides a glimpse into the heart of God. God is not the unmoved Absolute, but rather the Loving One who draws near.

I would far rather convey grace than explain it.

Christian faith is... basically about love and being loved and reconciliation. These things are so important, they're foundational and they can transform individuals, families.

Be still. In that focus, all else comes into focus. In that rift in my routine, the universe falls into alignment.

... the core problem with Christians communicating faith: we do not always do so in love. That is an indispensable point to presenting faith in a grace-full way.

Imperfection is the prerequisite for grace. Light only gets in through the cracks.

Prayer is the act of seeing reality from God's point of view.

The deadening part of Bible study is when you think you've already got it all figured out.

Love deems this world worth rescuing.

We grow up hungry for love, and in ways so deep as to remain unexpressed we long for our Maker to love us.

Grace is the most perplexing, powerful force in the universe, and, I believe, the only hope for our twisted, violent planet.

Rather, God has commissioned us as agents of intervention in the midst of a hostile and broken world.

The world thirsts for grace. When grace descends, the world falls silent before it.

God loves people because of who God is, not because of who we are.

I have yet to find any support in the Bible for an attitude of smugness: Ah, they deserve their punishment; watch them squirm.

Grace is a free gift of God, but to receive a gift you must have open hands.

Prayer unfolds in the stillness of the soul.

Christ bears the wounds of the church, his body, just as he bore the wounds of crucifixion. I sometimes wonder which have hurt worse.