Timothy Keller Quotes

Suffering dispels the illusion that we have the strength and competence to rule our own lives and save ourselves.

What the heart most wants, the mind finds reasonable, the will finds doable, and the emotions find desirable.

Prayer is a recognition of the greatness of our God.

Prayer is awe before an infinite force, and yet it's intimacy with a personal friend.

The most liberating act of free, unconditional grace demands that the recipient give up control of his or her life.

Whatever you base your life on--you have to live up to that. Jesus is the one Lord you can live for who already died for you.

If God is real, why does he align perfectly with our views? We should expect God to challenge us on what we think is right somewhere

If we pick out which parts of the Bible we dislike, we actually have a god we've created. How can that god ever call you out on anything?

It’s a mistake to think that you must feel love to give it.

When the world sees us doing evangelism, they just see us recruiting. When they see us doing justice, they see God's glory.

A triune God would call us to converse with him . . . because he wants to share the joy he has. Prayer is our way of entering into the happiness of God himself.

All Christians have opportunities to serve those who might never come to church or listen to a sermon.

Faith is not opposed to reason, but it is sometimes opposed to feelings and appearances.

So live in the light of the resurrection and renewal of this world, and of yourself, in a glorious, never-ending, joyful dance of grace.

Christmas means Jesus came down and got involved in suffering. He hears your cries.

The gospel is an exclusive truth but it's the most inclusive exclusive truth in the world.

If God wiped out all sources of evil in the world we would no longer be here, the evil is inside us.

I am God and I am coming to find you.

True citizens of the heavenly city are the best residents of the earthly city.

Prayer is awe, intimacy, struggle-yet, the way to reality.

One of the biggest obstacles in the way of people coming to Christianity is that they think they know about it already.

A Christian is somebody whose eyes have been opened, who admits that Jesus is not what you expected, but he’s what you need.

Jesus is not asking us to do anything for him that he hasn’t already done for us, under conditions of difficulty beyond our comprehension.

You cannot have Jesus' rescue without accepting His rule.

By praying with friends, you will be able to hear and see facets of Jesus that you have not yet perceived.

Proper wedding vows are more a promise of mutually binding future love than a declaration of your present love.

We must not settle for an informed mind without an engaged heart.

The story of Jesus changes our lives because it is true.

Every religion has a prophet who is pointing people to God. Jesus is the only one who says, 'I am God, and I am coming to find you.'

Tolerance is not the absence of belief. Tolerance is how your beliefs teach you to treat other people

To fail to pray, then, is not to merely break some religious rule- it is a failure to treat God as God.

When people say, "God is love," I think they mean that love is extremely important, or that God really wants us to love. But in Christian conception, God really has love as his essence.

Nobody who understands the free grace of God takes sin lightly.

In a smaller church your pastoring sets up your preaching. In a larger church your preaching sets up your pastoring.

The Christian faith gives us a new conception of work as the means by which God loves and cares for his world through us.

The main problem in the Christian life is that we have not thought out the deep implications of the gospel, we have not 'used' the gospel in and on all parts of our life.

All I know is, if I don't care about the poor, if my church doesn't care about the poor, that's evil.

Christmas is an invitation by God to say: Look what I've done to come near to you. Now draw near to me...I want to be a friend.

A god of less wrath than the God of the Bible is necessarily a god of less love. His anger is a product of his love.

Our prayers should arise out of immersion in the Scripture. [We] speak only to the degree we are spoken to.

The gospel is not just the “ABCs” but the “A-to-Z” of the Christian life.

I am accepted by God through the work of Jesus Christ - therefore I obey

The goal of prayer is not just the sharing of our ideas, but also of ourselves.

If God exists then every good endeavor, even the simplest ones, pursued in response to God's calling can matter forever.

The primary means-of-reviva l that everyone agrees upon is extraordinary prayer.

Holiness gives us new desires and brings old desires into line with one another.

It takes more than a great church to reach a city, it takes a great movement of churches.

If his suffering did not make Jesus give up on us, nothing will.

If you need something in addition to God to make you happy, that is your true King.

Religion says, 'I obey; therefore I am accepted.' Christianity says, 'I'm accepted, therefore I obey.