GraceQuotes.com

GraceQuotes.com was set up in 2011 to proclaim the gospel of God’s love and grace as revealed in Jesus Christ. Two years later, and with more than 500 quotes published, this site has become an archive of grace gems from more than 60 authors, preachers, poets, as well as agitators, heretics and trouble-makers.

All of these quotes may be freely shared with proper attribution (eg: author’s name and book title). Use the tabs in the sidebar to explore these treasures.

From 1 January 2014, GraceQuotes will be moving over to Facebook. No new quotes will be added to this site. We are making this change in response to readers’ preferences. Already far more people follow GraceQuotes on FB than by email or Twitter.

In the coming year we plan to double the number of quotes published with new GraceQuotes uploaded every day. To ensure you don’t miss out on these tasty nuggets, head on over to Facebook and click “like” on the GraceQuotes page.

We’ll see you there!

But by far, the “open up the Heavens” slogan is one of the more popular mottos of unbelief today, accompanied by obligatory groans, pleas and mournful entreaties. It sounds like a romantic request indeed, but it is an accomplished one. Opening and closing the heavens is not an on again, off again affair. “Last week, when our worship leader hit that one chord on the guitar, the Heavens opened up!” Wow. All we needed was a guitarist I suppose! If Jimi Hendrix had come a little earlier, perhaps Jesus didn’t need to die after all? I don’t deny that you had a good service and that people felt the Glory. But in reality, the Glory of God was already there. You just became aware of it. God’s heavenly presence is not a fleeting, or gradually oncoming thing that is subject to the whim of the congregation’s mood. In fact, the Bible never even says that His Glory is a future-coming thing. It’s already here.

Some people think that one day His Glory – His manifest presence – will cover the Earth as the waters cover the seas. That’s a misquote of Habakkuk 2:14, which actually says that the “knowledge” of the Glory will one day cover the Earth… Instead, read Isaiah 6:3 which says that Heaven and Earth are right now full of His Glory. The Glory is here, but one day the whole Earth will be aware of it!… You will not live a consistent, daily life of open heavens reality if you can’t acknowledge that you are in perma-glory.

John Crowder

Mystical Union, Sons of Thunder, Loc: 2197

Now the question might arise: “Why would God not want us to confess our sins to Him? After all, we do make mistakes!” The answer is simple: Because walking around the whole day remembering all the bad things we have done will not bring us closer to God! Jesus already paid the full price so that we could have unbroken fellowship with the Father. This means that when we make a mistake, it does not break our fellowship or right standing with God. Jesus was forsaken by his Father on the cross so that we would never have to experience that!

Some may argue: “But I want to be genuine with God and talk to Him about all my mistakes.” Well if people believe they need to be “genuine” with God about their mistakes, then to be really genuine they should rather act in faith, because without faith it is impossible to please God (Hebrews 11:6). How much faith does it take to look at our mistakes and feel miserable about them? None. On the other hand, it takes faith to believe we are forgiven, loved, holy, perfect and righteous, even after we have just messed up…

There is however nothing wrong with confiding in our loving Father about our struggles. He understands us better than anybody else. But it’s all about our motives. When we mess up, do we run to Him feeling guilty and condemned like a murderer about to be condemned to retribution? Or do we ask Him for wisdom in overcoming the habits of our unrenewed minds, knowing we stand completely forgiven and holy in His sight?

Andre van der Merwe

Grace: The Forbidden Gospel, WestBow, 2011, 105.

When Paul talked about grace to the Galatians, he wasn’t talking about being born again to non-believers; he was talking to believers, people that were already born again. He said that they had started well in grace, but now they had come under the pressure of people that preached law, who said they had to be perfectly obedient in order to receive God’s blessings…

God’s blessings, healing and prosperity does not come through striving, through our own works of righteousness or through trying to live holy. It comes through being established in the gift of righteousness, the righteousness we first received as a gift when we came into Christ. We can never leave our foundation behind. The bigger we build the building, the more we have to strengthen the foundation, which is grace.

Andre van der Merwe

Grace: The Forbidden Gospel, WestBow, 2011, 99.

Question: If I don’t have a sinful nature, why do I still sin?  1. Maybe you’re an unbeliever. 2. Maybe no one ever told you any of this…

C.S. Lewis once said, “You are what you believe.” If you believe you are still a sinner, you will manifest sin. If you believe you are the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus, then you are going to manifest righteousness… Faith comes before the manifestation. Believe you’re a sinner; you’ll have sin. Believe you’re righteous; you’ll manifest righteousness. It is all a question of identity.

John Crowder

Mystical Union, Sons of Thunder, Loc: 662

In Jesus Christ, we are given access to the logic that flows out of the very being of God, and thus to the rhyme and reason that birthed the universe and set human existence on its way…

It has taken millennia for God to bring humanity up to speed on the eternal truth. The whole history of Israel, from Genesis to Malachi, constitutes the mere “beginning” of human education. It is at the end of the story, where God finally breaks through human wrongheadedness, that we have the true light by which we can and must interpret everything. Failure here is a failure to be authentically Christian, for it is a failure to take seriously the fact that in Jesus Christ we meet the everlasting truth about God which predates creation and all things.

C. Baxter Kruger

Jesus and the Undoing of Adam, Perichoresis, 2001, 31

Self-centeredness transforms our lives into a long and frantic attempt to save ourselves, to create legendary lives that will at least hint at wholeness. It produces a culture that looks like a disturbed ant bed, a culture that eventually leaves us worn out and sad and empty and headed for the nearest pub. All the while, an utterly glorious day—filled with staggering beauty and irrepressible joy—has been created for us by the overflowing philanthropy of the Triune God.

C. Baxter Kruger 

Jesus and the Undoing of Adam, Perichoresis, 2001, 38

Jesus went into the wilderness for you. You are not bound by good seasons and bad seasons. The bondage of the seasons has been broken. You now live in an eternal year of favor… The sons of Issachar needed to know the times and seasons of the Lord, because men were under a Levitical order… There is no longer a dry season for you. You can call every single year the year of the favor of the Lord!… The world may be going to hell in a hand basket, but that is not your portion. Ten thousand may fall at your side, but it won’t affect you. You’re a good news agent.

John Crowder

Mystical Union, Sons of Thunder, Loc: 3133

Wrath is not the opposite of love. Wrath is the love of God in action, in opposing action. It is precisely because the Triune God has spoken an eternal Yes! to the human race, a Yes! to life and fullness and joy for us, that the Fall and its disaster is met with a stout and intolerable No! “This is not acceptable.”

C. Baxter Kruger 

Jesus and the Undoing of Adam, Perichoresis, 2001, 49

Jesus Christ was on the road to the incarnation while Adam was a mere thought in the mind of God. For there could not possibly be a union between God and humanity except through a staggering act of stooping on God’s part. Before creation, our adoption—and its accomplishment in Jesus Christ—was raised as the banner of all banners in heaven. It was not the Fall of Adam, therefore, that set God’s agenda; it was the decision to share the great dance with us through Jesus. Adam’s plunge certainly threatened God’s dreams for us, but that threat had been anticipated and already strategically overcome in the predestination of the incarnation. Jesus Christ did not become human to fix the Fall; he became human to accomplish the eternal purpose of our adoption, and in order to bring our adoption to pass, the Fall had to be called to a halt and undone. The catastrophe of Adam certainly made the road of incarnation, and thus of our adoption, one of pain and suffering and death, but it did not create its necessity. Jesus is not a footnote to Adam and his Fall; the Fall, and indeed creation itself, is a footnote to the purpose of God in Jesus Christ.

C. Baxter Kruger 

Jesus and the Undoing of Adam, Perichoresis, 2001, 39