Top Philip Yancey Quotes - Quotesmemo.com

Philip Yancey Biography

Philip Yancey (born 1949) is an American Christian author. Fourteen million copies of his books have been sold worldwide, making him one of the best-selling evangelical Christian authors. Two of his books have won the ECPA's Christian Book of the Year Award: The Jesus I Never Knew in 1996, and What's So Amazing About Grace? in 1998. He is published by Zondervan Publishing, WaterBrook, and Hachette.

Read about Philip Yancey in Wikipedia

Random Authors

Philip Yancey Quotes

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

Church, Found, Grace, Littles

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.

Elements, God, Grace, Lives, Mean, Prayer

Having spent time around "sinners" and also around purported saints, I have a hunch why Jesus spent so much time with the former group: I think he preferred their company. Because the sinners were honest about themselves and had no pretense, Jesus could deal with them. In contrast, the saints put on airs, judged him, and sought to catch him in a moral trap. In the end it was the saints, not the sinners, who arrested Jesus.

Air, Contrast, Hunch, Jesus, Thinking

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.

Christmas, Jesus, Powerful, Rich, Though, Toward

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

Christian, Gets, Imperfection, Light, Prerequisite

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

Doubt, God, Keeps, Track, Winning

Most observers understand the difference between a committed Christian who accepts Jesus as a model for living and a 'cultural Christian' who happens to live in a nation with a Christian heritage. Most Muslims do not.

Christian, Differences, Happens, Jesus

The Gospels and the rest of the New Testament reflect the life of Jesus, what it means for us & what it means for the world.

Jesus, Life, Mean, Rest, Testament, World

I have come to know a God who has a soft spot for rebels, who recruits people like the adulterer David, the whiner Jeremiah, the traitor Peter, and the human-rights abuser Saul of Tarsus. I have come to know a God whose Son made prodigals the heroes of his stories and the trophies of his ministry.

Hero, Rights, Son, Spot, Tarsus, Traitor

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

Delusion, Important, Prayer, Represents, Use

Forgiveness is the only way to break the cycle of blame-and pain-in a relationship. . . It does not settle all questions of blame and justice and fairness. . . But it does allow relationships to start over. In that way, said Solzhenitsyn, we differ from all animals. It is not our capacity to think that makes us different, but our capacity to repent, and to forgive.

Allow, Different, Forgiveness, Pain, Thinking, Way

If I just think of the churches in my little town here because I've been to every one of them, there are 27, there aren't that many where you walk in and say wow, people are excited about their faith. A lot of them, it's just what you do on Sunday at 10:00 or 11:00 and that's not true in other countries. In some other countries, it's still a very lively, vibrant experience.

Country, Excited, Sunday, Thinking, True, Walk

I never see God. I seldom run into visual clues that remind me of God unless I am looking. The act of looking, the pursuit itself, makes possible the encounter. For this reason, Christianity has always insisted that trust and obedience come first, and knowledge follows.

Clues, Encounters, Firsts, Pursuit, Reason, Running

People want to go back to those old days, but it's probably not going to happen.

Days, Old Days, People, Probably, Want

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

Act, Point, Prayer, Reality, View, Views

Our best efforts at changing society will fall short unless the church can teach the world how to love.

Best Effort, Changing, Church, Efforts, Fall, Short

A faithful person sees life from the perspective of trust, not fear. Bedrock faith allows me to believe that, despite the chaos of the present moment, God does reign; that regardless of how worthless I may feel, I truly matter to a God of love; that no pain lasts forever and no evil triumphs in the end. Faith sees even the darkest deed of all history, the death of God's Son, as a necessary prelude to the brightest.

Believe, Faith, Lasts, Life, Pain, Regardless

Whoever desires to remain faithful to Jesus must communicate faith as he did, not by compelling assent but by presenting it as a true answer to basic thirst. Rather than looking back nostalgically on a time when Christians wielded more power, I suggest another approach: that we regard ourselves as subversives operating within the broader culture.

Christian, Compelling, Faithful, Jesus, Nostalgically, True

Misunderstanding must be nakedly exposed before true understanding can begin to flourish.

Exposed, Misunderstanding, True, True Understanding, Understanding

At Calvary, God accepted his own unbreakable terms of justice.

Accepted, Calvary, God, Justice, Terms, Unbreakable

1