Ravi Zacharias Quotes

One of the greatest failures of our generation is not living out the biblical precepts which we so clearly articulate.

When your life is changed by Jesus, you are a new creature. God not only changes what you do, He also changes what you want to do.

We talk so much about one's rights ... so little about what is actually right.

I believe God intervenes in the lives of every one of us. He speaks to us in different ways and at different times so that we may know he is the author of our very personality.

If God can do anything, then He surely can even allow evil and call it good. Why does He have to explain it? Surely, if omnipotence means all-powerful without even logical or rational limitation, He can allow evil to exist and not see any incoherence in it. And if God can do anything He pleases why can't He simply be incoherent as well? That may be irrational to the skeptic, but does not limitless power also mean the power to be irrational without justification?

Religion has a checkered history, and some of it is reprehensible. An

The world was made for the body. The body was made for the soul. And the soul was made for God.

When I do things my way, I exhaust pleasure very quickly. It is not that Christianity has failed to teach me how to delight in God's presence; it is that I have failed by seeking pleasure through godless ways or by resisting God's provision for me because it is not what I want.

God clearly called me into the preaching and teaching ministry, principally in hostile arenas. An odd call for a shy individual, I would think! But God does it his way.

We have to find the back door to peoples' hearts because the front door is heavily guarded.

Years ago I was asked this question: Do terrorists fear anything? I said, 'I suspect they would fear a morally strong America.' They would know that a morally strong America would not be dislodged. You can always appeal to a point of vulnerability which would break a people up. [Terrorists] don't fear so much the weaponry as the moral courage, and I think a morally strong America would be intimidating to them.

It is a self-evident truth that a person who truly prays and seeks God's wisdom in life recognizes the sovereignty of God and is committed to seeking God's wisdom in life's important choices.

DID JESUS EVER CLAIM TO BE GOD?

Many pray for the right partner but cease to pray for the right union--that they be one as Jesus and the Father are one and so experience the full measure of His joy in the relationship.

God the Grand Weaver seeks those with tender hearts so that he can put his imprint on them. Your hurts and your disappointments are part of that design, to shape your heart and the way you feel about reality. The hurts you live through will always shape you. There is no other way.

One of my favorite examples involves Dr. Peter Greenspan, a Jewish obstetrician-gynecologist who also teaches at a medical school. The more he read books by critics who were trying to attack the prophecies, the more he recognized the flaws in their arguments. Ironically, concluded Greenspan, "I think I actually came to faith in Y'shua [Jesus] by reading what detractors wrote."36

I do not believe for a moment that the Scriptures are against wealth. But the warning to those who make wealth their pursuit is a stern reality. Wealth must be processed through a philosophy of life that is greater than wealth itself. If not, it shapes the mind for bitter disappointments.

God has put enough into the world to make faith in Him a most reasonable thing. But He has left enough out to make it impossible to live by sheer reason or observation alone.

The day that each person willingly accepts himself or herself for who he or she is and acknowledges the uniqueness of God's framing process marks the beginning of a journey to seeing the handiwork of God in each life.

Truth is the thread that separates true spirituality from false spirituality.

There is no greater example in apologetics than the apostle Paul speaking at Mars Hill. The irony of the talk Paul gave is in the difference in reaction the Easterner has when reading Paul's address to that of a Westerner. The Easterner is thrilled at how the apostle wove the message starting from where the listeners were to bring them to where he was in his thinking. The average Westerner is quick to point out that few of his hearers responded. Such an attitude says volumes about why the church in the West has been so intellectually weak. To those in the West, the bigger the number of respondents, the more replicated the technique. The bigger the statistic, the greater the success. Westerners are enamored by size, largesse, number of hands raised, and so on. When the sun has set on these reports, we seem rather dismayed when statistics show the quality of the life of the believer is no different from that of the unbeliever.

When you find your definitions in God, you find the very purpose for which you were created. Put your hand into God's hand, know His absolutes, demonstrate His love, present His truth, and the message of redemption and transformation will take hold.

In the 1950s kids lost their innocence.
They were liberated from their parents by well-paying jobs, cars, and lyrics in music that gave rise to a new term ---the generation gap.

In the 1960s, kids lost their authority.
It was a decade of protest---church, state, and parents were all called into question and found wanting. Their authority was rejected, yet nothing ever replaced it.

In the 1970s, kids lost their love. It was the decade of me-ism dominated by hyphenated words beginning with self.
Self-image, Self-esteem, Self-assertion....It made for a lonely world. Kids learned everything there was to know about sex and forgot everything there was to know about love, and no one had the nerve to tell them there was a difference.

In the 1980s, kids lost their hope.
Stripped of innocence, authority and love and plagued by the horror of a nuclear nightmare, large and growing numbers of this generation stopped believing in the future.

In the 1990s kids lost their power to reason. Less and less were they taught the very basics of language, truth, and logic and they grew up with the irrationality of a postmodern world.

In the new millennium, kids woke up and found out that somewhere in the midst of all this change, they had lost their imagination. Violence and perversion entertained them till none could talk of killing innocents since none was innocent anymore.

Study hard. Understand not only the questions, but the questioner. Know how best to articulate the answers, but do it with humility, because ultimately the answer is in a person, the person of Christ, not in an argument. So, do your work and know how to present the answer, but do it with gentleness and meekness.

The service [Jesus] gave to humanity was given even when we least merited that sacrifice. There is a joy in service that transcends emotional temporariness.

if there is any part of our lives that we haven't turned over to Christ, the devil reminds him, 'No, that one isn't totally yours. I still have this patch of ground here.' "Jesus is totally committed to us. And until we learn to be totally surrendered to him, we'll never find the joy of what it means to fully belong to him. That is the key to every believer's life - full ownership by Christ. Everything we are and want to be belong to him. "The Lord wants to have ownership of your life. If there is anything hindering this from happening, I invite you to come forward now and lay it before Christ.

I am thoroughly convinced that when the last chapter of humanity is written, we will find that the implications of atheism, i.e., living without God, if consistently carried through, will
have made life plainly unlivable within the limits of reason or even common sense

I deal with cultural issues whether they be in the Middle East, Far East, the Orient or the West. You broach questions in the context of their culture and then present Christian answers.

My longings, my hopes, my dreams, and my every effort has been to live for Him who rescued me, to study for Him who gave me this mind, to serve Him who fashioned my will, and to speak for Him who gave me a voice.

The mocker will not have the last laugh. You see, dancing on the grave of an extinguished Christianity is farcical at best. Because the grave is empty. And the one who knows the way out of the grave sits in the heavens and laughs.

Respect for the right of another to be wrong does not mean that the wrong is right

Everyone - pantheist, atheist, skeptic, polytheist - has to answer these questions: 'Where did I come from? What is life's meaning? How do I define right from wrong and what happens to me when I die?' Those are the fulcrum points of our existence.

The assurance of Heaven is never given to the person. And that's why at the core of the Christian faith is the grace of God. If there's one word I would grab from all of that, it's forgiveness - that you can be forgiven. I can be forgiven, and it is of the grace of God. But once you understand that, I think the ramifications are worldwide.

What we need is not a religion that is right where we are right, but one that is right where we are wrong.

Nothing, absolutely nothing, has a more direct bearing on the moral choices made by individuals or the purposes pursued by society than belief or disbelief in God.

I think the media plays into the hands of false induction, genuine seduction taking place, wrong deductions, and the inevitable reductions. That's the way and the path of the visual.

Sometimes religion can be the greatest roadblock to true spirituality. The

They are teachers who point to their teaching or show some particular way. In all of these, there emerges an instruction, a way of living. It is not Zoroaster to whom you turn. It is Zoroaster to whom you listen. It is not Buddha who delivers you; it is his Noble Truths that instruct you. It is not Mohammed who transforms you; it is the beauty of the Koran that woos you. By contrast, Jesus did not only teach or expound His message. He was identical with His message. "In Him," say the Scriptures, "dwelt the fullness of the Godhead bodily." He did not just proclaim the truth. He said, "I am the truth." He did not just show a way. He said, "I am the Way." He did not just open up vistas. He said, "I am the door." "I am the Good Shepherd." "I am the resurrection and the life." "I am the I AM." In Him is not just an offer of life's bread. He is the bread. That is why being a Christian is not just a way of feeding and living. Following Christ begins with a way of relating and being.

Attempting to satisfy the passions that rage inside us and the longings that motivate us, we invent spirituality, lean on political solutions, create new villains, turn our backs on Jesus, and blame a thousand tyrannies- but we never come to terms with the source of the problem deep within the heart and inclination of every human being.

It is theoretically and practically impossible to build any community apart from love and justice. If only one of these two is focused upon, an inevitable extremism and perversion follow.

Christian communication is further impeded by the expectations of a world progressing at a staggering pace in every field of study. It seems as though to deal in spiritual matters, the Christian has to be an authority on every other subject, failing which, he is branded "escapist" or "unrealistic." Thus, science, philosophy, psychology, history, and virtually every other discipline affects religion. In a sense, this ought not to be surprising, because spiritual truth deals with the essence of life. For

Truth is not only a matter of offense, in that it makes certain assertions. It is also a matter of defense in that it must be able to make a cogent and sensible response to the counterpoints that are raised.

But the greatest dream of all is to know God and to know what he has intended for your life.

A worshiping community should be the fountain from which life flows and the ocean into which your efforts are merged. That is where identity is defined, refined, and consolidated and where continuity remains.

Evil is a violation of purpose, the purpose of your creator and mine.

Wonder is retained by wise pondering.

Every time you get on your knees and pray to God, 'Holy' keeps the respect and reverence while 'Father' brings Him close & intimate.

Legalism always breeds compliance over purpose.

It is the resurrection that makes Good Friday good.

Changes in language often reflect the changing values of a culture.

And so the abnormal is now normal in entertainment, because the normal is treated as subnormal in the world of the media. That, I can assure you, is consciously done.

One day, John asked her to define sin. I doubt any theologian could have done better than she did: "Son, whatever weakens your reasoning, impairs the tenderness of your conscience, obscures your sense of God, or takes away your relish for spiritual things; in short, if anything increases the authority and power of the flesh over the Spirit, then that to you becomes sin, however good it is in itself."1That definition became the guiding beacon for John. He carved it into his consciousness. His mother inbred in him his sensitivity to sin.

Isn't it ironic that after 70 years Russia wants God back while we are trying to kick him out?

What is right has to win the day over what we may see as rights.

Outside of the cross of Jesus Christ, there is no hope in this world. That cross and resurrection at the core of the Gospel is the only hope for humanity. Wherever you go, ask God for wisdom on how to get that Gospel in, even in the toughest situations of life.

Do not be afraid or discouraged because of this vast army. For the battle is not yours, but God's" (v. 15). This verse is the middle verse of the Old Testament and rightly so, for it gives the assurance that when we trust in God He will fight for us. The battle is not ours; it is His.

The loneliest moment in life is when you have just experienced that which you thought would deliver the ultimate, and it has just let you down.

The purpose of prayer and of God's call in your life isn't to make you number one in the world's eyes but to make Him number one in your life.

You see, there is an intellectual side to life but also a side to life where deep needs are experienced. We falsely think that one side deals with truth and the other with fantasy. Both need the truth, and the elimination of one by the other is not the world in which God intends for us to live.

Living under the tremendous illusion that personal freedoms and freedom of speech are devoid of moral assumptions and responsibilities, we have bankrupted ourselves, so that honor, truth, and morality have been sacrificed at the altar of autonomy and self-worship.

Chesterton says, in essence, that there is a dislocation of humility in our times. We have become more confident in who we are and less in what we believe. Our pride has moved us from the organ of conviction to the organ of ambition, when it is intended to be the other way around. In short, our confidence should be in our message and not in ourselves.

Every worldview has to bring together reason and faith.

We make a mistake in thinking that something is right or wrong because culture deems it such. Nothing could be further from the truth. Yes, culture may approve or disapprove, but if there is no overarching umbrella of truth beyond culture, our times may wreak havoc in the name of culture. Slavery is an example of this. People did not flinch at the barbaric practices that were tolerated for so long.
The abuse of marriage is no less a crime against humanity.

Unless I understand the Cross, I cannot understand why my commitment to what is right must be precedence over what I prefer.

The antitheist is quick to excoriate all religious belief by generically laying the blame at the door of all who claim to be religious, without distinction. By the same measure, why is there not an equal enthusiasm to distribute blame for violence engendered by some of the irreligious?

Worship very plainly opens up the healing of all of mankind. The struggle of gender, the struggle of race, the struggle of history, the struggle to find political liberation, the struggle of our own contradictions - nothing can be mended until we understand the symbol of Jesus' breaking of the bread and pouring of the wine.

Sometimes the very presence of God is barred by our presuppositions and our intense and constant desire for triumph.

You can become interested too late to realize how important your family tree is. The

A man rejects God neither because of intellectual demands nor because of the scarcity of evidence. A man rejects God because of a moral resistance that refuses to admit his need for God.

The loneliest people in the world are those who have exhausted pleasure and come away empty.

ARE THE RECORDS OF JESUS' LIFE RELIABLE?

Chivalry in love has nothing to do with the sweetness of the appearance. It has everything to do with the tenderness of a heart determined to serve. You must not act under the impetus of charm, but out of a commitment to make someone's life the joy you want it to be.

God is not a place or an eperience or a feeling.

Redemption precedes morality, and not the other way around.

Opinions are preferences amid options. Convictions are woven into one's conscience.

While theoretically a person may block God out, logically there will be a breakdown because ultimately all enunciation implies a moral doctrine of some kind. And if that moral doctrine is not absolute then the definer himself becomes undefined. That's what we are living with - an undefined definer giving us definitions for our course, and we are being trapped in the quicksand of the absence of objective truth.

So do not fear the struggle; rather, embrace it. Embrace it in the knowledge that the Grand Weaver will take all of your struggles, questions, disappointments, and fears and use them to build your faith and increasingly make you into a man or woman who looks like Jesus Christ.

In a culture rife with power and position, where the home bespoke volumes, shame would not be the path of choice for anyone. Had the virgin birth not been true, to assert that truth would be the path of cultural ostracism, if not suicide for all of them.

In our human imagination, we so often perceive our Heroes to be something larger than life. We exalt them in ways that do them a disservice ... we convince ourselves that they are or were something essentially different than the rest of us.

If it is true that heredity plays a role in the spiritual dispositions that are imprinted on our souls, Jesus' declaration that each of us needs to be born again is even more profound. The DNA of generations past marks itself very deeply in us, and it takes a new birth for us to be able to see through new eyes.

An expenditure of words without income of ideas will lead to intellectual bankruptcy.

Young dreams may be wild ones, but they are never corrected by ridiculing them. They must be steered by a loving voice that has earned the right to be heard, not one enforced by means of power. This is a very difficult lesson for parents to learn. And as cultures lose their restraining power, there will be greater need for mutual love and respect between parents and children if a relationship of trust is to be built, rather than banking on authority because of position.

The ultimate test of any civilization is how we treat the most vulnerable ... what we do to our children. Our world has lost its direction.

God makes appointments with us in our disappointments. To see the pattern we must take three steps involving the heart, the mind, and the cross

The visual can seduce you, leading to false deductions, and ultimately, even the finest ideas can be reduced. Take for example, sexuality. If it is reduced down to the moment and to pleasure, things like that, that's not what sexuality is all about. Sexuality was to be in tandem with the sacred, not amputated from it.

Wonder blasts the soul - that is, the spiritual - and the skeleton, the body - the material. Wonder interprets life through the eyes of eternity while enjoying the moment, but never lets the moment's revision exhaust the eternal.

To allow God to be God we must follow Him for who He is and what He intends, and not for what we want and what we prefer.

In his book Modern Times, the historian Paul Johnson referred to Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini as the three devils of the twentieth century. Interestingly, Nietzshean dogma influenced each of them.

To the young woman I say, This is the moment in your life when he who is wooing you will be at his kindest. And if you do not see kindness in the man you are dating, beware! For the partnership you are looking for will be nourished and nurtured only on the basis of a love that is not arrogant or prideful, but kind.

The longer I am in this work, the more I realize that intellectual struggles are merely the hazardous waste of life, blocking the heart from truth. The task of apologetics is to carefully remove that hazardous material and keep it from igniting into a destructive fire. Once that is done, the way to the heart is always through the way of the Cross, God's love for each and every one of us.

Many Christians have so busied themselves with programs and activities that they no longer know how to be silent and meditate on God's word or recognize the mysteries that are in the Person of Christ.

Each day, take a good look at that face before you and see, in the light of God's grace, the face of God reflected in that precious face. Know that while each distinct feature is unique there is a common blueprint for both of you. See the beauty or frailty, as the case may be, as the characteristic given to the individual and the trust given to you. The embrace, then, is an embrace of pure love and trust. Don't turn your back to the other's plea. As you look at each other face to face and see the face of God, you move the home and history in the right direction. May that be our joy and hope.

Unsuspecting people make a fatal mistake when they give their allegiance to a system of thought by focusing on its benefits while they ignore its systemic contradictions.

The important thing to bear in mind is that you must face your willingness to die to yourself before you choose to walk down the aisle. Is this person the one for whom you are willing to die daily? Is this person to whom you say, "I do" also the one for whom you are willing to say, "No, I don't" to everybody else? Be assured that marriage will cost you everything.

The atheist risk everything for the present and the future, on the basis of a belief that we are uncaused by any intelligent being. We just happen to be here. That one is willing to live and die in that belief is a very high price to pay for conjecture.

In his play "Long Day's Journey into Night, " Eugene O'Neill has one of his characters utter a powerful statement toward the end of her life: "None of us can help the things life has done to us. They are done before you realize it and once they are done, they make you do other things, until at

Having killed God, the atheist is left with no reason for being, no morality to espouse, no meaning to life, and no hope beyond the grave.

Life without God is ultimately life without any point of reference for meaning other than what one gives it at the time.

To sustain the belief that there is no God, atheism has to demonstrate infinite knowledge, which is tantamount to saying, I have infinite knowledge that there is no being in existence with infinite knowledge

The loss of something that is never thought of, felt, or sought for when lost is not a loss at all.