Christian Spirituality Quotes

The spiritual life and especially its expression in mystical experience, is not so much a matter of striving for heights of mystical union between the soul and God who is utterly different from us. It is rather more a matter of attending to God's presence with us and responding to God's presence by being altogether present to the divine presence which is always near. The long history of Christian spirituality has to do with the various ways of responding to God's presence and participating ever more fully in the divine life altogether present in human life, history, the world and the church. ~ Michael Downey

If the heart of Christian spirituality is to increasingly become like our founder, then an authentic comprehension of Jesus becomes critical. ~ Michael Frost

Christian spirituality combines a sense of the awe and majesty of God with a sense of His intimate presence. ~ N. T. Wright

Christian spirituality was not a children's story. It wasn't cute or neat. It was mystical and odd and clean, and it was reaching into dirty. There was wonder in it and enchantment. ~ Donald Miller

Like a child exploring the attic of an old house on a rainy day, discovering a trunk full of treasure and then calling all his brothers and sisters to share the find, Richard J. 'Foster has 'found' the spiritual disciplines that the modern world has stored away and forgot, and has excitedly called us to celebrate them. For they are, as he shows us, the instruments of joy, the way into mature Christian spirituality and abundant life. ~ Eugene H. Peterson

In its most basic terms Christian spirituality is a relationship with God. Perhaps the most remarkable thing to notice about this Christian God is that is it he who has sought us out, not we him. In fact, anything that we experience as desire for him is simply the result of his Spirit's calling us to himself. Spirituality is the response of spirit to Spirit. ~ David G. Benner

Wise, compassionate and accessible, David Benner's The Gift of Being Yourself is truly a gift to the dedicated seeker. The author draws on his professional experience as a psychologist and his own lifelong vocation as a Christian. The result is a book that felicitously weaves together the insights of psychology and Christian spirituality. ~ Margaret Guenther

I think that every living person, every person who is awake to the functioning principles within his reality has a moment where he stops blaming the problems in the world on group thinking, on humanity and authority, and starts to face himself. I hate this more than anything. This is the hardest principle within christian spirituality for me to deal with. The problem is not out there, the problem is the needy beast of a thing living in my chest. ~ Donald Miller

Too much of our time is spent trying to chart God on a grid, and too little is spent allowing our hearts to feel awe. By reducing Christian spirituality to formula, we deprive our hearts of wonder. ~ Donald Miller

A Basic Definition of "Christian Spirituality" Christian spirituality concerns the quest for a fulfilled and authentic Christian existence, involving the bringing together of the fundamental ideas of Christianity and the whole experience of living on the basis of and within the scope of the Christian faith. ~ Alister E. McGrath

I liked this God very much because you hardly had to talk to it and it never talked back.
Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality ~ Donald Miller

Monks realize well that when the consciousness of one person is raised, the whole of humanity is raised; when the quality of life of one improves, all improve. Or, to put it in another, more biblical, way, the increased health and vitality of any one cell vitalizes the whole Body of Christ. 38 ~ M. Basil Pennington

Martin Buber as described for basic virtues cultivated by the Hasidim to overcome the separation of the sacred and secular. . . . St. Benedict spoke of them as truly seeking God, zeal for a humble way of life, zeal for obedience, and zeal for the opus of God. Buber catalogues them as kavana (single-mindedness), shiflut (humility), avada (service), and hitlahavut (fire of ecstasy). 129 ~ M. Basil Pennington

It's true, I suffer a great deal
but do I suffer well? That is the question. ~ Therese De Lisieux

Moreover, it is not entirely without significance that true love was, in Platonic philosophy
but also, as you know, in a whole sector, a whole domain of Christian spirituality and mysticism
the form par excellence of the true life. Since Platonism, true love and the true life have traditionally belonged together, and to a large extend Christian Platonism will take up this theme. ~ Michel Foucault

A healthy Christian life cannot be stitched together from a series of disjointed mountain-top experiences. We need a Christian spirituality that endures the shadowy, low-lying valleys and the rocky slopes in between all those glorious summits. ~ Andrew Byers

I think Christian spirituality is like jazz music. I think loving Jesus is something you feel. I think it is something very difficult to get on paper. But it is no less real, no less meaningful, no less beautiful. ~ Donald Miller

Christian spirituality involves a transformation of the self that occurs only when God and self are both deeply known. Both, therefore, have an important place in Christian spirituality. There is no deep knowing of God without a deep knowing of self, and no deep knowing of self without a deep knowing of God. John Calvin wrote, "Nearly the whole of sacred doctrine consists in these two parts: knowledge of God and of ourselves."3 ~ David G. Benner

Christian spirituality had been strongly influenced by Platonism, which sought to liberate the soul from the body, but in some circles in the early fourth century, people were beginning to hope that their hitherto despised bodies could bring men and women to the divine - or at least that it was not a reality separate from the physical, as the Platonists held.25 ~ Karen Armstrong

I love this about Christian spirituality. It cannot be explained, and yet it is beautiful and true. It is something you feel, and it comes from the soul. ~ Donald Miller

What we can do now to bring about his kingdom of justice is to cooperate in the establishment of justice in that portion of his kingdom over which we have some immediate control: ourselves. Let us begin the pursuit of justice and peace by cleaning up our own lives and establishing peace within our own hearts. ~ M. Basil Pennington

Christian spirituality means living in the mature wholeness of the gospel. It means taking all the elements of your life - children, spouse, job, weather, possessions, relationships - and experiencing them as an act of faith. God wants all the material of our lives. ~ Eugene H. Peterson

Society has become well versed in the methods necessary to weaken the radicalism of the Gospel by reducing Christianity to what is viewed as reasonable by the logic of the market and by a culture committed to a largely post-Christian, consumerist vision of human life. Thus the disruptive character of Christianity is silenced and Christian spirituality is repackaged as a soothing therapeutic exercise that serves the needs of a culture committed above all else to the enjoyment of consumer activities. ~ Matthew T Eggemeier

One must die to an old way of being in order to enter a new way of being... salvation is resurrection to a new way of being here and now. ~ Marcus J. Borg

In the Bible we find everything we need to guide and energize our lives, to keep us on track so that we live out God's plan. ~ Elizabeth George

The whole story of creation, incarnation and our incorporation into the fellowship of Christ's body tells us that God desires us. ... We are created so that we may be caught up in [the self-giving love of the Trinity]; so that we may grow into the wholehearted love of God by learning that God loves us as God loves God. The life of the Christian community has ... the task of teaching us this: so ordering our relations that human beings may see themselves as desired, as the occasion of joy. ~ Wesley Hill

I have rightfully no other business each day but to do God's work as a servant, constantly regarding His pleasure. May I have grace to live above every human motive, simply with God and to God. ~ Henry Martyn

The loss of a beloved connection awakens an interest in Heaven before unfelt. ~ Christian Nestell Bovee

Giving to the poor is an essential part of Christian morality. ~ C.S. Lewis

Your house is your residence, but your soul is your true home. ~ Matshona Dhliwayo

Everything I know, see or hear, every part of my life is transformed into dresses. They are my daydreams, but they have passed from dreamland into the world of everyday items to wear. ~ Christian Dior

I have never found a problem with people from different religions praying together. What I have found is that people are just hungry for God, and be they Christian or Muslim we invite them to pray with us. ~ Mother Teresa

I would hate for someone to look at my shoes and say, 'Oh my God! That looks so comfortable!' ~ Christian Louboutin

Life is spirituality. ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

The mountain affords perspective. ~ Thomas Lloyd Qualls

That which is empty, is full of everything in the cosmos. ~ Meeta Ahluwalia

Prayer and God's word connect us to God's presence even with the light and help of the Holy Spirit. ~ Ibiloye Abiodun Christian

The important correction needed by worldly religions is the transformation from external religious teaching to truthful internal spiritual reality. ~ Hua Ching Ni

...A legendary leader distinguishes himself as someone who gets ahead of his people from an impasse and futile general consensus, and then finds new grounds that constitute the base from which a unique course of his people's destiny is charted... ~ Janvier Chouteu-Chando

Nevertheless, despite all superficial continuity, a remarkable change has come about within the last seventy-five years. The change is nothing less than the substitution of paganism for Christianity as the dominant view of life. Seventy-five years ago, Western civilization, despite inconsistencies, was still predominantly Christian; today it is predominantly pagan. (1923) ~ J. Gresham Machen

You can't come in here on Sunday, and as a Christian, subscribe to this belief of dignity of every human being and say I will seek justice and peace on the earth, and continue to go with the prosecution using that kind of evidence. ~ Mohamedou Ould Slahi

I feel that the Christian experience and the Jewish one have much to give each other. If this open society continues and there is no return to political anti-Semitism, then this encounter, deeper than any theology, may happen. ~ Lionel Blue

Wit must be without effort. Wit is play, not work; a nimbleness of the fancy, not a laborious effort of the will; a license, a holiday, a carnival of thought and feeling, not a trifling with speech, a constraint upon language, a duress upon words. ~ Christian Nestell Bovee

Forgiveness, no matter your motive, is a dynamic of mutual healing. ~ Bryant McGill

Ah well, I suppose that's the problem with trying to make others follow your own beliefs: what starts out as spiritual ardor too often becomes arrogance and bigotry. ~ Persia Woolley

Ask the majority of Christians what they consider the greatest evil from which Christ freed humanity and they will say: from Hell, from eternal fire, from punishment in the next world. As a corollary to this they think that salvation is something that someone else can achieve for us. The word hell, which is seldom met in the Holy Scriptures, has done much harm to Christianity as a result of false interpretations. People run away from external hell which they are made to fear most of all. The salvation that man needs most and that which gives him freedom is redemption from the evil within his soul. There is something far worse than external punishment. It is the sin of the soul being in rebellion against God; the soul, endowed with God's strength, yielding itself to the force of bestial instinct; the soul which exists before God, yet fears the threats and fury of men, preferring human glory to its own peaceful awareness of virtue. There is no fate worse than this. And it is this that the unrepentant person carries with him to the grave. And it is this we ought to fear.

To gain salvation, in the highest meaning of the word, means to raise your fallen spirit, cure the sick soul, give it back its freedom of thought, conscience and love. In this lies the salvation for which Christ died. It is for this salvation that we have been given the Holy Spirit, and it is towards this salvation that the Christian teaching should be directed. ~ William Ellery Channing

I have been judged vehemently suspect of heresy, that is, of having held and believed that the sun in the centre of the universe and immoveable, and that the earth is not at the center of same, and that it does move. Wishing however, to remove from the minds of your Eminences and all faithful Christians this vehement suspicion reasonably conceived against me, I abjure with a sincere heart and unfeigned faith, I curse and detest the said errors and heresies, and generally all and every error, heresy, and sect contrary to the Holy Catholic Church. (Quoted in Shea and Artigas 194) ~ Galileo Galilei

Those who wish even to focus on the problem of a Christian ethic are faced with an outrageous demand-from the outset they must give up, as inappropriate to this topic, the very two questions that led them to deal with the ethical problem: 'How can I be good?' and 'How can I do something good?' Instead they must ask the wholly other, completely different question: 'What is the will of God? ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer

I am not an atheist. An atheist is someone who has compelling evidence that there is no Judeo-Christian-Islamic God. I am not that wise, but neither do I consider there to be anything approaching adequate evidence for such a god. Why are you in such a hurry to make up your mind? Why not simply wait until there is compelling evidence? ~ Carl Sagan

Churches are having a limited impact on society because they fail to understand that the goal of the church is not the church itself but the kingdom. ~ Tony Evans

God made us for Himself: that is the only explanation that satisfies the heart of a thinking man, whatever his wild reason may say. Should faulty education and perverse reasoning lead a man to conclude otherwise, there is little that any Christian can do for him. ~ A.W. Tozer

I guess I am running the risk of becoming the Hans Christian Andersen of opera. ~ Gian Carlo Menotti

Men in western governments who were themselves are often modern men, did not understand that freedom without chaos is not a magic formula which can be implanted anywhere. Rather, being modern men, it was their view that, because human race had evolved to a certain level by some such year as 1950, democracy could be planted anywhere from the outside. They had carefully closed their eyes to the fact that freedom without chaos had come forth from a Christian base. They did not understand that freedom without chaos could not be separated from its roots. ( ... ) Many countries where democracy has been imposed from the outside or from top downward, authoritarianism has increasingly become the rule of the day ~ Francis A. Schaeffer

I have found my way, step by step, proceeding from touch points that have emerged, some through conscious choice and some through dream state discovery. ~ Leonard Nimoy

For my money, Ray Brown is the greatest living bass player. Every great thing that's happened on bass since Ray Brown
all of us point back to him. That's where it started, you know. Ray Brown is definitely a walking master, and to get to play with him is obviously an opportunity that no one should ever pass up. ~ Christian McBride

The church is the only institution supernaturally endowed by God. It is the one institution of which Jesus promised that the gates of hell will not prevail against it. ~ Charles Colson

When it comes to the subject it's best to understand that
white people do not recognize public transit as a viable option until a subway line is built that runs directly from their house to their work. ~ Christian Lander

When the house is on fire, don't tell me what your spiritual gift is. Just grab a hose and put out the fire. ~ Andy Stanley

Om-nipotent, Om-nipresent, Om-niscient, Om
all is wholly undivided, instructed the physicist, David Bohm
the enfolded and unfolded, that of formlessness and form
from the implicate unmanifest to the explicate manifest born
originating from an underlying nonphysical order
emerges physical reality with its illusory borders
the whole of existence exists in every wee part
all is here now - the cosmos' stern, bow, starboard and port
the invisible portion of existence is pure potentiality
awareness itself as a field of infinite possibility
physical reality a holographic illusion
science says so - that's its conclusion
the new science is within and is up to you
a simple experiment with loving prayer will do
following science honestly, one is led inward too
with zero biases, mind and reality are seen as not-two
who cares what proofs others are uttering
live it yourself or you know nothing
make a cloud square shape in a oneness experiment
repeat "thank you square cloud" with joyous, grateful intent
the results of this being easily duplicatable
shows that a unitive conscious universe is no fable
Native Americans have their time-tested rain dance
a prayer to the Great Spirit resulting in watered plants ~ Jarett Sabirsh

I never could understand the fondness some people have for confusing their minds by dwelling on mystical books that merely awaken their doubts and excite their imagination, giving them a bent for exaggeration quite contrary to Christian simplicity. Let ~ Leo Tolstoy

The most powerful idea that's entered the world in the last few thousand years - the idea of grace - is the reason I would like to be a Christian. ~ Bono

Christians would show sense if they dispatched these argumentative Scotists and pigheaded Ockhamists and undefeated Albertists along with the whole regiment of Sophists to fight the Turks and Saracens instead of sending those armies of dull-witted soldiers with whom they've long been carrying on war with no result. ~ Desiderius Erasmus

When, in short, we shall have unlearned everything which has been taught since his [Jesus'] day, and got back to the pure and simple doctrines he inculcated, we shall then be truly and worthily his disciples: and my opinion is that if nothing had ever been added to what flowed purely from his lips, the whole world would at this day have been Christian. ~ Thomas Jefferson

Believe in love, not religion. ~ Matshona Dhliwayo

I remembered the taste of good Italian coffee in my London flat, brewed at the expense of time and a good deal of mess, compared to the sort that came out of machines in the office at the press of a button. I remembered walking to art school, through the windy winter, over hills and heaths: how much gladder I was to reach the rich warmth and to toast my hands on a radiator, than if I had gone by car. I remembered the nickels my father gave me as a child for being good: how much more I valued them than I would a dollar bill given all at once for no reason. Of course God as the ultimate parent could give happiness for the asking, just as my father could have given a handful of dollar bills, but at the age of five would I have known its value, or would it have looked to me just like a wad of grubby green paper? ~ Sumangali Morhall

Having a Christian worldview means being utterly convinced that biblical principles are not only true but also work better in the grit and grime of the real world. ~ Nancy Pearcey

When you get honest with God, you can exchange the fig leaves you used to cover your sin with the righteousness of Jesus Christ. ~ Johnny Hunt

To all my nonbelieving, sort-of-believing, and used-to-be-believing friends: I feel like I should begin with a confession. I am sorry that so often the biggest obstacle to God has been Christians. ~ Shane Claiborne

If fear appears at your door you have two options, either you choose to let it in or you choose to grab onto the Lord and the promise of His presence no matter what. ~ Yilda B. Rivera