Return Of Christ Quotes

The United States is falling away from the very things that had made it what it was. What it is becoming is something to be feared.... ~ Adam Bradford

we need to think through issues in terms of the Bible's big story - a biblical worldview. Our social involvement should be set in the framework of a biblical worldview shaped by the story of redemption. We should explore issues by looking at them in the light of creation, humanity's fall into sin, God's redemption - promised in the Old Testament and accomplished through Christ - and the return of Christ and the transformation of all things. Being biblical, then, means ensuring that our actions are related to our biblical framework rather than appending isolated biblical texts to each action. ~ Tim Chester

As the conditions of our world worsen, Jesus said we shouldn't hang our heads in depression or shake our heads in confusion. We should lift up our heads in expectation, for our redemption draws near (Luke 21:28). After Paul told the Thessalonians about the sudden return of Christ for His people, he said, "Comfort one another with these words" (1 Thessalonians 4:18). ~ David Jeremiah

It's curious that the Church has become the most tightfisted at the very time in history when God has provided most generously. There's considerable talk about the end of the age, and many people seem to believe that Christ will return in their lifetime. But why is it that expecting Christ's return hasn't radically influenced our giving? Why is it that people who believe in the soon return of Christ are so quick to build their own financial empires
which prophecy tells us will perish
and so slow to build God's kingdom? ~ Randy Alcorn

The promised return of Christ should motivate you toward daily holy living. ~ Jim George

The idea that the Man Christ Jesus has absolute and final authority over the whole church and over all of its members in every detail of their lives is simply not now accepted as true by the rank and file of evangelical Christians ~ Aiden Wilson Tozer

I've come to believe in some kind of afterlife. A return to our true selves, a spirit self. We're just in this physical body till we go back to spirit. ~ Kent Haruf

If man is a totally depraved being, can he possibly take the first step in the matter of his return to God? ~ Arthur W. Pink

When forecasting the outcomes of risky projects, executives too easily fall victim to the planning fallacy. In its grip, they make decisions based on delusional optimism rather than on a rational weighting of gains, losses, and probabilities. They overestimate benefits and underestimate costs. They spin scenarios of success while overlooking the potential for mistakes and miscalculations. As a result, they pursue initiatives that are unlikely to come in on budget or on time or to deliver the expected returns - or even to be completed. In this view, people often (but not always) take on risky projects because they are overly optimistic about the odds they face. I will return to this idea several times in this book - it probably contributes to an explanation of why people litigate, why they start wars, and why they open small businesses. ~ Daniel Kahneman

it is absolutely vital that we never forget as believers that it is ultimately the Holy Spirit who is responsible and able to bring people to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. It is one thing to argue and to defend the gospel message and the intellectual validity of Christianity as a worldview and religion, it is quite another to think that we actually have the ability to save people within ourselves. ~ Trevor Slone

Serving humanity is fulfilling the description of Christ ~ Sunday Adelaja

The auctioneer turned to face her. He raised his knife again. Kestrel had just enough time to remember the sound of a hammer against anvil, to think of all the weapons Arin had forged, and to realize that if he had wanted to make more on the side it wouldn't have been heard.
The auctioneer advanced on her.
Not hard at all.
"No," said Arin. "She's mine."
The man paused. "What?"
Arin strolled toward them, stepping in the housekeeper's blood. He stood next to the auctioneer, his stance loose and careless. "She's mine. My prize. Payment for services rendered. A spoil of war." Arin shrugged. "Call her what you like. Call her my slave."
Shame poured into Kestrel, as poisonous as anything her friends must have drunk at the ball.
Slowly, the auctioneer said, "I'm a little worried about you, Arin. I think you've lost clarity on the situation."
"Is there something wrong with treating her the way she treated me?"
"No, but--"
"The Valorian army will return. She's the general's daughter. She's too valuable to waste."
The auctioneer sheathed his knife, but Kestrel couldn't sheathe her dread. This sudden alternative to death didn't seem like a better one.
"Just remember what happened to your parents," the auctioneer told Arin. "Remember what Valorian soldiers did to your sister."
Arin's gaze cut to Kestrel. "I do."
"Really? Where were you during the assault on the estate? I expected to find my second-in-command here. Inst ~ Marie Rutkoski

I didn't know the Bible said anything about money. Twenty percent of what Christ talked about was money. You think about it - so does God. Think you need it - God knows it ... The principles of Jesus Christ create your prosperity. ~ Mike Murdock

The soul is made of love and must ever strive to return to love. Therefore, it can never find rest nor happiness in other things. It must lose itself in love. By its very nature it must seek God, who is love ... ~ Mechthild Of Magdeburg

I once had occasion to conduct an interview with a Soviet writer (Anatoli Kusnyetsov). (...) He made a remark which is one of the most extraordinary remarks anyone has ever made to me and has echoed in my mind more often than I can say. He said to me this: that if in this world you are confronted with absolute power, power unmitigated, unrestrained, extending to every area of human life - if you are confronted with power in those terms, you are driven to realise that the only possible response to it is not some alternative power arrangement, more humane, more enlightened. The only possible response to absolute power is the absolute love which our Lord brought into the world. (...) I can see, though we in the West have not experienced this absolute power, that there would be something futile and ridiculous even in the attempt to meet such tyranny with some alternative propaganda or ideology. As between Caesar at his most absolute and God at his most remote, there is only Christ. And that was what this man said. ~ Malcolm Muggeridge

The rain began the next morning and showed no signs of letting up. Mud sucked at Arin's boots as he helped Kestrel ready her horse. The rain intensified, dropping down like little stones.
Arin squinted up at it. "Terrible day to ride." He hated to see her go.
She wiped water from her face, glancing over at Risha, whose head was tipped back under the rain, eyes closed. "Not for everyone," Kestrel said, "and the rain will make it less likely a Valorian scout will notice that a small band is riding from camp."
True. The middle distance was a gray fog. Arin raked dripping hair off his brow. He tried to be all right. His nerves sparked the way a blade does against the grinder.
Kestrel touched his cheek. "The rain is good for us."
"Come here."
She tasted like the rain: cool and fresh and sweet. Her mouth warmed as he kissed her. He felt the way her clothes stuck to her skin. He forgot himself.
She murmured, "I have something for you."
"You needn't give me anything."
"It's not a gift. It's for you to keep safe until I return." She placed a speckled yellow feather on his palm.
The rain fell in a veil behind her. ~ Marie Rutkoski

The secret of Christianity is in being. It is in being a possessor of the nature of Jesus Christ. ~ John G. Lake

When it passes us, the driver tips his cap our way, eying us as if he thinks we're up to no good-the kind of no good he might call the cops on. I wave to him and smile, wondering if I look as guilty as I feel. Better make this the quickest lesson in driving history. It's not like she needs to pass the state exam. If she can keep the car straight for ten seconds in a row, I've upheld my end of the deal.
I turn off the ignition and look at her. "So, how are you and Toraf doing?"
She cocks her head at me. "What does that have to do with driving?"
Aside from delaying it? "Nothing," I say, shrugging. "Just wondering."
She pulls down the visor and flips open the mirror. Using her index finger, she unsmudges the mascara Rachel put on her. "Not that it's your business, but we're fine. We were always fine."
"He didn't seem to think so."
She shoots me a look. "He can be oversensitive sometimes. I explained that to him."
Oversensitive? No way. She's not getting off that easy. "He's a good kisser," I tell her, bracing myself.
She turns in her seat, eyes narrowed to slits. "You might as well forget about that kiss, Emma. He's mine, and if you put your nasty Half-Breed lips on him again-"
"Now who's being oversensitive?" I say, grinning. She does love him.
"Switch places with me," she snarls. But I'm too happy for Toraf to return the animosity.
Once she's in the driver's seat, her attitude changes. She bounces up and down like she's ma ~ Anna Banks

You keep asking me that," she said sharply. "No. I don't care to notify anyone. I can't bear a crowd of relatives around me. I threw away that damned corset in a trash can. I won't return to that." There ~ Joyce Carol Oates

I am not sure that Christ would have been very satisfied to foresee that He would be looked upon principally as a redeemer and nailed forever upon the cross by human ignorance. It seems to me that He above all desired to bring men a message of truth, that He wanted to heal them of their faults by making an appeal to all their energy; He shook them as much as He could, He did not seek to spare them the trouble. ~ Adrienne Monnier

Well-meaning members lose sight of their role as servants and become increasingly focused on controlling the very church they are called to serve. When a serving heart is replaced by a controlling heart, division is bound to ensue. And when selfish division lies unchallenged, areas of ministry and service become turfs to be defended, and brother and sisters in Christ become opponents and obstacles to individual accomplishment. ~ Darrin Patrick

It was our belief that the love of possessions is a weakness to be overcome ... Children must early learn the beauty of generosity. They are taught to give what they prize most, that they may taste the happiness of giving ... The Indians in their simplicity literally give away all that they have - to relatives, to guests of other tribes or clans, but above all to the poor and the aged, from whom they can hope for no return. ~ Charles Alexander Eastman

....The important thing is not where we die but how we live. Being native to a place is a labor of love and a life's work. It means stitching your life to that of a place with a thread spun from mindfulness, attentiveness, husbandry, pilgrimage, and witness. Stories knit these components of practice together. Flung outward, they clothe our relationships; flung inward, they map the soul. Stories enable us to enter and dwell attentively in a place; they enable us to travel and return, then eventually to leave for good. We need stories to stay alive spiritually: without them we would all turn into hungry ghosts. Stories are the only things we can take with us out of this world. They are the wings that bear us up or the chains that drag us down. In the end, it is stories that enable us to die. ~ John Tallmadge

The moment you cross the border of your country to another, nature will blow you the breeze of revolution, no matter how long you may spend abroad, you will never return back home the same again, it is either greater or worse. ~ Elijah Onyenmeriogu

Stand up and wash away this shame from the face of Christ! They are spitting in His face. ~ Sabina Wurmbrand

The point of no return in every relationship: When nothing you say or do can ever make things how they used to be. ~ Nitya Prakash

Satan may play his wicked role in the drama and take Job's children and strike him with boils from head to toe, but Job will not give Satan the eminence of ultimate causality. That belongs to God alone, even if we cannot understand it all. When Job's ten children were crushed to death, he "fell upon the ground, and worshiped. And he said, 'Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return; the LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD'" (Job 1:20-21, RSV). ~ John Piper

The Savior's words are simple, yet their meaning is profound and deeply significant. We are to love God and to love and care for our neighbors as ourselves. Imagine what good we can do in the world if we all join together, united as followers of Christ, anxiously and busily responding to the needs of others and serving those around us - our families, our friends, our neighbors, our fellow citizens. ~ M. Russell Ballard

We do not know, we cannot tell, no mortal mind can conceive the full import of what Christ did in Gethsemane. ~ Bruce R. McConkie

Practical theology is the need to interpret the "where" of Jesus Christ in our experiences of the now. ~ Andrew Root

The gospel is not good advice to men, but good news about Christ; not an invitation to us to do anything, but a declaration of what God has done; not a demand, but an offer. ~ John R.W. Stott

I played a game when I did the shopping. I thought about the children's games where the board is marked into little spaces and each player moves according to a throw of the dice; there were always dangers, like "lose one turn" and "go back four spaces" and "return to start," and little helps, like "advance three spaces" and "take an extra turn." The library was my start and the black rock was my goal. I had to move down one side of Main Street, cross, and then move up the other side until I reached the black rock, when I would win. ~ Shirley Jackson

Like it or not, we are trendsetters. Just as every fashion model ever to strut the runway, we affect the minds of others by what we wear. With usch power it's vital to question ourselves: 'Am I an example of Christ-centeredness? Or have I just gotten comfortable in the "Christian routine" and forgotten why I've chosen to live this way? ~ Hannah Farver

The Americans of other blood must remember that the man who in good faith and without reservations gives up another country for this must in return receive exactly the same rights, not merely legal, but social and spiritual, that other Americans proudly possess. We of the United States belong to a new and separate nationality. We are all Americans and nothing else, and each, without regard to his birthplace, creed, or national origin, is entitled to exactly the same rights as all other Americans. ~ Theodore Roosevelt

When we stand before Christ and He evaluates our ministries, He will not be asking us how many people sat in the pews, watched our TV programs, gave in our telethons or filled out response cards. He is not going to evaluate us based on how many people fell under the power of God or how many healings we counted in each service. He will ask how many faithful disciples we made. I pray we make this our priority. ~ J. Lee Grady

I believe that if one man were to live out his life fully and completely, were to give form to every feeling, expression to every thought, reality to every dream - I believe that the world would gain such a fresh impulse of joy that we would forget all the maladies of mediaevalism, and return to the Hellenic ideal - to something finer, richer, than the Hellenic ideal, it may be. ~ Oscar Wilde

For all the bachelors out there tonight, yeah for anybody who's never whistled this song.
Maybe you whistled it but you lost the sheet music.
Um...this is um...well actually I don't mind going to weddings or anything,
as long as there not my own I show up.
But I've always kinda been partial to calling myself up on the phone and asking myself out, you know?
Oh yeah, you call yourself up too huh? Yeah, well one thing about it, your always around.
Yeah I know, yeah you ask yourself out, you know, some class joint somewhere.
The Buretto King or something, you know. Well I ain't cheap you know.
Take yourself out for a couple of drinks maybe.
Then there'd be some provocative conversation on the way home.
Park in front of the house you know.
Oh yeah, you smoothly put a little nice music on,
maybe you put on like uh, you know, like shopping music,
something thats not too interruptive you know and then uh slide over real nice and say
'Oh I think you have something in your eye'.
Well maybe it's not that romantic with you but Christ I don't know, you know I get into it you know.
Take myself up to the porch, take myself inside or maybe uh,
or may get a little something, a brandy snifter or something.
'Would like you like to listen to some of my back records?
I got something here' Uh Well usually about 2.30 in the morning you've ended up taking advantage of yourself.
There ain't no way arou ~ Tom Waits

Home is the normal
whatever place you happen to start from and return to without having to answer questions. It's a metaphor that may seem to fit reduced expectations. We no longer seek towers that would reach to the heavens; we've abandoned attempts to prove that we live in a chain of being whose every link bears witness to the glory of God. We merely seek assurance that we find ourselves in a place where we know our way about. ~ Susan Neiman

The Jews are the most miserable people on earth. They are plagued everywhere, and scattered about all countries, having no certain resting place. They sit as on a wheelbarrow, without a country, people or government ... but they are rightly served, for seeing they refused have Christ and his gospel, instead of freedom they must have servitude. ~ Martin Luther

He meditated on the use to which he should put all the energy of youth which comes to a man only once in life. Should he devote this power, which is not the strength of intellect or heart or education, but an urge which once spent can never return, the power given to a man once only to make himself, or even – so it seems to him at the time – the universe into anything he wishes: should he devote it to art, to science, to love, or to practical activities? True, there are people who never have this urge: at the outset of life they place their necks under the first yoke that offers itself, and soberly toil away in it to the end of their days. ~ Leo Tolstoy

...it is for me in the flesh to acknowledge that Jesus Christ was a letter written in blood to the lost, weak, and forsaken of the world, to the hungry and despised, that announced that the Reign of God is coming and it is coming for the ones to whom the mutilated body of the crucified opens in invitation. ~ Craig Keen

Grace and truth are distinct and yet they are not mutually exclusive. But when people focus on one without the other, they usually fall into two extremes. They either embrace a gospel of "grace without truth" or a gospel of "truth without grace".
Grace without truth is not really grace. Truth without grace is not really truth. Grace without truth pampers. Truth without grace hammers.
Grace without truth is love without correction. Truth without grace is correction without love. Grace without truth is mercy without justice. Truth without grace is justice without mercy.
Grace without truth is soft and spoils people. Truth without grace is harsh and crushes people. Grace without truth is freedom without responsibility. Truth without grace is responsibility without freedom.
Either extremes are neither of Christ or the gospel. ~ Richard PW Tan