Sinless Quotes

O holy God! The sinless seraphs covered their faces in Your presence. How much more should we who are but sinful creatures bow in reverence before Your throne. You alone are holy. You alone are the transcendent, majestic God. You alone are morally pure. You are perfect light; in You there is no darkness at all. And yet, through Your Son You came to us as our Savior. You came not to pronounce woe but blessing to those who trust in Jesus. Fill our hearts with awe because of Your holiness, and with amazement because of Your love. Through Jesus Christ our Lord we praise You. Amen. ~ Jerry Bridges

By faith we proclaim that we are "justified". By His sinless sacrifice Jesus declares and makes us "righteous" by giving us His very own righteousness! ~ John Paul Warren

Because of his sinless life, Jesus walked in perfect dominion. God did whatever he asked, NOT because he was God's son, but because he held the position of a righteous man. But that was Jesus, you say. But the Bible says that through our believing on Him, we have been given the same position of righteousness with God that Jesus has. ~ Kenneth Copeland

Think it's very easy for me to focus my attention on myself. I don't mean that I just sit around thinking about me and how wonderful I am (although I'm not above that!). No, I mean that I tend to focus my thought on my Christianity - how I'm doing, what I'm learning, how my prayer time was today, how I avoided that pesky sin or fell into it again. I think about what I'm supposed to accomplish for Christ, and I interact with others on that same works-oriented ground. But this day isn't about me at all. It's about him: his sinless life, death, resurrection, ascension, and reign and the sure promise of his return. It's the gravity of his life that should attract my thought toward him. ~ Elyse M. Fitzpatrick

Gorgons and Hydras, and Chimaeras - dire stories of Celaeno and the Harpies - may reproduce themselves in the brain of superstition - but they were there before. They are transcripts, types - the archetypes are in us, and eternal. How else should the recital of that which we know in a waking sense to be false come to affect us at all? Is it that we naturally conceive terror from such objects, considered in their capacity of being able to inflict upon us bodily injury? O, least of all! These terrors are of older standing. They date beyond body - or without the body, they would have been the same ... That the kind of fear here treated is purely spiritual - that it is strong in proportion as it is objectless on earth, that it predominates in the period of our sinless infancy - are difficulties the solution of which might afford some probable insight into our ante-mundane condition, and a peep at least into the shadowland of pre-existence. ~ Charles Lamb

Had there been a Papist among the crowd of Puritans, he might have seen in this beautiful woman, so picturesque in her attire and mien, and with the infant at her bosom, an object to remind him of the image of Divine Maternity, which so many illustrious painters have vied with one another to represent; something which should remind him, indeed, but only by contrast, of that sacred image of sinless motherhood, whose infant was to redeem the world. Here, there was the taint of of deepest sin in the most sacred of quality of human life, working such effect, that the world was only the darker for this woman's beauty, and the more lost for the infant that she had borne. ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

To live a sinless life is good, but if you live in a cave and positively influence nobody, you may not have harmed anyone, but since you added no value to life, are you really worthy? ~ Jarod Kintz

All it takes for us to be guilty of theft is one misspent hour at work; one item we "forgot" to return from the office; one personal long-distance phone call we made at the company's expense; one overpriced item in our store. We see our sinless Lord, crucified for thieves not unlike the one hanging next to Him. Here was one person who never took what did not belong to Him, and who fulfilled all His obligations and paid debts He did not owe, and yet He hangs here next to a common thief, bearing His shame and guilt before God as though He had committed the crime. The thief crucified next to our Lord may have experienced the wrath of Rome that dark Friday afternoon, but because of the crucifixion of a Man just feet from him, he would not have to endure the wrath of heaven. All thieves who trust in Christ can expect to hear those same words on their death-bed from the spotless Lamb: "Today you shall be with me in Paradise. ~ Michael S. Horton

He by whom the whole universe is constantly pervaded is the Knower, the Author of time. He is sinless and omniscient.

It is at His command that the work which is called earth, water, fire, air and akasa appears as the universe. All this should be reflected upon by the wise. ~ Svetasvatara Upanishad

If [drugs] didn't exist, our government would have to invent them, the better to enact laws aimed at keeping the citizens "sinless and obedient." ~ Gore Vidal

Jesus' sinless life was given as a gift to the world - the ultimate gift. Some would receive Him, and others wouldn't. Nonetheless, He continues to be our gift, and His life and death makes it possible for His children to receive eternal life with Him. That's a reason to give God glory. ~ Monica Johnson

Have you ever thought about the wonderful truth that Christ lived His perfect life in your place and on your behalf? Has it yet gripped you that when God looks at you today He sees you clothed in the perfect, sinless obedience of His Son? And that when He says, "This is my Son, whom I love; with Him I am well pleased," He includes you in that warm embrace? The extent to which we truly understand this is the extent to which we will begin to enjoy those unsearchable riches that are found in Christ. ~ Jerry Bridges

Men are not gentle and graceful beings solely oriented towards good. They are physical, coarse, contradictory, stretched between desires and temptations. In an unnatural wish to make them sinless and infallible, we suddenly realize that we have obtained bloodless, sentimental and false personalities incapable of both good and evil. Separating them from mother Earth, we separate them from life, and where is no life, there is no virtue either. ~ Alija Izetbegovic

If your deepest feelings are reserved for something other than Almighty God, then that something other is an emotional idol... if you get more excited about material things than the simple yet profound fact that your sin was nailed to the cross by the sinless Son of God, then you're bowing down to Tammuz. ~ Mark Batterson

Lady beware. Fan not the harmless glow Of admiration into ardent love, Lean not with red curled smiling lips above The flickering spark of sinless flame, and blow, Lest in the sudden waking of desire Thou, like the child, shalt perish in the fire. ~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox

When Jesus, our King, comes back, He will put this broken world back together again. You don't need to be ashamed of your grief, because your grief is a cry for that day
the day when we will enjoy sinless hearts and minds with disease-free bodies. Everything that causes pain and discomfort will be forever put away. ~ Tullian Tchividjian

The virgin birth of Christ is a key doctrine; for if Jesus Christ is not God come in sinless human flesh, then we have no Savior. Jesus had to be ~ Warren W. Wiersbe

Our guides, we pretend, must be sinless: as if those were not often the best teachers who only yesterday got corrected for their mistakes. ~ George Eliot

A machine is more blameless, more sinless even than any animal. It has no intentions whatsoever but our own. ~ Ursula K. Le Guin

Duty is sinless. ~ Amit Kalantri

We even, at the worst, reach the state for which Buddhism, in the East presents most ably the case: as in the West, does James Thomson (B.V.) in The City of Dreadful Night; we come to wish for - or, more truly to think that we wish for "blest Nirvana's sinless stainless Peace" (or some such twaddle - thank God I can't recall Arnold's mawkish and unmanly phrase!) and B.V.'s "Dateless oblivion and divine repose."

I insist on the "think that you wish," because, if the real You did really wish the real That, you could never have come to exist at all! ("But I don't exist." - "I know - let's get on!")

Note, please, how sophistically unconvincing are the Buddhist theories of how we ever got into this mess. First cause: Ignorance. Way out, then, knowledge. O.K., that implies a knower, a thing known - and so on and so forth, through all the Three Waste Paper Baskets of the Law; analysed, it turns out to be nonsense all dolled up to look like thinking. And there is no genuine explanation of the origin of the Will to be.

How different, how simple, how self-evident, is the doctrine of The Book of the Law! ~ Aleister Crowley

From the beginning, the gospel message has had a profound eschatological component. The compelling challenge for every person is the inevitability of the ultimate catastrophe of death. It haunts us particularly as we age and realize as parents die and out peers depart that we are, in some sense, "next." Man was not created to die. God placed eternity in his heart and an immortal spirit that cannot comprehend the end of life. Fear of our mortality lurks in the background of our lives, dampening our joys, and in sober moments, bringing us to an awareness of our overwhelming fragility. Much of modern life is an attempt to live as though we will be here forever. It is a fantasy of denial, supported by the pleasures of the moment, which collectively serve as a narcotic, dulling the awareness of death's certainty and near proximity.
The message of the gospel is the message of life for us, a life out of death, provided in the person of our substitute, Jesus Christ. As the only one qualified to face the foe, He took all that death could give – energized by Satan's rage – and came out the victor, providing immortality to all who would believe in Him. His victory was not simply the means of our return to Eden's joys, with their attendant vulnerability to the possibility of yet another fall. It closed the door forever to another intrusion of sin and death by giving perfect, sinless immortality to those who are His own. He gave them the absolute promise of eternal perfection, the u ~ John E. Hartman

Bible States That Christians Are to be Perfect The Bible says that whoever is born again cannot sin. Yes I m talking about sinless perfection. You need to know who you are in Christ Jesus. Jesus told the women who was caught in adultery to sin no more. He did not say do not commit adultery no more but He said to sin no more and this is Bible Salvation. God would not tell you to do something that you were not capable of doing. God gave you the Holy Spirit Who is sinless to make you sinless.True believers ~ Khurram Aharf

My God, whose son, as on this night, took on Him the form of man, and for man vouchsafed to suffer and bleed, controls thy hand, and without His behest, thou canst not strike a stroke. My God is sinless, eternal, all-wise, and in Him is my trust, and though stripped and crushed by thee, -though naked, desolate, void of resource- I do not despair:where the lance of Guthrum now wet with my blood, I should not despair. I watch, I toil, I hope, I pray: Jehovah, in His own time, will aid. ~ Charlotte Bronte

Shame is a child of self-centeredness. Heaven's occupants are not self-centered, they are Christ-centered. You will be in your sinless state. The sinless don't protect a reputation or project an image. You won't be ashamed. You'll be happy to let God do in heaven what he did on earth - be honored in your weaknesses. Heads bowed in shame? No. Heads bowed in worship? No doubt. ~ Max Lucado

If we cannot claim to live sinless lives, then the only thing that can keep us from despairing before a holy God is that we have an Advocate in heaven and He pleads our case not on the basis of our perfection but of His propitiation. ~ John Piper

Francie looked at her legs. They were long, slender, and exquisitely molded. She wore the sheerest of flawless silk stockings, and expensively made high-heeled pumps shod her beautifully arched feet. "Beautiful legs, then, is the secret of being a mistriss," concluded Francie. She looked down at her own long thin legs. "I'll never make it, I guess." Sighing , she resigned herself to a sinless life. ~ Betty Smith

And if the earth Gods wreak vengeance on the sinless and the sinful alike, then this further destruction cannot be punishment for sins, but is in the way of all nature. ~ Marion Zimmer Bradley

The sinless One took on the face of a sinner so that we sinners could take on the face of a saint. ~ Max Lucado

The sin of man was placed on a sinless Savior. 2 Cor. 5:21 ~ John Paul Warren

Love children especially, for they too are sinless like the angels; they live to soften and purify our hearts and, as it were, to guide us. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Once our idea of heaven meant
all the dead relatives waiting
on the kept lawn of the many mansions
as if, suddenly sinless, they had nothing
to do ... ~ Deborah Digges

Man's nature, it is said, must necessarily become corrupt. God could not endow him with sinlessness, which is an inalienable portion of Divine perfection. But if God could not render him sinless, why did He take the trouble of creating man, whose nature was to become corrupt, and which, consequently, had to offend God? On the other side, if God Himself was not able to render human nature sinless, what right had He to punish men for not being sinless? ~ Jean Meslier

But what about the creatures whose flesh he's carrying there? A few days ago they were alive. They too have souls. They too are God's children. They were quite possibly made of better material than human beings. Since they were sinless, they were certainly more innocent. But day after day they are ritually sacrificed-angels in the shape of oxen, calves, sheep. I once wanted to become a vegetarian. I wanted everything-and I never got further than wanting. ~ Isaac Bashevis Singer

Abide in Jesus, the sinless One - which means, give up all of self and its life, and dwell in God's will and rest in His strength. This is what brings the power that does not commit sin. ~ Andy Murray

A person with a biblical worldview experiences, interprets, and response to reality in light of the Bible's principles. What Scripture teaches is the primary grid for making decisions and interacting with the world. For the purposes of our research, we investigate a biblical worldview based on eight elements. A person with a biblical worldview believes that Jesus Christ lived a sinless life, God is the all-powerful and all-knowing Creator of the universe and he still rules it today, salvation is a gift from God and cannot be earned, Satan is real, a Christian has a responsibility to share his or her faith in Christ with other people, the Bible is accurate in all of the principles it teaches, unchanging moral truth exists, and such moral truth is defined by the Bible.

In our research, we have found that people who embraced these eight components we have a substantially different faith from other Americans – indeed, from other believers. ~ David Kinnaman

Jesus' epic work through his sinless life, atoning death, resurrection, and ascension, and the sending of the Spirit, was so that God could have an ethnically diverse family of Jews and Gentiles. ~ Derwin L. Gray

God does not require a perfect, sinless life to have fellowship with Him, but He does require that we be serious about holiness, that we grieve over sin in our lives instead of justifying it, and that we earnestly pursue holiness as a way of life. ~ Jerry Bridges

Excuses will become self-refuting. No man who does not believe that Jesus is the perfect, sinless Son of God can, in his desperation and love for sin, reasonably use and misconstrue Jesus' words that unless a Christian is perfect, then that Christian cannot judge sin. Otherwise this non-believer is unconsciously entertaining a belief that Jesus, unlike any other man to ever live, was indeed perfect and sinless in His judgments and therefore that Christian is supposed to be like Him. ~ Criss Jami

And we neglect the glorious gospel when we fail to recognize his preeminence. How frequently we forget that everything is for him and about him. We forget that he is to be first, in our honor and in our worship. Whenever the gospel slips from our conscious thought, our religion becomes all about our performance, and then we think everything that happens or will ever happen isa bout us. When I forget the incarnation, sinless life, death, resurrection, and ascension, I quickly believe that I'm supposed to be the unrivaled supreme, and matchless one. It's at this point that I'm particularly in need of an intravenous dose of gospel truth. He is preeminent. ~ Elyse M. Fitzpatrick

The cumulative weight of all mortal sins
past, present, and future
pressed upon that perfect, sinless, and sensitive Soul! All our infirmities and sicknesses were somehow, too, a part of the awful arithmetic of the Atonement. (See Alma 7:11-12; Isa. 53:3-5; Matt. 8:17.) The anguished Jesus not only pled with the Father that the hour and cup might pass from Him, but with this relevant citation. 'And he said, Abba, Father, all things are possible unto thee; take away this cup from me.' (Mark 14:35-36.) ~ Neal A. Maxwell

When in the wondrous realms above Our Saviour had been called upon, To save our world of sin by love, He said, "Thy will, O Lord, be done.' The Kings of kings left worlds of light, Became the meek and lowly one; In brightest day or darkest night He said, "Thy will, O Lord, be done." No crown of thorns, no cruel cross Could make our great Redeemer shun. He counted his own will but loss, And said, "Thy will, O Lord, be done." We take the bread and cup this day, In memory of the Sinless One, And pray for strength, That we may say, As he, "Thy will, O Lord, be done." ~ Frank I. Kooyman

Our prayer which moves the arm of God - is still a bruised and battered prayer, and only moves that arm because the sinless One, the great Mediator, has stepped in to take away the sin of our supplication. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Truly,' I answered him, 'all things are good and fair, because all is truth. Look,' said I, 'at the horse, that great beast that is so near to man; or the lowly, pensive ox, which feeds him and works for him; look at their faces, what meekness, what devotion to man, who often beats them mercilessly. What gentleness, what confidence and what beauty! It's touching to know that there's no sin in them, for all, all except man, is sinless, and Christ has been with them before us. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

No Spiritual Discipline is more important than the intake of God's Word. Nothing can substitute for it. There simply is no healthy Christian life apart from a diet of the milk and meat of Scripture. The reasons for this are obvious. In the Bible God tells us about Himself, and especially about Jesus Christ, the incarnation of God. The Bible unfolds the Law of God to us and shows us how we've all broken it. There we learn how Christ died as a sinless, willing Substitute for breakers of God's Law and how we must repent and believe in Him to be right with God. In the Bible we learn the ways and will of the Lord. We find in Scripture how God wants us to live, and what brings the most joy and satisfaction in life. None of this eternally essential information can be found anywhere else except the Bible. Therefore if we would know God and be godly, we must know the Word of God - intimately. ~ Donald S. Whitney

This is the doctrine of Christian Science: that divine Love cannot be deprived of its manifestation, or object; that joy cannot be turned into sorrow, for sorrow is not the master of joy; that good can never produce evil; that matter can never produce mind nor life result in death. The perfect man - governed by God, his perfect Principle - is sinless and eternal. ~ Mary Baker Eddy

I cried suddenly from the bottom of my heart, "look at the divine gifts around us: the clear sky, the fresh air, the tender grass, the birds, nature is beautiful and sinless, and we, we alone, are godless and foolish, and do not understand that life is paradise, for we need only wish to understand, and it will come at once in all its beauty, and we shall embrace each other and weep ... " wanted to go on but I could not, so much sweetness, so much youngness even took my breath away, and in my heart there was such happiness as I had never felt before in all my life. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

The aim of the sinless One consists in acting without causing sorrow to others, although he could attain to great power by ignoring their feelings. The aim of the sinless One lies in not doing evil unto those who have done evil unto him. If a man causes suffering even to those who hate him without any reason, he will ultimately have grief not to be overcome. The punishment of evil doers consists in making them feel ashamed of themselves by doing them a great kindness. Of what use is superior knowledge in the one, if he does not endeavour to relieve his neighbour's want as much as his own? If, in the morning, a man wishes to do evil unto another, in the evening the evil will return to him. ~ Leo Tolstoy

As we practice these disciplines, it's of paramount importance that we keep two truths in mind. First, the disciplines themselves are not the source of spiritual power. Only the Holy Spirit is. The disciplines are his instruments to transmit his power. Second, the practice of the disciplines doesn't earn us favor with God or secure his blessings. Christ has already done that through his sinless life and sin-bearing death for us. That's why the grace we need to live the Christian life is "in Christ Jesus." It bears repeating: we must be on our guard to avoid seeing the practice of the disciplines as either the source of power we need or the meritorious cause of receiving the power. ~ Anonymous

I find no fault in Him. ... You can find fault in anyone else, but you can find
no fault in Jesus. Holy, harmless, undefiled, sinless: there He is! Christ is God's way to man; Christ is man's way to God. Christ is the true Jacob's ladder. By Him the penitent sinner, the believing soul, the redeemed child of God may come unto the Father and enter into the house of many mansions. ~ George W Truett

If the wickedness of people arouses indignation and insurmountable grief in you, to the point that you desire to revenge yourself upon the wicked, fear that feeling most of all; go at once and seek torments for yourself, as if you yourself were guilty of their wickedness. Take these torments upon yourself and suffer them, and your heart will be eased, and you will understand that you, too, are guilty, for you might have shone to the wicked, even like the only sinless One, but you did not. If you had shone, your light would have lighted the way for others, and the one who did wickedness would perhaps not have done so in your light. And even if you do shine, but see that people are not saved even with your light, remain steadfast, and do not doubt the power of the heavenly light; believe that if they are not saved now, they will be saved later. And if they are not saved, their sons will be saved, for your light will not die, even when you are dead. The righteous man departs, but his light remains. People are always saved after the death of him who saved them. The generation of men does not welcome its prophets and kills them, but men love their martyrs and venerate those they have tortured to death. Your work is for the whole, your deed is for the future. Never seek a reward, for great is your reward on earth without that: your spiritual joy, which only the righteous obtain. Nor should you fear the noble and powerful, but be wise and ever gracious. Know measure, know the time, ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

There is only one Jesus; we can't live a sinless life like He did. ~ Monica Johnson

God takes the weak and makes them strong. He takes the vile and makes them clean. He takes the worthless and makes them worthwhile. He takes the sinful and makes them sinless. ~ Billy Graham

Integrity ... does not mean sinless, but it does describe a person who by God's grace "sin less." ~ Sam Storms

Human nature is not taken into account, it is excluded, it's not supposed to exist! They don't recognise that humanity, developing by a historical living process, will become at last a normal society, but they believe that a social system that has come out of some mathematical brain is going to organise all humanity at once and make it just and sinless in an instant, quicker than any living process! That's why they instinctively dislike history, 'nothing but ugliness and stupidity in it,' and they explain it all as stupidity! That's why they so dislike the living process of life; they don't want a living soul! The living soul demands life, the soul won't obey the rules of mechanics, the soul is an object of suspicion, the soul is retrograde! But what they want though it smells of death and can be made of india-rubber, at least is not alive, has no will, is servile and won't revolt! And it comes in the end to their reducing everything to the building of walls and the planning of rooms and passages in a phalanstery! The phalanstery is ready, indeed, but your human nature is not ready for the phalanstery--it wants life, it hasn't completed its vital process, it's too soon for the graveyard! You can't skip over nature by logic. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Because the sinless Savior died My sinful soul is counted free. For God the just is satisfied To look on Him and pardon me. ~ Charitie Lees Smith

Because what is at stake for Jesus is not the proclamation and realization of new ethical ideals, and thus also not his own goodness (Matt. 19:17), but solely his love for real human beings, he can enter into the communication of their guilt; he can be loaded down with their guilt ... . It is his love alone that lets him become guilty. Out of his selfless love, out of his sinless nature, Jesus enters into the guilt of human beings; he takes it upon himself. A sinless nature and guilt bearing are bound together in him indissolubly. As the sinless one Jesus takes guilt upon himself, and under the burden of this guilt, he shows that he is the sinless one. ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer

The eternal Son of God became the sinless son of Man that the sinful sons of men might become the beloved sons of God. ~ Robert Clarke

Wesley's emphasis on holiness must be seen in this light. He did not teach "sinless perfection" but he did teach that love could, and must, become the primary motivating force in the Christian's life. He repeatedly defined holiness as loving God with all one's being and loving one's neighbor as oneself. This meant two things for Wesley: God's grace is sufficient to perfect the Christian in love, and this love empowers and impels the believer to good works. We must give ourselves to God "in humble faith, and in holy, active, patient love! ~ Howard A. Snyder

the sinless, impeccable Christ, at the end of His sojurn among men, suffered death, which no one has to undergo except sinners; for death is the wages of sin. There is only one explanation of the death of the incarnate Son of God - it is substitutive, or vicarious, just like His life under the Law. Jesus died the death which sinners had deserved to die, and by His redeeming love, God purposes to regard the death of His Son as the death which He would have to inflict upon every sinner for breaking the Law. ~ C.F.W. Walther

That is the heavenly Father's deepest impulse toward us. You are the apple of His eye. And anyone who messes with you messes with Him. His protective instincts are most poignantly seen at the cross - the place where unconditional love and omnipotent power for the amalgam called amazing grace. That's where the Creator stepped between every fallen sinner and the fallen angel, Satan. That's where the Advocate took His stand against the Accuser of the brethren. The Sinless Son of God took the fall for us.

The cross is God's way of saying, "You are worth dying for. ~ Mark Batterson

It's awkward how some people refuse to be humans regarding their behaviours! Isn't that against God's will for he created them as humans? And yet, they at night hold hands up and ask God for forgiveness and to grant them their wishes; when he created animals sinless. ~ Mustafa SULTAN

You see, this people [Noah, Abraham, Sarah, Jacob, etc.] simply believed that God existed in the situation they were faced with, and they trusted Him rather than themselves. The result? God said, "That pleases Me." They were men and women just like you and I, which is the most encouraging part of all. We don't find golden haloes, or perfect backgrounds, or sinless lives, we just find people. People who failed, who struggled, who doubted, who experienced hard times and low times in which their faith was eclipsed by doubt. But their lives were basically characterized by faith. ~ Charles R. Swindoll

The death of the innocent, sinless Christ and the imputation of Christ's righteousness to us satisfy God's justice and holiness. If, however, we reject Christ's atonement, then we are left to face God's judgment alone. In this case His holiness demands separation from sinful humans and His justice demands death for sinful humans. So justice and mercy are complementary, not contradictory, aspects of God's nature, as are holiness and love. If we accept God's love and mercy, He will help us satisfy His justice and holiness. If we reject God's love and mercy, we must face His justice and holiness alone (Romans 11:22). ~ David K. Bernard

If anyone had a right to lecture people about their sin, it was the sinless son of God. If even he could meet sinners as equals, how much more should we Christians
all sinners ourselves
treat as equals the people we encounter in our lives? ~ Justin Lee

As we find our worth and forgiveness at the feet of Jesus, these chains will loosen. We'll be free to run into His loving arms - restored and whole. Not because we're perfect or sinless. But because Jesus saw our flaws and sins and still, He said, "You are worth dying for. ~ Tessa Emily Hall

With the infant at her bosom, an object to remind him of the image of Divine Maternity, which so many illustrious painters have vied with one another to represent; something which should remind him, indeed, but only by contrast, of that sacred image of sinless motherhood, ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

If one is devoid of hope and thanksgiving, he cannot for long remain sinless, for he will, in despair, have slackened his resolve. Feelings of futility foster vulnerability. Self-pity is such a busy stagehand, rearranging the scenery to help sin make its entrance. No wonder the prophets say that without faith in the Lord, there is no hope. ~ Neal A. Maxwell

Why is it that it is often easier for us to confess our sins to God than to a brother? God is holy and sinless, He is a just judge of evil and the enemy of all disobedience. But a brother is sinful as we are. He knows from his own experience the dark night of secret sin. Why should we not find it easier to go to a brother than to the holy God? But if we do, we must ask ourselves whether we have not often been deceiving ourselves with our confession of sin to God, whether we have not rather been confessing our sins to ourselves and also granting ourselves absolution ... Who can give us the certainty that, in the confession and the forgiveness of our sins, we are not dealing with ourselves but with the living God? God gives us this certainty through our brother. Our brother breaks the circle of self-deception. A man who confesses his sins in the presence of a brother knows that he is no longer alone with himself; he experiences the presence of God in the reality of the other person. ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer