Quotes from Philip Yancey

Change came from below, as it usually does, rather than being imposed from above.

A pilgrim is a fellow-traveler on the spiritual journey, not a professional guide.

Even the greatest of miracles do not resolve the problems of this earth: all people who find physical healing eventually die. We need more than miracle. We need a new heaven and a new earth, and until we have those, unfairness will not disappear.

God had "hallowed" creation by separating the sacred from the profane, the clean from the unclean. Jesus did not cancel out the hallowing principle, rather he changed its source. We ourselves can be agents of God's holiness, for God now dwells within us. In the midst of an unclean world we can stride, as Jesus did, seeking ways to be a source of holiness.

The storm laid bare an unmistakable truth. More and more Christians have decided that the only way to reconquer America is through service. The faith no longer travels by the word. It moves by the deed.

I see the confusion of politics and religion as one of the greatest barriers to grace. C. S. Lewis once said that almost all crimes of Christian history have come about when religion is confused with politics. Politics, which always runs by the rules of ungrace, allures us to trade away grace for power, a temptation the church has often been unable to resist. Those

My slowness to act is a sign of mercy, not of weakness.

Who is my enemy? The abortionist? The Hollywood producer polluting our culture? The politician threatening my moral principles? The drug lord ruling my inner city? If my activism, however well-motivated, drives out love, then I have misunderstood Jesus' gospel. I am stuck with law, not the gospel of grace.

In a sort of negative proof of the power of prayer, three times God commanded Jeremiah to stop praying; God wanted no alteration in his plans to punish a rebellious nation.

We have not, it seems, the power to abstain from worship. Instead, we swallow the sweet poison, substituting lesser gods for God.

Grace is the only force in the universe powerful enough to break the chains that enslave generations.

Ungrace causes cracks to fissure open between mother and daughter, father and son, brother and sister, between scientists, and prisoners, and tribes, and races. Left alone, cracks widen, and for the resulting chasms of ungrace there is only one remedy: the frail rope-bridge of forgiveness.