Quotes from Philip Yancey
Why are we here? We, all of us, are here because of the Creator's love, who seeks both our flourishing and our response of love and gratitude. "Find out what pleases the Lord," Paul told the Ephesians. We are here to please God. It brings God pleasure to see us thrive, and we thrive by living as God intended.
- Philip Yancey
None of us gets paid according to merit, for none of us comes close to satisfying God's requirements for a perfect life. If paid on the basis of fairness, we would all end up in hell.
- Philip Yancey
Where did Christians get the reputation as life-squelchers instead of life-enhancers? Jesus himself promised, I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly. What keeps us from realizing that abundant life?
- Philip Yancey
Christianity has a principle, "Hate the sin but love the sinner," which is more easily preached than practiced. If Christians could simply recover that practice, modeled so exquisitely by Jesus, we would go a long way toward fulfilling our calling as dispensers of God's grace.
- Philip Yancey
Why God asks us to forgive: because that is what God is like.
- Philip Yancey
God, help me to see others not as my enemies or as ungodly but rather as thirsty people. And give me the courage and compassion to offer your Living Water, which alone quenches deep thirst.
- Philip Yancey
According to Gallup polls, more Americans will pray this week than will exercise, drive a car, have sex, or go to work. Nine in ten of us pray regularly, and three out of four claim to pray every day. To
- Philip Yancey
A similar cycle has recurred throughout church history. Christians present an attractive counterculture until they become the dominant culture. Then they divert from their mission, join the power structure, and in the process turn society against them. Rejected, they retreat into a minority subculture, only to start the cycle all over again.
- Philip Yancey
Caught up in righteous—and wholly appropriate—revulsion over Serbian atrocities, the world overlooks one fact: the Serbs are simply following the terrible logic of unforgiveness.
- Philip Yancey
How odd, that prayer seems foolish to some people who base their lives on media trends, superstition, instinct, hormones, social propriety, or even astrology.)
- Philip Yancey
An institution cannot love; only people can love. As the proverb says, apart from love, giving becomes an insult.
- Philip Yancey
Legalism is a subtle danger because no one thinks of himself as a legalist.
- Philip Yancey