Quotes about Sinfulness

Luther said that every Christian is "simul justus et peccator, comprehensor et viator"—"simultaneously righteous and sinful, a man who has reached the goal and one who reaches out toward it.

Because of the fall of Adam and Eve and the natural sinfulness of the human heart that was passed onto all of us, there are those who will oppose God with all their strength. Paul was one of them. It was on his way to persecute believers in Jesus Christ that Jesus knocked him off his horse, blinded him, and spoke directly to him: "Saul! Saul! Why are you persecuting me?" (Acts 9:4). Never, never, never give up on the person in your life who seems most opposed to the gospel.

We are only prepared to receive and comprehend the grace of God when we have understood His infinite holiness and our incredible sinfulness.

If we had not experienced our deep sinfulness and Jesus' deep forgiveness through the cross, we will not love others well in the midst of their struggles. If we do not see the beauty and glory of God in our own redemption, we will not be able to offer a compelling redemptive vision for those who are hopeless and who doubt God's love for them.

Revival begins here: with a profound awareness of God's absolute holiness, our absolute sinfulness, and our complete inability to bridge the divide that separates us.

The brightest saint is the man who has the most heart-searching sense of his own sinfulness, and the liveliest sense of his own complete acceptance in Christ.

Saw so much of the wickedness of my heart that I longed to get away from myself…I felt almost pressed to death with my own vileness. Oh what a body of death is there in me…Oh the closest walk with God is the sweetest heaven that can be enjoyed on earth!

In Jesus, God wills to be true God not only in the height but also in the depth - in the depth of human creatureliness, sinfulness and mortality.

Judge yourself; if you do that you will not be judged by God, as St. Paul says. But it must be a real sense of your own sinfulness, not an artificial humility.