Timothy keller quotes

...the essence of gospel-humility is not thinking more of myself or thinking less of myself, it is thinking of myself less.

If you say: I believed in God, I trusted God and He didn't come through - You only trusted God to meet your agenda.

Jesus lost all his glory so that we could be clothed in it. He was shut out so we could get access. He was bound, nailed, so that we could be free. He was cast out so we could approach. And Jesus took away the only kind of suffering that can really destroy you: that is being cast away from God. He took so that now all suffering that comes into your life will only make you great. A lump of coal under pressure becomes a diamond. And the suffering of a person in Christ only turns you into somebody gorgeous.

Do you realize that it is only in the gospel of Jesus Christ that you get the verdict before the performance?

Like a baby learning language, we learn how to communicate with God by listening to His words first.

When we worry we are saying, 'I know the way my life is supposed to go, and God's not getting it right'.

To be loved but not known is comforting but superficial. To be known and not loved is our greatest fear. But to be fully known and truly loved is, well, a lot like being loved by God. It is what we need more than anything. It liberates us from pretense, humbles us out of our self-righteousness, and fortifies us for any difficulty life can throw at us.

The Gospel is news of what God has done to reach us. It is not advice about what we must do to reach God.

The Gospel is good news not good advice. Advice = what we should do. News = report of what was done for us.

Think like a prophet, serve like a priest, and plan like a king.

Tolerance isn't about not having beliefs. It's about how your beliefs lead you to treat people who disagree with you.

Jesus Christ, who had all the power in the world, saw us enslaved by the very things we thought would free us ... He laid aside the infinities and immensities of His being and, at the cost of His life, paid the debt for our sins, purchasing us the only place our hearts can rest, in His Father's house. Knowing He did this will transform us from the inside out.

Nothing is more important than to learn how to maintain a life of purpose in the midst of painful adversity.

If your god never disagrees with you, you might just be worshipping an idealized version of yourself.

What you do today is shaped by what you believe about tomorrow.

God’s grace does not come to people who morally outperform others, but to those who admit their failure to perform and who acknowledge their need for a Savior.

While marriage is many things, it is anything but sentimental. Marriage is glorious but hard. It's a burning joy and strength, and yet it is also blood, sweat, and tears; humbling defeats and exhausting victories.

Unless you believe the gospel, everything you do will be driven by either pride or fear.

The Christian Gospel is that I am so flawed that Jesus had to die for me, yet I am so loved and valued that Jesus was glad to die for me. This leads to deep humility and deep confidence at the same time. It undermines both swaggering and sniveling. I cannot feel superior to anyone, and yet I have nothing to prove to anyone. I do not think more of myself nor less of myself. Instead, I think of myself less.

Because we put ourselves in God’s place, He put Himself in our place.

The prerequisite for receiving the grace of God is to know you need it.

In the original language, 'Fear the Lord' doesn't mean be afraid. It means sustaining a joyful, astonished awe, and wonder before Him.

How Religion Works: If I obey, then God will love and accept me. The Gospel: I'm loved and accepted, therefore I wish to obey.

If Jesus rose from the dead, then you have to accept all that he said; if he didn't rise from the dead, then why worry about any of what he said? The issue on which everything hangs is not whether or not you like his teaching but whether or not he rose from the dead.

The more you see your own flaws and sins, the more precious, electrifying, and amazing God’s grace appears to you.

Pride is the carbon-monoxide of Sin. It silently and slowly kills you without you even knowing.

The infallible test of spiritual integrity, Jesus says, is your private prayer life.

It's impossible to have met the real Jesus and be indifferent. You either bow down in wonder OR go away offended.

Money isn't an idol. It just shows you where your idols are.

If you love anything in this world more than God, you will crush that object under the weight of your expectations.

When we grasp that we are unworthy sinners saved by an infinitely costly grace, it destroys both our self-righteousn ess and our need to ridicule others.

To discover the real you, look at what you spend time thinking about when no one is looking.

The only love that won’t disappoint you is one that can’t change, that can’t be lost, that is not based on the ups and downs of life or of how well you live. It is something that not even death can take away from you. God’s love is the only thing like that.

If we have not seen our sin and sought radical forgiveness from God, we will be unable to forgive and to seek the good of those who have wronged us.

The Bible’s purpose is not so much to show you how to live a good life. The Bible’s purpose is to show you how God’s grace breaks into your life against your will and saves you from the sin and brokenness otherwise you would never be able to overcome… religion is ‘if you obey, then you will be accepted’. But the Gospel is, ‘if you are absolutely accepted, and sure you’re accepted, only then will you ever begin to obey’. Those are two utterly different things. Every page of the Bible shows the difference.

The gospel is not only the way to enter the kingdom; it is the way to live in the kingdom.

Putting our faith in Christ is not about trying harder; it means transferring our trust away from ourselves and resting in him.

You dont fall into love. You commit to it. Love is saying I will be there no matter what.

Religion makes us proud of what we have done. The Gospel makes us proud of what Jesus has done.

Love is the effort and desire to make someone else everything they were created to be.

God relentlessly offers his grace to people who do not deserve it, or seek it, or even appreciate it after they have been saved by it.

Love is counting someone else’s needs and interests as more important than your own needs or interests or comfort.

We need to remember that we are saved by grace when we fail. But we need to remember it much more when we succeed.

Everyone says they want community and friendship. But mention accountability or commitment to people, and they run the other way.

As long as we think we are not that bad, the idea of grace will never change us.

When Job was prospering, he prayed. When he was suffering, he still prayed.

Jesus Christ was treated as we deserved so that when we believe in Jesus, God treats us as Jesus deserves.

If I have the smile of God, all other frowns are inconsequential.

The main human problems often are that we misidentify what will make us happy; and we ask people and things to save us beyond their ability.

A life of gratitude to God for being saved is far more pleasing than a life based on self-righteousness over being good.

The resurrection was God's way of stamping PAID IN FULL right across history so that nobody could miss it.

When Jesus looked down from the cross, he didn't think “I am giving myself to you because you are so attractive to me.” No, he was in agony, and he looked down at us - denying him, abandoning him, and betraying him - and in the greatest act of love in history, he STAYED. He said, “Father, forgive them, they don't know what they are doing.” He loved us, not because we were lovely to him, but to make us lovely.

Jesus Christ did not suffer so that you would not suffer. He suffered so that when you suffer, you’ll become more like him. The gospel does not promise you better life circumstances; it promises you a better life.

Christianity does not provide the reason for each experience of pain, but it does provide deep resources for actually facing suffering with hope and courage rather than bitterness and despair

The basic premise of religion– that if you live a good life, things will go well for you– is wrong. Jesus was the most morally upright person who ever lived, yet He had a life filled with the experience of poverty, rejection, injustice, and even torture.

After creation God said, 'It is finished'-and he rested. After redemption Jesus said, 'It is finished'-and we can rest.

No one is exempt from trials and tribulations. In fact, this is often what happens to people God loves very much, for it is part of God’s often mysterious and good plan for turning us into something great.

Those who understand the gospel cannot possibly look down on anyone, since they were saved by sheer grace, not by their perfect doctrine or strong moral character.

There are some needs only you can see. There are some hands only you can hold. There are some people only you can reach.

How does Satan accuse us? By causing us to look at our sin rather than our Savior.

Fear-based repentance makes us hate ourselves. Joy-based repentance makes us hate the sin.

We are regularly in danger of having too light a view of our sin and also too light a grasp of what Jesus has done to free us from our sin.

The gospel humbles us into the dust and at the very same time exalts us to the heavens.

Christ did not suffer so you wouldn’t suffer. He suffered so when you suffer you will become like Him.

How do you change your behavior? Change what you worship

The Gospel is that Jesus Christ came to earth, lived the life we should have lived and died the death we should have died.

It is impossible to forgive someone if you feel superior to him or her.

Religion: 'My identity is built on being a good person.' Gospel: 'My identity is not built on my record or my performance but on Christ's.'

Pride is that which claims to be the author of what is really a gift.

If anything becomes more fundamental than God to your happiness, meaning of life, and identity then it is an idol.

Religion says earn your life. Secular society says create your life. Jesus says, 'My life for your life.

The world values power, comfort, success, and recognition. Jesus frees us to value grief, sacrifice, weakness, and exclusion.

The Bible says that our real problem is that every one of us is building our identity on something besides Jesus.

There is a joy available that the deepest grief cannot put out. No circumstance or person can take away the joy God gives.

Christ's resurrection not only gives you hope for the future; it gives you hope to handle your scars right now.

If our identity is in our work, rather than Christ, success will go to our heads, and failure will go to our hearts.

The cross is the place where the Judge takes the Judgment.

If you don't feel like praying, pray to God to give you the desire.

Some suffering is given in order to chastise and correct a person for wrongful patterns of life (as in the case of Jonah imperiled by the storm), some suffering is given not to correct past wrongs but to prevent future ones (as in the case of Joseph sold into slavery), and some suffering has no purpose other than to lead a person to love God more ardently for himself alone and so discover the ultimate peace and freedom.

Suffering can refine us rather than destroy us because God himself walks with us in the fire.

People are messy; therefore, relationships will be messy. Don't be surprised by messiness.

You are more sinful than you could dare imagine and you are more loved and accepted than you could ever dare hope.

Prayer can be simple, but it's not easy. Nothing great is.

If God is not at the center of your life, something else is.

Christians need the gospel as much as non-Christians do.

Faith in the gospel restructures our motivations, our self-understanding, our identity, and our view of the world. Behavioral compliance to rules without heart-change will be superficial and fleeting… We can only change permanently as we take the gospel more deeply into our understanding and into our hearts. We must feed on the gospel, as it were, digesting it and making it part of ourselves. That is how we grow.

To pray is to accept that we are, and always will be, wholly dependent on God for everything.

Suffering is unbearable if you aren’t certain that God is for you and with you.

Worry is not believing God will get it right, and bitterness is believing God got it wrong.

[Spiritual friendship] is eagerly helping one another know, serve, love, and resemble God in deeper and deeper ways.

Jesus didn't come to tell us the answers to the questions of life, he came to be the answer.

Suffering is actually at the heart of the Christian story.

Our character is mainly shaped by our primary social community - the people with whom we eat, play, converse, and study.

No one is too bad for Jesus. A lot of people think they are too good for Jesus.

The basic purpose of prayer is not to bend God's will to mine, but to mold my will into His.

Trust is accepting what God sends into your life whether you understand it or not.

The way to find your calling is to look at the way you were created. Your gifts have not emerged by accident.

Every single emotion you have should be processed in prayer.

Prayer is the way to experience a powerful confidence that God is handling our lives well, that our bad things will turn out for good, our good things cannot be taken from us, and the best things are yet to come.

Legalistic remorse says, "I broke God's rules," while real repentance says, "I broke God's heart."

You can't live the Christian life without a band of Christian friends, without a family of believers in which you find a place.

All human problems are ultimately symptoms, and our separation from God is the cause.

In religion, you obey because God is useful. In Christianity, you obey because God is beautiful.

Falling in love in a Christian way is to say,'I am excited about your future and I want to be part of getting you there. I'm signing up for the journey with you. Would you sign up for the journey to my true self with me? It's going to be hard but I want to get there.

It is not the strength of your faith but the object of your faith that actually saves you.

When I forget the gospel I become dependent on the smiles and evaluation of others.

If the church does not identify with the marginalized, it will itself be marginalized. This is God's poetic justice.

Success and suffering will either darken your heart or make you wise, but they won't leave you where you were.

The reason the stone was rolled away on Jesus's tomb was not so that Jesus could get out, but so that we could get in.

You don't fall in love. You commit to it.

We were designed to know, serve, and love God supremely - and when we are faithful to that design, we flourish.

The gospel is this: We are more sinful and flawed in ourselves than we ever dared believe, yet at the very same time we are more loved and accepted in Jesus Christ than we ever dared hope.

The sin that is most destructive in your life right now is the one you are most defensive about.

The only person who dares wake up a king at 3:00 AM for a glass of water is a child. We have that kind of access

God invites us to come as we are, not stay as we are.

Jesus warns people far more often about greed than about sex, yet almost no one thinks they are guilty of it.

God sees us as we are, loves us as we are, and accepts us as we are. But by His grace, He does not leave us as we are.

Prayer is continuing a conversation that God has started through his Word and his grace, which eventually becomes a full encounter with him.

The more you understand how your salvation isn't about your behavior, the more radically your behavior will change.

Faith is not primarily a function of how you feel. Faith is living out and believing what truth is despite what you feel.

Most people want Jesus as a consultant rather than a King, and He does not come that way.

I am going to judge my circumstances by Jesus’ love, not Jesus’ love by my circumstances.

Prayer should be done regularly, persistently, resolutely, and tenaciously at least daily, whether we feel like it or not.

It takes pride to be anxious – I am not wise enough to know how my life should go.

God looks at the anxious and says, I tore my Son to shreds for you, and you're afraid I will not give you what you need?