Rankin Wilbourne > Quotes

“When I base my Christian life on my Christian experience, I become locked in the labyrinth of my own performance. I am only as sure of God as my current emotions and obedience allow. My eyes are fixed on myself. The gospel, the good news, is the way the Holy Spirit turns our eyes away from ourselves and onto Christ. The gospel brings you into union with Christ. Christ enters your heart and gives you faith. By that faith, you receive Christ and all his fullness. Faith fixes your eyes on Christ and rests in him. The”
― Rankin Wilbourne, Union with Christ: The Way to Know and Enjoy God

“Against the prevailing mindset of our day—you are what you make of yourself—union with Christ tells you that you can discover your real self only in relation to the One who made you. You are not, you cannot be, self-made. Union with Christ tells you that you can only understand who you are in communion with God and others. And that is a wildly countercultural claim. A”
― Rankin Wilbourne, Union with Christ: The Way to Know and Enjoy God

“This is how you keep in step with God’s Spirit: faith and repentance.”
― Rankin Wilbourne, Union with Christ: The Way to Know and Enjoy God

“No one can attain any degree of holiness without God working in his life, but just as surely no one will attain it without effort on his own part. God has made it possible for us to walk in holiness. But He has given to us the responsibility of doing the walking.”
― Rankin Wilbourne, Union with Christ: The Way to Know and Enjoy God

“Life with God is not like a motorboat, where we are in control of the power and direction. But neither is it like a raft, where we just sit back and are carried along. It’s like sailing. While we can’t control the most important thing—the wind that makes us move—that doesn’t mean there is nothing left for us to do. We have to draw the sail to catch the wind. We must labor to be brought near.”
― Rankin Wilbourne, Union with Christ: The Way to Know and Enjoy God

“Adam and Eve, in their shame, tried to cover themselves with fig leaves (Gen. 3:7). You, though, are covered completely by Christ. Christ fully covers us in all of our shame. Christ”
― Rankin Wilbourne, Union with Christ: The Way to Know and Enjoy God

“Salvation is not mostly a matter of relocation; it is a matter of transformation. It does not consist primarily of ending up in the right place, but being made into the right person.”
― Rankin Wilbourne, Union with Christ: The Way to Know and Enjoy God

“When anxious and distressing feelings arise, you can know you are not alone. You are in Christ:”
― Rankin Wilbourne, Union with Christ: The Way to Know and Enjoy God

“It is a beautiful dance: our highest joy is found in God’s glory, and God is most glorified in us when we find our highest joy in him. And”
― Rankin Wilbourne, Union with Christ: The Way to Know and Enjoy God

“You can cling to him and find that he is a complete savior—he frees you from sin’s penalty and power—that is the double grace! And life is not possible without both.”
― Rankin Wilbourne, Union with Christ: The Way to Know and Enjoy God

“In Christ, you are accepted. But that acceptance no longer has to be earned or maintained; it is granted by grace and guaranteed in Christ. This doesn’t mean you stop working, but it does mean you now work in a totally new way. You no longer work for approval; you work from approval. American”
― Rankin Wilbourne, Union with Christ: The Way to Know and Enjoy God

“To be found in Christ means you don’t have to prove yourself anymore. Your frantic attempts to find or craft an acceptable identity, or your tireless work to manage your own reputation—these are over and done. You can rest. In Christ. You don’t have to be intimidated by anyone, ever. Who are you? You are in Christ! And you no longer need to fear the judgment of God (1 John 4:18). When God looks at you, he sees you hidden in Christ. This is freedom. This is confidence. This is good, good news.”
― Rankin Wilbourne, Union with Christ: The Way to Know and Enjoy God

“Against the prevailing mindset of our day—you are what you make of yourself—union with Christ tells you that you can discover your real self only in relation to the One who made you.”
― Rankin Wilbourne, Union with Christ: The Way to Know and Enjoy God

“Your frantic attempts to find or craft an acceptable identity, or your tireless work to manage your own reputation—these are over and done. You can rest. In Christ. You don’t have to be intimidated by anyone, ever. Who are you? You are in Christ! And you no longer need to fear the judgment of God (1 John 4:18). When God looks at you, he sees you hidden in Christ. This is freedom. This is confidence. This is good, good news. Union”
― Rankin Wilbourne, Union with Christ: The Way to Know and Enjoy God

“Union with Christ is an enchanted reality. It tells us that the most important things about our lives cannot be seen or touched with our senses. It tells us that there are extraordinary depths running just below the surface of our lives,”
― Rankin Wilbourne, Union with Christ: The Way to Know and Enjoy God

“? Union with Christ means the reality of knowing God and living in communion with him doesn’t begin when you die. Eternal life begins in this life when Christ joins his life to yours (John 17:3). We can have fellowship with God through Christ (1 John 1:3). We can begin to experience heaven in our lives here and now.”
― Rankin Wilbourne, Union with Christ: The Way to Know and Enjoy God

“Salvation is not mostly a matter of relocation; it is a matter of transformation.”
― Rankin Wilbourne, Union with Christ: The Way to Know and Enjoy God

“If our hope is anchored in our own experience or efforts, we will never be settled. When”
― Rankin Wilbourne, Union with Christ: The Way to Know and Enjoy God

“You are not, you cannot be, self-made. Union with Christ tells you that you can only understand who you are in communion with God and others. And that is a wildly countercultural claim.”
― Rankin Wilbourne, Union with Christ: The Way to Know and Enjoy God

“For it’s not so much what happens to you that defines you, as how you interpret what happens to you. 5 Your mindset is the lens through which you see the world and yourself.”
― Rankin Wilbourne, Union with Christ: The Way to Know and Enjoy God

“We may wonder if there are any shortcuts. And there are some, but once you find out what they are—humiliation and suffering—you’ll probably prefer to walk. The”
― Rankin Wilbourne, Union with Christ: The Way to Know and Enjoy God

“Nevertheless, we must always keep pressing on to know him (Hos. 6:3).”
― Rankin Wilbourne, Union with Christ: The Way to Know and Enjoy God

“Faith is how union with Christ becomes operative and powerful in your life. Faith is a God-given gift that allows you to take hold of God’s having taken hold of you. If you are in Christ, this is now the defining truth of who you are. Your life, your story, becomes enfolded by another story—Another’s story. That’s one way to define faith: faith means finding your identity in Christ.”
― Rankin Wilbourne, Union with Christ: The Way to Know and Enjoy God

“We must use our imaginations if we want to fully inhabit and experience the Christian life.”
― Rankin Wilbourne, Union with Christ: The Way to Know and Enjoy God

“We must understand that as long as Christ remains outside of us, and we are separated from him, all that he has suffered and done for the salvation of the human race remains useless and of no value to us. Therefore, to share in what he has received from the Father, he had to become ours and to dwell within us … for, as I have said, all that he possesses is nothing to us until we grow into one body with him … To sum up, the Holy Spirit is the bond by which Christ effectually unites us to himself. 22”
― Rankin Wilbourne, Union with Christ: The Way to Know and Enjoy God

“Our union with Christ is real, but invisible. We must use “the eyes of [our] hearts” (Eph. 1:18) to look not at what is seen, but what is unseen (2 Cor. 4:18).”
― Rankin Wilbourne, Union with Christ: The Way to Know and Enjoy God

“The Son of God assumed our full human nature to redeem our full human nature. Jesus was “born of woman” (Gal. 4:4) “in the likeness of sinful flesh” (Rom. 8:3). He was tempted in every way as we are, so that he is able to sympathize with us, and yet he was without sin (Heb. 4:15). Though he was innocent, he “gave himself for our sins” (Gal. 1:4) and died in our place (1 Pet. 3:18) to deliver us from the power of death (Heb. 2:14). He was raised for us (Rom. 4:25) that we too might pass from death to life (John 11:25). He “ascended far above all the heavens” (Eph. 4:10), where he sits “at the right hand of God” (Col. 3:1) and “lives to make intercession for [us]” (Heb. 7:25), as our “high priest forever” (Heb. 6:20). 5”
― Rankin Wilbourne, Union with Christ: The Way to Know and Enjoy God

“We are not alone. He knows our frame because he assumed it. He knows we are dust because he became it. And now dust sits on the throne of the universe.”
― Rankin Wilbourne, Union with Christ: The Way to Know and Enjoy God

“It can be tempting to read past “in Christ” as simply a biblical-sounding phrase. But once you grasp the significance of this phrase for Paul, you’ll never read past it again, and you’ll begin to see it on almost every page of his letters. Union”
― Rankin Wilbourne, Union with Christ: The Way to Know and Enjoy God

“Not only is Jesus our high priest; he is our sympathetic high priest.”
― Rankin Wilbourne, Union with Christ: The Way to Know and Enjoy God