Timothy Keller > Quotes

“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.”
― Timothy Keller, The Meaning of Marriage . . . in 30 Minutes: A 30 Minute Spiritual Summary

“In Jesus and the prophets critique, self-righteous religion is always marked by insensitivity to issues of social justice, while true faith is marked by profound concern for the poor and marginalized.”
― Timothy Keller, The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism

“It is possible for Christians to live their lives with a high degree of phoniness, hollowness, and inauthenticity. The reason is because they have failed to move the truth into their hearts and therefore it has not actually changed who they are and how they live.”
― Timothy Keller, Prayer: Experiencing Awe and Intimacy with God by Timothy Keller

“Prayer is “Finding Our Way through Duty to Delight.” That is the journey of prayer.”
― Timothy Keller, Prayer: Experiencing Awe and Intimacy with God by Timothy Keller

“A Christian, when he or she has just experienced a success, should say: But this success does not increase Christ's love for me. In fact, it is only because of His love for me that this has happened, not the other way around! And a Christian, when he or she has just experienced a failure, should say: If I had not failed in this way, that would not make me any more loved and accepted by God than I am in this moment! My performance is irrelevant. In fact, God is always working for my good (Romans 8:28) - He has allowed this to happen because He loves me, not because He doesn't.”
― Timothy Keller

“It is impossible to understand a culture without discerning its idols.

The Jewish philosophers Halbertal and Margalit make it clear that idolatry is not simply a form of ritual worship, but a whole sensibility and pattern of life based on finite values and making created things into godlike absolutes.

In the Bible, therefore, turning from idols always includes a rejection of the culture that the idols produce.

God tells Israel that they must not only reject the other nations’ gods, but “you shall not follow their practices” (Exodus 23:24).

There is no way to challenge idols without doing cultural criticism, and there is no way to do cultural criticism without discerning and challenging idols.”
― Timothy Keller

“Please don't try to keep Jesus on the periphery of your life. He cannot remain there. Give yourself to him -center your entire life on him - and let his power reproduce his character in you.”
― Timothy Keller

“When we repent out of fear of consequences, we are not really sorry for the sin, but for ourselves. Fear-based repentance (“I’d better change or God will get me”) is really self-pity.

In fear-based repentance, we don’t learn to hate the sin for itself, and it doesn’t lose its attractive power. We learn only to refrain from it for our own sake.

But when we rejoice over God’s sacrificial, suffering love for us—seeing what it cost him to save us from sin—we learn to hate the sin for what it is. We see what the sin cost God.

What most assures us of God’s unconditional love (Jesus’s costly death) is what that most convicts us of the evil of sin.

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

Excerpt From
Counterfeit Gods”
― Timothy Keller

“The gospel - the message that we are more wicked than we ever dared believe, but more loved and accepted in Christ than we ever dared hope - creates a radical new dynamic for personal growth, for obedience, for love.”
― Timothy Keller

“Augustine’s first principle is that before you know what to pray for and how to pray for it, you must become a particular kind of person. “You must account yourself ‘desolate’ in this world, however great the prosperity of your lot may be.” The scales must have fallen from your eyes and you must see clearly that no matter how great your earthly circumstances become, they can never bring you the lasting peace, happiness, and consolation that are found in Christ. Unless you that clearly in view, your prayers may go wrong.
Here again is one of the main themes of Augustine’s theology, applied to prayer. We must see that our heart’s loves are “disordered,” out of order. Things we ought to love third or fourth are first in our hearts. God, whom we should love supremely, is someone we may acknowledge but whose favor and presence is not existentially as important to us as prosperity, success, status, love, and pleasure. Unless at the very least we recognize this heart disorder and realise how much it distorts our lives, our prayers will be part of the problem, not an agent of healing. For example, if we look to our financial prosperity as our main source of safety and confidence in life, then when our wealth is in grave jeopardy, we will cry out to God for help, but our prayers will be little more than “worrying in God’s direction.” When our prayers are finished we will be more upset and anxious than before. Prayer will not be strengthening. It won’t heal our hearts by reorienting our vision and helping us put things in perspective and bringing us to rest in God as our true security.
Augustine goes on. If you have settled this - if you have grasped the character of your heart and admitted your desolation apart from Christ - then, he says, you can begin to pray.”
― Timothy Keller, Prayer: Experiencing Awe and Intimacy with God by Timothy Keller