Derwin L. Gray > Quotes

“The truth is, we do not have addiction problems. We have misdirected worship. I’m convinced every human being is in recovery and being weaned from some form of addiction because of idolatry. Your addiction or mine may not have us eating out of trash cans, but our sin habit is hurting and diminishing God’s glory in our lives.”
― Derwin L. Gray, Limitless Life: You Are More Than Your Past When God Holds Your Future

“The gospel Paul preached destroyed racism (“neither Jew no Greek”), economic classism (“slave nor free”), and gender inequality (“no male and female”). The local church should be a mosaic that the world looks at and says, “So that’s what heaven looks like.”
― Derwin L. Gray, The High Definition Leader: Building Multiethnic Churches in a Multiethnic World

“The Samaritan woman is the first person to whom Jesus revealed that he is the Messiah. She is also one of the first missionaries of the gospel. What is a Samaritan? A Samaritan is a Jew and a Gentile in one body. What is the church? Jews and Gentiles (Whites, Blacks, Latinos, Asians, and others) in one body:”
― Derwin L. Gray, How to Heal Our Racial Divide: What the Bible Says, and the First Christians Knew, about Racial Reconciliation

“Therefore, the job you have is your sacred vocation. If you are in school, that is your sacred vocation. One of the ways the enemy of your soul diminishes your imprint on eternity is by getting you to believe the lie that your job is secular and that church stuff is sacred. There is no such thing as the secular/sacred divide.”
― Derwin L. Gray, Limitless Life: You Are More Than Your Past When God Holds Your Future

“The next time you look around and find yourself doubting if God loves you because you feel that you are not in the job for which you were created, just remember that your past, present, and future are held in the nail-pierced hands of Jesus; He knows the best position for you to be in. You can trust Him, even when you don’t understand.”
― Derwin L. Gray, Limitless Life: You Are More Than Your Past When God Holds Your Future

“MARINATE ON THAT! God is using Satan as a sifting tool to bring out the good stuff in you! Whatever God allows Satan to do to you is happening to bring Jesus out of you, so He can be displayed through you. You will win. Always.”
― Derwin L. Gray, Limitless Life: You Are More Than Your Past When God Holds Your Future

“Political conservatives want me to wrap Jesus in an American flag, and political progressives want me to strip Jesus of ethics that do not fit their worldview. We leaders must address controversial topics through the redeeming work of Jesus so God’s people can think and live in light of God’s Kingdom.”
― Derwin L. Gray, How to Heal Our Racial Divide: What the Bible Says, and the First Christians Knew, about Racial Reconciliation

“I have found that many believers filter the “hot topics” of race and injustice through Democratic or Republican filters instead of theological filters. People will leave their churches over politics before they leave politics for a church.”
― Derwin L. Gray, How to Heal Our Racial Divide: What the Bible Says, and the First Christians Knew, about Racial Reconciliation

“God's desire is for us to experience multiethnic fellowship now in the local church as it will be for eternity. God's hart is total reconciliation." - Scott McKnight”
― Derwin L. Gray, The High Definition Leader: Building Multiethnic Churches in a Multiethnic World

“To mourn means to be heartbroken over the things that break God’s heart.”
― Derwin L. Gray, How to Heal Our Racial Divide: What the Bible Says, and the First Christians Knew, about Racial Reconciliation

“Of all the people Jesus could have revealed his identity to, he chose a Samaritan woman during a seven-hundred-year-old racial feud.”
― Derwin L. Gray, How to Heal Our Racial Divide: What the Bible Says, and the First Christians Knew, about Racial Reconciliation

“To my White brothers and sisters, one of the most precious gifts you can give your siblings of color are these words: “I believe you. I am sorry that happened to you. I am for you. We are in this together.”
― Derwin L. Gray, How to Heal Our Racial Divide: What the Bible Says, and the First Christians Knew, about Racial Reconciliation

“One of the greatest gifts you can give your brothers and sisters in Christ as we heal the racial divide is to listen to their stories with compassion. Compassion means “to suffer with.”
― Derwin L. Gray, How to Heal Our Racial Divide: What the Bible Says, and the First Christians Knew, about Racial Reconciliation

“Jesus’ love, grace, power, and provision are given so that His rule and reign will be established on earth as it is heaven, through His church.”
― Derwin L. Gray, Limitless Life: You Are More Than Your Past When God Holds Your Future

“Over one thousand people have left our church since I called out [the White supremacy rally in] Charlottesville and reminded our people “only Jesus is supreme.” And by the way, I’m bold and stubborn but very loving, gentle, and measured with my words. Yet we “beat people up over race,” “White people are second-class citizens,” and “it’s all Pastor talks about.” Never mind one would be hard-pressed to find a staff more committed to the exaltation of Jesus and His Word. Sigh. And then George Floyd and the Chauvin trial. . . . Still more loss, anger, and cost. It is idolatry and sinister and sick.”
― Derwin L. Gray, How to Heal Our Racial Divide: What the Bible Says, and the First Christians Knew, about Racial Reconciliation

“In the face of criticism, peer pressure, political pressure, economic pressure, and family pressure, we must love Jesus and our siblings in Christ more than we fear rejection.”
― Derwin L. Gray, How to Heal Our Racial Divide: What the Bible Says, and the First Christians Knew, about Racial Reconciliation

“I have found when White brothers and sisters say they do not see color, it is because their color has not been a historic disadvantage to them and their ancestors. Colorblind ideology also creates a false sense that everything is okay. It acts like a spiritual sleeping aid that causes us to ignore certain injustices.”
― Derwin L. Gray, How to Heal Our Racial Divide: What the Bible Says, and the First Christians Knew, about Racial Reconciliation

“How can children of God sit silently as their brothers and sisters experience racial injustice?”
― Derwin L. Gray, How to Heal Our Racial Divide: What the Bible Says, and the First Christians Knew, about Racial Reconciliation

“The late John Stott writes, If we love our neighbor as God made him, we must inevitably be concerned for his total welfare, the good of his soul, his body and his community. . . . Which means the quest for better social structures in which peace, dignity, freedom and justice are secured for all men. . . . The gospel lacks visibility if we merely preach it, and lacks credibility if we who preach it are interested only in souls and have no concern about the welfare of people’s bodies, situations and communities.”
― Derwin L. Gray, How to Heal Our Racial Divide: What the Bible Says, and the First Christians Knew, about Racial Reconciliation

“Suffice it to say, it is the testimony of Scripture, from Genesis to Revelation, that the living and loving God has always wanted to give Abraham a family from every nation and tribe and tongue. This spectacularly loved mosaic of people are siblings, coequals, and coheirs in God’s Kingdom.”
― Derwin L. Gray, How to Heal Our Racial Divide: What the Bible Says, and the First Christians Knew, about Racial Reconciliation

“God called Abraham in Genesis 12:1-3, in response to Genesis 3–11. Wherever there is hostility against the Creator, the creation will be hostile toward each other. They will raise up arms to enslave, oppress, sexualize, and kill their fellow image-bearers. Death invaded life, so God defeated death by calling Abraham and his seed to inaugurate new life.”
― Derwin L. Gray, How to Heal Our Racial Divide: What the Bible Says, and the First Christians Knew, about Racial Reconciliation

“But in 1947, when his older brother Clyde, a World War II hero who had earned a Purple Heart, was killed by a New Hebron police officer, it became a matter of life and death. A White police officer had targeted Clyde at the movie theater, striking him in the back of the head with a club. Clyde, not knowing who had hit him, responded to the coward’s attack with a defensive posture. When he did, the police officer fired two shots into his abdomen. JP was with his brother—an American hero—in the ambulance and in the Colored hospital when he died. JP’s brother went all the way to Europe to fight against Hitler and the Nazis only to die at the hands of a racist police officer in America.”
― Derwin L. Gray, How to Heal Our Racial Divide: What the Bible Says, and the First Christians Knew, about Racial Reconciliation

“The scene of the crime is your mind.” What I mean by this is that how we think influences how we live. We must partner with the Holy Spirit in allowing Christ to form, renew, and shape how we think. Dark powers want to influence our thinking; therefore, we must intentionally set our minds above, where Christ is seated, allowing him to transform our minds as we soak in the sacred Scriptures.[”
― Derwin L. Gray, How to Heal Our Racial Divide: What the Bible Says, and the First Christians Knew, about Racial Reconciliation

“In 1974, the great evangelical leader John Stott wrote concerning biblical justice, “We affirm that God is both the Creator and the Judge of all men. We therefore should share his concern for justice and reconciliation throughout human society and for the liberation of men and women from every kind of oppression.”
― Derwin L. Gray, How to Heal Our Racial Divide: What the Bible Says, and the First Christians Knew, about Racial Reconciliation

“The crowd resembled Transformation Church—a mixture of young and old and swirls of different colors. I thought, Why is a BLM protest more diverse than the church in America? This sort of diversity should be the composition of every church in America where demographics make it possible.”
― Derwin L. Gray, How to Heal Our Racial Divide: What the Bible Says, and the First Christians Knew, about Racial Reconciliation

“We are not responsible for the sins of our forefathers, but we are responsible to mourn and undo their damage as best we can. This is basic Christianity. Mourning the sins of our forefathers may seem strange in American Christianity, but it is a normative spiritual discipline in the Bible.”
― Derwin L. Gray, How to Heal Our Racial Divide: What the Bible Says, and the First Christians Knew, about Racial Reconciliation

“Can you imagine how different the church would be? God’s people are to be salt and light, a means of grace to a world deeply divided. Our unity in Christ, fueled by holy living, becomes a lighthouse in an ocean of chaos.”
― Derwin L. Gray, How to Heal Our Racial Divide: What the Bible Says, and the First Christians Knew, about Racial Reconciliation

“The same gospel that introduces people to Jesus propels them to grow in Jesus.”
― Derwin L. Gray, Limitless Life: You Are More Than Your Past When God Holds Your Future

“Frederick Douglass wrote, We have men sold to build churches, women sold to support the gospel, and babes sold to purchase Bibles for the poor heathen! all for the glory of God and the good of souls! The slave auctioneer’s bell and the church-going bell chime in with each other, and the bitter cries of the heart-broken slave are drowned in the religious shouts of his pious master. Revivals of religion and revivals in the slave trade go hand in hand.”
― Derwin L. Gray, How to Heal Our Racial Divide: What the Bible Says, and the First Christians Knew, about Racial Reconciliation

“Many of my White siblings in Christ that join us from homogeneous churches are surprised, caught off guard, and uncomfortable with how much the Bible talks about race.”
― Derwin L. Gray, How to Heal Our Racial Divide: What the Bible Says, and the First Christians Knew, about Racial Reconciliation