Melissa Jensen > Melissa's Quotes

“The good Christian should beware of mathematicians. The danger already exists that mathematicians have made a covenant with the devil to darken the spirit and confine man in the bonds of Hell.”
― Saint Augustine

“A Christian should be an Alleluia from head to foot”
― St. Augustine of Hippo

“I held my heart back from positively accepting anything, since I was afraid of another fall, and in this condition of suspense I was being all the more killed.”
― St. Augustine of Hippo, Confessions

“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”
― Elizabeth Appell

“I know why familles were created, with all their imperfections. They humanize you. They are made to make you forget yourself occasionally, so that the beautiful balance of life is not destroyed.”
― Anais Nin

“I'm restless. Things are calling me away. My hair is being pulled by the stars again.”
― Anaïs Nin

“I must be a mermaid, Rango. I have no fear of depths and a great fear of shallow living.”
― Anais Nin

“Truth is something which can't be told in a few words. Those who simplify the universe only reduce the expansion of its meaning.”
― Anaïs Nin

“Within this Christian vision of marriage, here's what it means to fall in love. It is to look at another person and get a glimpse of what God is creating, and to say, "I see who God is making you, and it excites me! I want to be part of that. I want to partner with you and God in the journey you are taking to his throne. And when we get there, I will look at your magnificence and say, 'I always knew you could be like this. I got glimpses of it on earth, but now look at you!”
― Timothy Keller, The Meaning of Marriage: Facing the Complexities of Commitment with the Wisdom of God

“To the degree you experience God's love towards you - seeing you as beautiful and radiant - to that degree sex won't ruin your life.”
― Timothy Keller

“When anything in life is an absolute requirement for your happiness and self-worth, it is essentially an ‘idol,’ something you are actually worshiping. When such a thing is threatened, your anger is absolute. Your anger is actually the way the idol keeps you in its service, in its chains. Therefore if you find that, despite all the efforts to forgive, your anger and bitterness cannot subside, you may need to look deeper and ask, ‘What am I defending? What is so important that I cannot live without?’ It may be that, until some inordinate desire is identified and confronted, you will not be able to master your anger.”
― Timothy Keller, Counterfeit Gods: The Empty Promises of Money, Sex, and Power, and the Only Hope that Matters

“If the evolutionary mechanism of natural selection depends on death, destruction, and violence of the strong against the weak, then these things are perfectly natural. On what basis, then, does the atheist judge the natural world to be horribly wrong, unfair, and unjust?”
― Dr. Timothy Keller

“The popular concept–that we should each determine our own morality–is based on the belief that the spiritual realm is nothing at all like the rest of the world. Does anyone really believe that? For many years after each of the morning and evening Sunday services I remained in the auditorium for another hour to field questions. Hundreds of people stayed for the give-and-take discussions. One of the most frequent statements I heard was that 'Every person has to define right and wrong for him- or herself.' I always responded to the speakers by asking, 'Is there anyone in the world right now doing things you believe they should stop doing no matter what they personally believe about the correctness of their behavior?' They would invariable say, 'Yes, of course.' Then I would ask, “Doesn’t that mean that you do believe there is some kind of moral reality that is "there" that is not defined by us, that must be abided by regardless of what a person feels or thinks?' Almost always, the response to that question was silence, either a thoughtful or a grumpy one.”
― Timothy Keller, The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism

“I asked her what was so scary about unmerited free grace? She replied something like this: "If I was saved by my good works -- then there would be a limit to what God could ask of me or put me through. I would be like a taxpayer with rights. I would have done my duty and now I would deserve a certain quality of life. But if it is really true that I am a sinner saved by sheer grace -- at God's infinite cost -- then there's nothing he cannot ask of me.”
― Timothy Keller, The Prodigal God: Recovering the Heart of the Christian Faith

“If our identity is in our work, rather than Christ, success will go to our heads, and failure will go to our hearts.”
― Timothy Keller

“It is no more narrow to claim that one religion is right than to claim that one way to think about all religions (namely that all are equal) is right. We are all exclusive in our beliefs about religion, but in different ways.”
― Timothy Keller, The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism

“The gospel, if it is really believed, removes neediness - the need to be constantly respected, appreciated, and well regarded; the need to have everything in your life go well; the need to have power over others. All of these great, deep needs continue to control you only because the concept of the glorious God delighting in you with all His being is just that - a concept and nothing more. Our hearts don't believe it, so they operate in default mode. Paul is saying that if you want to really change, you must let the gospel teach you - that is to train, discipline, coach you - over a period of time. You must let the gospel argue with you. You must let the gospel sink down deeply into your heart, until it changes your motivation and views and attitudes.”
― Timothy Keller, Gospel in Life Study Guide: Grace Changes Everything

“The text says that when the Lord saw that Leah was not loved, _he_ loved her. God was saying, 'I am the real bridegroom. I am the husband of the husbandless. I am the father of the fatherless.' This is the God who saves by grace. The gods of moralistic religions favor the successful and the overachievers. THe are the ones who climb the moral ladder up to heaven. But the God of the Bible is the one who comes down into this world to accomplish a salvation and give us a grace we could never attain ourselves.”
― Timothy Keller, Counterfeit Gods: The Empty Promises of Money, Sex, and Power, and the Only Hope that Matters

“The Gospel worldview equips the artist with a unique combination of optimism and realism about life.”
― Timothy Keller

“Churches that are filled with self-righteous, exclusive, insecure, angry, moralistic people are extremely unattractive. Their public pronouncements are often highly judgmental, while internally such churches experience many bitter conflicts, splits, and divisions. When one of their leaders has a moral lapse, the churches either rationalize it and denounce the leader’s critics, or else they scapegoat him. Millions of people raised in or near these kinds of churches reject Christianity at an early age or in college largely because of their experience. For the rest of their lives, then, they are inoculated against Christianity. If you are a person who has been disillusioned by such churches, anytime anyone recommends Christianity to you, you assume they are calling you to adopt “religion.” Pharisees and their unattractive lives leave many people confused about the real nature of Christianity.”
― Timothy Keller, The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism

“Our Western society is so deeply divided between these two approaches (moralism, self-discovery) that hardly anyone can conceive of any other way to live. If you criticize or distance yourself from one, everyone assumes you have chosen to follow the other, because each of these approaches tends to divide the whole world into two basic groups. The moral conformists say: "the immoral people -- the people who 'do their own thing' -- are the problem with the world, and moral people are the solution." The advocates of self-discovery say: "The bigoted peole -- the people who say, 'We have the Truth' -- are the problem with the world, and progressive people are the solution.”
― Timothy Keller, The Prodigal God: Recovering the Heart of the Christian Faith

“If we get our very identity, our sense of worth, from our political position, then politics is not really about, it is about US. Through our cause we are getting a self, our worth. That means we MUST despise and demonize the opposition. If we get our identity from our ethnicity or socioeconomic status, then we HAVE to feel superior to those of other classes and races. If you are profoundly proud of being an open-minded, tolerant soul, you will be extremely indignant toward people you think are bigots. If you are a very moral person, you will feel superior to people you think are licentious. And so on.”
― Timothy Keller, The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism

“person’s faith can collapse almost overnight if she has failed over the years to listen patiently to her own doubts, which should only be discarded after long reflection.”
― Timothy Keller, The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism

“How you experience your present is completely shaped by what you believe your ultimate future to be.”
― Timothy Keller

“So when we say that Christians work from a gospel worldview, it does not mean that they are constantly speaking about Christian teaching in their work. Some people think of the gospel as something we are principally to “look at” in our work. This would mean that Christian musicians should play Christian music, Christian writers should write stories about conversion, and Christian businessmen and -women should work for companies that make Christian-themed products and services for Christian customers. Yes, some Christians in those fields would sometimes do well to do those things, but it is a mistake to think that the Christian worldview is operating only when we are doing such overtly Christian activities. Instead, think of the gospel as a set of glasses through which you “look” at everything else in the world. Christian artists, when they do this faithfully, will not be completely beholden either to profit or to naked self-expression; and they will tell the widest variety of stories. Christians in business will see profit as only one of several bottom lines; and they will work passionately for any kind of enterprise that serves the common good. The Christian writer can constantly be showing the destructiveness of making something besides God into the central thing, even without mentioning God directly.”
― Timothy Keller, Every Good Endeavor: Connecting Your Work to God's Work

“The targets of this story are not "wayward sinners" but religious people who do everything the Bible requires. Jesus is pleading not so much with immoral outsiders as with moral insiders. H wants to show them their blindness, narrowness, and self righteousness, and how these things are destroying both their own souls and the lives of the people around them.”
― Timothy Keller, The Prodigal God: Recovering the Heart of the Christian Faith

“You can avoid Jesus as Savior by keeping all the moral laws. If you do that, then you have “rights.” God owes you answered prayers, and a good life, and a ticket to heaven when you die. You don’t need a Savior who pardons you by free grace, for you are your own Savior.”
― Timothy Keller, The Prodigal God: Recovering the Heart of the Christian Faith

“If God were small enough to be understood, he wouldn’t be big enough to be worshipped.” —Evelyn Underhill357”
― Timothy Keller, Walking with God through Pain and Suffering

“Evil is unspectacular and always human,
And shares our bed and eats at our own table ....”
― W.H. Auden, Collected Poems

“The image of myself which I try to create in my own mind in order that I may love myself is very different from the image which I try to create in the minds of others in order that they may love me.”
― W. H. Auden