Tullian Tchividjian
The Gospel is not ultimately a defense from pain, it is the message of God's rescue through pain. In fact, it allows us to drop our defenses, to escape not from pain but from the prison of "How" and "Why" to the freedom of "Who?"Collection: Pain
Grace flows most refreshingly through the faucet of brokenness.Collection: Grace
The overwhelming emphasis of contemporary Christianity: "Just do it." The overwhelming emphasis of Biblical Christianity: "It is finished"Collection: Biblical
Because Jesus was someone, you’re free to be no one.Collection: Jesus
Whatever we may mean by 'Christian growth,' it is ultimately this: less faith in me, more faith in God.Collection: Christian
Spiritual growth is marked by a growing realization of just how much grace you need.Collection: Spiritual
If you have suffered the loss of a family member to chronic disease, if you suffer debilitating seasons of depression, if you have lost your job and livelihood, gone through a divorce that came out of the blue, know that God is not punishing you. He is not waiting for you to do something.Collection: Jobs
I think for far too long the Church has concluded that Christians don't need the gospel, it's simple what non-Christian people need in order to be saved.Collection: Christian
Because the church has moved away from the gospel anytime you move away from the gospel, you at the same time move toward pretense, you move toward image-keeping, you move toward the need to pretend.Collection: Moving
The Christian life has been nothing more and nothing less than a daily dependence on and a rediscovery of God's grace.Collection: Christian
My job as a pastor and theologian is to tease out the nature and the necessity of the gospel in meticulous ways, in everything I say, in everything I like. I want desperately for the church in America to rediscover the power and the beauty and the nature and the necessity of the gospel.Collection: Jobs
To progress is always to begin again.Collection: Progress
The best evangelists, the best preachers, the best teachers are desperate people.Collection: Teacher
The passive righteousness of faith frees me from passing final judgment on myself.Collection: Finals
Christianity is not about good people getting better. If anything, it is good news for bad people coping with their failure to be good. The heart of the Christian faith is Good News, not good advice, good technique, or good behavior. Too many people have walked away from the church, not because they’re walking away from Jesus, but because the church has walked away from Jesus.Collection: Christian
The focus of the Christian faith is not our morality; it is Jesus, who died for our immorality.Collection: Christian
Grace is the most dangerous, expectation-wre cking, smile-creating, counterintuitiv e reality there is.Collection: Reality
Grace loves without reference to what may or may not happen-which is precisely why such incredible things do happen!Collection: Grace
If we read the Bible asking first, 'What would Jesus do?' instead of asking 'What has Jesus done?' we’ll miss the good news that alone can set us free.Collection: Jesus
Christmas is the beachhead of God’s campaign against sin and sadness, darkness and death, fear and frustration.Collection: Beach
Grief, of course, is not something that operates according to a specific time frame, and it seems cold to suggest otherwise. Yet when we do not grasp that God is present in pain, we eventually insist on victory or, worse, blame the sufferer for not "getting over it" fast enough. This is more than a failure to extend compassion; it's an exercise in cruelty.Collection: Pain
I agree we have enough books that attempt to explain why God allows suffering, presumably in a way that lets God off the hook. And while much smarter men than I have constructed elaborate systems in this pursuit, they are by definition exercises in speculation.Collection: Letting Go
I became frustrated with myself for not being as sturdy and unquestioning as I knew a man in my position should be.Collection: Men
Christianity is in no way a stoic faith. It fundamentally rejects the "stiff upper lip" school of thought.Collection: School
God's grace is so counterintuitive and everything we do in our life is just based on conditions. You do this for me and I'll do that for you. Or if you don't do this for me, I won't do that for you. And God's grace works in a completely different direction.Collection: Grace
I was spending way too much time thinking about me and what I needed to do, and far too little time thinking about Jesus and what he had already done for me.Collection: Jesus
My lifestyle got so disruptive to my family that my parents had no choice but to say, "You can't live here any longer if you're going to live this way." So, I was thrilled about it - thrilled!Collection: Choices
For the life of the believer, one thing is beautifully and abundantly true: God's chief concern in your suffering is to be with you and be himself for you.Collection: Suffering
We are not responsible for finding the right formula to combat or unlock our suffering.Collection: Suffering
Being the middle child, I couldn't figure out where I fit in the home. I couldn't figure out whether I was the youngest of the older three or the oldest of the younger three.Collection: Children
My daily sins require daily distribution of God's grace. In that sense, it never ceases to surprise me because I don't deserve any of it. I mean, I deserve to be locked in a cage and for God to throw away the key.Collection: Mean
The cross [is] the ultimate statement of God's involvement in the world on this side of heaven.Collection: Heaven
God's capacity to forgive is greater than our capacity to sin; while our sin reaches far, God's grace reaches farther. It's a message revealing the radical contrast between the sinful heart of mankind and the gracious heart of mankind's Creator.Collection: Heart
Job's unraveling wasn't wrong or sinful; rather, it was emotionally realistic.Collection: Jobs
The ironic thing about legalism is that it not only doesn't make people work harder, it makes them give up. Moralism doesn't produce morality; rather, it produces immorality.Collection: Giving Up
Information is seldom enough to heal a wounded heart.Collection: Heart
God is the one to be praised, not our transformation.Collection: Transformation
When we depend on anything smaller than God to provide us with the security, significance, meaning, and value that we long for, God will love us enough to take it away. Much of our anger and bitterness, therefore, is God prying open our hands and taking away something we've held onto more tightly than him.Collection: Hands
Legalism breeds a sense of entitlement that turns us into complainers.Collection: Entitlement
Real, pure, unadulterated freedom happens when the resources of the gospel smash any sense of need to secure for myself anything beyond what Christ has already secured for me.Collection: Real
It's better to feel sorry for doing something bad than to feel superior for doing something good.Collection: Sorry
The bad news that we are all guilty is met with the best news that God loves and forgives guilty people.Collection: People
You can be sure that your deepest desires reveal important truths about your spiritual condition.Collection: Christian
Contrary to popular assumptions, the Bible is not a record of the blessed good, but rather the blessed bad. Thats not a typo. The Bible is a record of the blessed bad. The Bible is not a witness to the best people making it up to God; its a witness to God making it down to the worst people.Collection: Blessed
People who haven't experienced major setbacks sometimes feel that their hurts are somehow less legitimate or real.Collection: Hurt
The people who have taught me the most about grace are those who have blown it so bad that they know how much they need it.Collection: People
I wish I could say that everything I do is for God’s glory but I can’t. And neither can you. What I can say is Jesus’ blood covers all my efforts to glorify myself.Collection: Jesus
Grace could not have done it’s curing work if the law had not first done its crushing work.Collection: Crush
Your pain could be God prying open your life and heart to remove a gift of His that you've been on to more dearly than Him.Collection: Pain