Timothy Keller famous quotes

The basic purpose of prayer is not to bend God's will to mine, but to mold my will into His.
-- Timothy Keller

#Prayer #Purpose #Mold

Big cities have a lot of 'younger brothers' who have left traditional parts of the world and their families for a more liberal lifestyle. But cities are filled to the gills with 'elder brothers' too.
-- Timothy Keller

#Brother #Cities #World

We need to remember that we are saved by grace when we fail. But we need to remember it much more when we succeed.
-- Timothy Keller

#Grace #Succeed #Needs

I wouldn't venture to say which kind of sin is more prevalent. I wouldn't even want to try to characterize certain 'circles.'
-- Timothy Keller

#Circles #Trying #Venture

Jesus didn't come to tell us the answers to the questions of life, he came to be the answer.
-- Timothy Keller

#Jesus #Answers

...the essence of gospel-humility is not thinking more of myself or thinking less of myself, it is thinking of myself less.
-- Timothy Keller

#Humility #Thinking #Essence

The basic premise of religion– that if you live a good life, things will go well for you– is wrong. Jesus was the most morally upright person who ever lived, yet He had a life filled with the experience of poverty, rejection, injustice, and even torture.
-- Timothy Keller

#Jesus #Good Life #Rejection

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

#Heart #Identity #Christ

The ministry of mercy, then, is the best advertising a church can have. It convinces a community that this church provides people with actions for their problems, not only talk. It shows the community that this church is compassionate.
-- Timothy Keller

#People #Community #Church

God looks at the anxious and says, I tore my Son to shreds for you, and you're afraid I will not give you what you need?
-- Timothy Keller

#Son #Giving #Looks

Suffering can refine us rather than destroy us because God himself walks with us in the fire.
-- Timothy Keller

#Fire #Suffering #Walks

Christianity does not provide the reason for each experience of pain, but it does provide deep resources for actually facing suffering with hope and courage rather than bitterness and despair
-- Timothy Keller

#Pain #Suffering #Despair

In religion, you obey because God is useful. In Christianity, you obey because God is beautiful.
-- Timothy Keller

#Beautiful #Christianity

If the church does not identify with the marginalized, it will itself be marginalized. This is God's poetic justice.
-- Timothy Keller

#Justice #Church #Doe

Many times people think if God has called you to something, he's promising you success. He might be calling you to fail to prepare you for something else through the failure.
-- Timothy Keller

#Thinking #People #Calling

If you want God's grace, all you need is need, all you need is nothing.
-- Timothy Keller

#Grace #Want

The purpose of Jesus's coming is to put the whole world right, to renew and restore the creation, not to escape it.
-- Timothy Keller

#Jesus #World #Purpose

I am going to judge my circumstances by Jesus’ love, not Jesus’ love by my circumstances.
-- Timothy Keller

#Jesus #Judging #Jesus Love

You can't live the Christian life without a band of Christian friends, without a family of believers in which you find a place.
-- Timothy Keller

#Christian #Band #Believer

Christmas is telling you that you could never get to heaven on your own. God had to come to you.
-- Timothy Keller

#Heaven

It is not the strength of your faith but the object of your faith that actually saves you.
-- Timothy Keller

Because of Jesus-there is always hope, even in the darkest moments of your life.
-- Timothy Keller

#Jesus #Moments

Faith in God's promises means not always following the expected, rational path.
-- Timothy Keller

#Mean #Promise #Path

While the difference between a bad sermon and a good sermon is mainly the responsibility of the preacher, the difference between good preaching and great preaching lies mainly in the work of the Holy Spirit. . . . We should do the work it takes to make our communication good and leave it up to God how and how often he makes it great for the listener.
-- Timothy Keller

#Lying #Communication #Responsibility

Everyone worships something. The only choice you get is what to worship.
-- Timothy Keller

#Choices #Worship

Love without truth is sentimentality; it supports and affirms us but keeps us in denial about our flaws. Truth without love is harshness; it gives us information but in such a way that we cannot really hear it.
-- Timothy Keller

#Love #Marriage #Giving

The peace of God is not the absence of fear. It, in fact, is His presence.
-- Timothy Keller

#Inspirational #Facts #Absence

Jesus Christ did not suffer so that you would not suffer. He suffered so that when you suffer, you’ll become more like him. The gospel does not promise you better life circumstances; it promises you a better life.
-- Timothy Keller

#Jesus #Promise #Suffering

Do you realize that it is only in the gospel of Jesus Christ that you get the verdict before the performance?
-- Timothy Keller

#Jesus #Realizing #Christ

All change comes from deepening your understanding of the salvation of Christ and living out the changes that understanding creates in your heart.
-- Timothy Keller

#Heart #Understanding #Christ

Anything can serve as a counterfeit god, especially the very best things in life.
-- Timothy Keller

#Best Things In Life #Counterfeit

Marriage has the power to set the course of your life as a whole. If your marriage is strong, even if all the circumstances in your life around you are filled with trouble and weakness, it won't matter. You will be able to move out into the world in strength.
-- Timothy Keller

#Love #Marriage #Wedding

[Spiritual friendship] is eagerly helping one another know, serve, love, and resemble God in deeper and deeper ways.
-- Timothy Keller

#Marriage #Spiritual #Way

Love is the effort and desire to make someone else everything they were created to be.
-- Timothy Keller

#Love Is #Effort #Desire

People are messy; therefore, relationships will be messy. Don't be surprised by messiness.
-- Timothy Keller

#People #Messy #Messiness

The great basis of Christian assurance is not how much our hearts are set on God, but how unshakably his heart is set on us.
-- Timothy Keller

#Christian #Heart #Assurance

The resurrection was God's way of stamping PAID IN FULL right across history so that nobody could miss it.
-- Timothy Keller

#Missing #Way #Resurrection

Love is primarily giving. It’s an action that leads to a feeling, not a feeling first.
-- Timothy Keller

#Love Is #Giving #Feelings

Without the gospel we hate ourselves instead of our sin. Without the gospel we’re motivated through all sorts of awful fear and pride to change and it doesn’t really change our hearts; it just restrains our hearts.
-- Timothy Keller

#Hate #Heart #Pride

To stand in the presence of God, that is what the Gospel is. The Gospel is not primarily about forgiveness. It’s not primarily about good feelings. It’s not primarily about power. All those things are byproducts, sparks. It’s primarily about the presence of God.
-- Timothy Keller

#Feelings #Sparks #Good Feeling

Worry is not believing God will get it right, and bitterness is believing God got it wrong.
-- Timothy Keller

#Christian #Believe #Worry

A common vision can unite people of very different temperaments.
-- Timothy Keller

#People #Vision #Different

Legalistic remorse says, "I broke God's rules," while real repentance says, "I broke God's heart."
-- Timothy Keller

#Christian #Real #Heart

Some suffering is given in order to chastise and correct a person for wrongful patterns of life (as in the case of Jonah imperiled by the storm), some suffering is given not to correct past wrongs but to prevent future ones (as in the case of Joseph sold into slavery), and some suffering has no purpose other than to lead a person to love God more ardently for himself alone and so discover the ultimate peace and freedom.
-- Timothy Keller

#Past #Order #Suffering

The only love that won’t disappoint you is one that can’t change, that can’t be lost, that is not based on the ups and downs of life or of how well you live. It is something that not even death can take away from you. God’s love is the only thing like that.
-- Timothy Keller

#Love Is #Away From You #Lost

The essence of forgiveness is absorbing pain instead of giving it.
-- Timothy Keller

#Pain #Essence #Giving

If you can't show the difference between religion and the Gospel, people will confuse morality with a changed heart
-- Timothy Keller

#Heart #Differences #People

How could you possibly know that no religion can see the whole truth unless you yourself have the superior, comprehensive knowledge of spiritual reality you just claimed non of the religions have?
-- Timothy Keller

#Spiritual #Reality

Mercy and forgiveness must be free and unmerited to the wrongdoer. If the wrongdoer has to do something to merit it, then it isn’t mercy, but forgiveness always comes at a cost to the one granting the forgiveness.
-- Timothy Keller

#Merit #Cost #Mercy

Prayer gives us relief from the melancholy burden of self-absorption .
-- Timothy Keller

#Prayer #Self #Giving

The gospel destroys pride because it tells us we are so lost that Jesus had to die for us.
-- Timothy Keller

#Jesus #Pride #Lost

The gospel is not only the way to enter the kingdom; it is the way to live in the kingdom.
-- Timothy Keller

#Kingdoms #Way

Everyone will be forgotten, nothing we do will make any difference, and all good endeavours, even the best, will come to naught. Unless there is God. If the God of the Bible exists, and there is a True Reality beneath and behind this one, and this life is not the only life, then every good endeavour, even the simplest ones, pursued in response to God's calling, can matter forever.
-- Timothy Keller

#Reality #Differences #Forever

Only if you are part of a community of believers seeking to resemble, serve, and love Jesus will you ever get to know him and grow into his likeness.
-- Timothy Keller

#Jesus #Community #And Love

The determining factor in our relationship with God is not our past but Christ's past.
-- Timothy Keller

#Past #Christ #Our Relationship

Describe the God you've rejected. Describe the God you don't believe in. Maybe I don't believe in that God either.
-- Timothy Keller

#Believe #Rejected

Putting our faith in Christ is not about trying harder; it means transferring our trust away from ourselves and resting in him.
-- Timothy Keller

#Mean #Trying #Christ

Like a baby learning language, we learn how to communicate with God by listening to His words first.
-- Timothy Keller

#Baby #Listening #Firsts

Doing justice includes not only the righting of wrongs but generosity and social concern, especially toward the poor and vulnerable.
-- Timothy Keller

#Justice #Generosity #Vulnerable

As long as we think we are not that bad, the idea of grace will never change us.
-- Timothy Keller

#Thinking #Ideas #Long

How do you change your behavior? Change what you worship
-- Timothy Keller

#Worship #Behavior

Every single emotion you have should be processed in prayer.
-- Timothy Keller

#Prayer #Emotion #Should

It is impossible to forgive someone if you feel superior to him or her.
-- Timothy Keller

#Forgiving #Impossible #Feels

Pride is that which claims to be the author of what is really a gift.
-- Timothy Keller

#Pride #Claims

The God of the Bible takes our misery and suffering so seriously that he was willing to take it on himself
-- Timothy Keller

#Suffering #Misery #Misery And Suffering

After creation God said, 'It is finished'-and he rested. After redemption Jesus said, 'It is finished'-and we can rest.
-- Timothy Keller

#Jesus #Redemption #Creation

The only person who dares wake up a king at 3:00 AM for a glass of water is a child. We have that kind of access
-- Timothy Keller

#Kings #Children #Glasses

The Christian gospel is that I am so flawed that Jesus had to die for me, yet I am so loved and valued that Jesus was glad to die for me.
-- Timothy Keller

#Christian #Jesus #Flawed

If God is treated as God during suffering, then suffering can reveal and present him in all his greatness.
-- Timothy Keller

#Greatness #Suffering #Treated

The world is polarizing over religion. It is getting both more religious and less religious at the same time.
-- Timothy Keller

#Religious #World

If your fundamental is a man dying on the cross for his enemies, if the very heart of your self-image and your religion is a man praying for his enemies as he died for them, sacrificing for them, loving them - if that sinks into your heart of hearts, it's going to produce the kind of life that the early Christians produced. The most inclusive possible life out of the most exclusive possible claim - and that is this is the truth. But what is the truth? The truth is a God become weak, loving and dying for the people who opposed him, dying forgiving them.
-- Timothy Keller

#Christian #Heart #Sacrifice

God's reckless grace is our greatest hope.
-- Timothy Keller

#Grace #Reckless

No one is exempt from trials and tribulations. In fact, this is often what happens to people God loves very much, for it is part of God’s often mysterious and good plan for turning us into something great.
-- Timothy Keller

#People #Facts #Trials

When we grasp that we are unworthy sinners saved by an infinitely costly grace, it destroys both our self-righteousn ess and our need to ridicule others.
-- Timothy Keller

#Self #Grace #Needs

Christ did not suffer so you wouldn’t suffer. He suffered so when you suffer you will become like Him.
-- Timothy Keller

#Suffering #Christ

All human problems are ultimately symptoms, and our separation from God is the cause.
-- Timothy Keller

#Causes #Separation #Problem

We modern people think of miracles as the suspension of the natural order, but Jesus meant them to be the restoration of the natural order.
-- Timothy Keller

#Jesus #Thinking #Order

We're far worse than we ever imagined, and far more loved than we could ever dream.
-- Timothy Keller

#Dream

There is no evil that the father’s love cannot pardon and cover, there is no sin that is a match for his grace.
-- Timothy Keller

#Father #Evil #Grace

If you wait until your motives are pure and unselfish before you do something, you will wait forever.
-- Timothy Keller

#Forever #Waiting #Unselfish

Faith is not primarily a function of how you feel. Faith is living out and believing what truth is despite what you feel.
-- Timothy Keller

#Believe #How You Feel #Truth Is

What is an idol? It is anything more important to you than God, anything that absorbs your heart and imagination more than God, anything you seek to give you what only God can give.
-- Timothy Keller

#Heart #Idols #Giving

What you do today is shaped by what you believe about tomorrow.
-- Timothy Keller

#Believe #Today #Tomorrow

Love without truth is sentimentality; it supports and affirms us but keeps us in denial about our flaws. Truth without love is harshness; it gives us information but in such a way that we cannot really hear it. God's saving love in Christ, however, is marked by both radical truthfulness about who we are and yet also radical, unconditional commitment to us. The merciful commitment strengthens us to see the truth about ourselves and repent. The conviction and repentance moves us to cling to and rest in God's mercy and grace.
-- Timothy Keller

#Moving #Commitment #Love Is

Sin has caused our affections to stray, propelling us to worship relationships, achievement, and work-everything but God.
-- Timothy Keller

#Achievement #Worship #Affection

We are called not simply to communicate the gospel to nonbelievers; we must also intentionally celebrate the gospel before them.
-- Timothy Keller

#Worship #Celebrate #Communicate

The Christian Gospel is that I am so flawed that Jesus had to die for me, yet I am so loved and valued that Jesus was glad to die for me. This leads to deep humility and deep confidence at the same time. It undermines both swaggering and sniveling. I cannot feel superior to anyone, and yet I have nothing to prove to anyone. I do not think more of myself nor less of myself. Instead, I think of myself less.
-- Timothy Keller

#Christian #Jesus #Humility

God will only give you what you would have asked for if you knew everything he knows
-- Timothy Keller

#Religious #Giving #Gods Will

...Singles, too, must see the penultimate status of marriage. If single Christians don't develop a deeply fulfilling love relationship with Jesus, they will put too much pressure on their DREAM of marriage, and that will create pathology in their lives as well.
-- Timothy Keller

#Christian #Dream #Jesus

Tolerance isn't about not having beliefs. It's about how your beliefs lead you to treat people who disagree with you.
-- Timothy Keller

#People #Tolerance #Belief

...God's grace and forgiveness, while free to the recipient, are always costly for the giver.... From the earliest parts of the Bible, it was understood that God could not forgive without sacrifice. No one who is seriously wronged can "just forgive" the perpetrator.... But when you forgive, that means you absorb the loss and the debt. You bear it yourself. All forgiveness, then, is costly.
-- Timothy Keller

#Mean #Loss #Sacrifice

Life changing repentance begins where blame shifting ends.
-- Timothy Keller

#Life Changing #Shifting #Blame

Real love, the Bible says, instinctively desires permanence.
-- Timothy Keller

#Marriage #Real #Desire

We must have a strong inner life of fellowship and intimacy with Jesus if we are going to have a strong outer life of ministry
-- Timothy Keller

#Strong #Jesus #Fellowship

Humility is so shy. If you begin talking about it, it leaves.
-- Timothy Keller

#Humility #Talking #Shy

We instinctively tend to limit for whom we exert ourselves. We do it for people like us, and for people whom we like. Jesus will have none of that. By depicting a Samaritan helping a Jew, Jesus could not have found a more forceful way to say that anyone at all in need - regardless of race, politics, class, and religion - is your neighbour. Not everyone is your brother or sister in faith, but everyone is your neighbour, and you must love your neighbour.
-- Timothy Keller

#Brother #Jesus #Race

For indeed, grace is the key to it all. It is not our lavish good deeds that procure salvation, but God's lavish love and mercy. That is why the poor are as acceptable before God as the rich. It is the generosity of God, the freeness of his salvation, that lays the foundation for the society of justice for all. Even in the seemingly boring rules and regulations of tabernacle rituals, we see that God cares about the poor, that his laws make provision for the disadvantaged. God's concern for justice permeated every part of Israel's life. It should also permeate our lives.
-- Timothy Keller

#Israel #Law #Keys

A lack of generosity refuses to acknowledge that your assets are not really yours, but God's.
-- Timothy Keller

#Generosity #Assets #Acknowledge

God's Kingdom is "present in its beginnings, but still future in its fullness. This guards us from an under-realized eschatology (expecting no change now) and an over-realized eschatology (expecting all change now). In this stage, we embrace the reality that while we're not yet what we will be, we're also no longer what we used to be.
-- Timothy Keller

#Reality #Kingdoms #Embrace

When Jesus looked down from the cross, he didn't think “I am giving myself to you because you are so attractive to me.” No, he was in agony, and he looked down at us - denying him, abandoning him, and betraying him - and in the greatest act of love in history, he STAYED. He said, “Father, forgive them, they don't know what they are doing.” He loved us, not because we were lovely to him, but to make us lovely.
-- Timothy Keller

#Jesus #Father #Thinking