Yann Martel Quotes

For we love not God first, to compel him to love again; but he loved us first, and gave his Son for us, that we might see love and love again, saith St John in his first epistle.

The willingness of God to sacrifice his Son to reconcile us to himself is a demonstration of his love for us.

When love becomes what Christianity is all about, we can make no sense of Jesus's death and resurrection.

The saving love of God is his doing whatever must be done, at great cost to himself, and for the least deserving, so that he might enthrall them with what will make them supremely happy forever, namely, himself.

God proved His love on the Cross. When Christ hung, and bled, and died, it was God saying to the world, 'I love you.'

The story of Hosea and Gomer is the second most powerful picture of God's love in the Bible. Other than Christ's death, there is no greater picture of love.

God, as you tell me, was put to death by the very men He created. But my God still looks down on His children.

Christ did not die for man because they were intrinsically worth dying for, but because he is intrinsically love, and therefore loves infinitely.

He left His Father's throne above, (So free, so infinite His grace!) Emptied Himself of all but love, And bled for Adam's helpless race.

If you have never felt or known the sheer power and strength of God's love, take another look at Jesus dying on the cross.

God always wants what's best for us, just as you want what's best for someone you really love. You put them before you, and God does that too. God puts us before His Son, who He sacrificed for our salvation. But the Son did it voluntarily because He has the love of the Father before us.

If God were not just, there would be no demand for his Son to suffer and die. And if God were not loving, there would be no willingness for his Son to suffer and die. But God is both just and loving. Therefore his love is willing to meet the demands of his justice.

Jesus on the cross feels the whole weight of the evil, and with the force of God's love he conquers it; he defeats it with his resurrection. This is the good that Jesus does for us on the throne of the cross. Christ's cross, embraced with love, never leads to sadness, but to joy, to the joy of having been saved and of doing a little of what he did on the day of his death.

God's love in John 3:16 is not amazing because the world is so big, but because the world is so bad.

I never made a sacrifice. Of this we ought not to talk when we remember the great sacrifice which he made who left His Father's throne on high to give Himself for us.

Sin is the second most powerful force in the universe, for it sent Jesus to the cross. Only one force is greater-the love of God.

The New Testament is a brutal destroyer of human illusions. If you follow Jesus and don't end up dead, it appears you have some explaining to do. The stark signifier of the human condition is one who spoke up for love and justice and was done to death for his pains. The traumatic truth of human history is a mutilated body.

God says "I have given you this gift, and it is a real gift. I want you to love me freely, and I will do anything, anything up to giving up the most precious thing I could say I have, my son, to prove I love you. Please come back."

Christ did not die to make his Father loving, but because his Father is loving: the atoning blood is the outflow of the very heart of God toward us.

"God is love". His is not a sentimental, emotional kind of love but the love of the Father who is the origin of all life, the love of the Son who dies on the Cross and is raised, the love of the Spirit who renews human beings and the world. Thinking that God is love does us so much good, because it teaches us to love, to give ourselves to others as Jesus gave himself to us and walks with us. Jesus walks beside us on the road through life.

At the cross God wrapped his heart in flesh and blood and let it be nailed to the cross for our redemption.

From a Christian point of view of course we do want a peaceful world, and I think September 11 did actually make people aware not only of vulnerability and how transitory life is, but there are forces of good and honor and justice which speak to us of God and his love for us.

I prefer death in Christ Jesus to power over the farthest limits of the earth. He who died in place of us is the one object of my quest. He who rose for our sakes is my one desire.

I would rather die and come to Jesus Christ than be king over the entire earth. Him I seek who died for us; Him I love who rose again because of us.

God, to redeem us at the deepest portion of our nature - the urge to love and be loved - must reveal His nature in an incredible and impossible way. He must reveal it at a cross.