Max Lucado Quotes

Whenever we find that our religious life is making us feel that we are good - above all, that we are better than someone else - I think we may be sure that we are being acted on, not by God, but by the devil.

People who parade their holiness are operating dangerously close to the sin of pride.

A cold, self-righteous prig who goes regularly to church may be far nearer to Hell than a prostitute.

Christians believe themselves to be the aristocracy of heaven upon earth, they are admitted to the spiritual court, while millions of men in foreign lands have never been presented. They bow their knees and say they are 'miserable sinners,' and their hearts rankle with abominable pride. Poor infatuated fools! Their servility is real and their insolence is real but their king is a phantom and their palace is a dream.

The act of self-denial seems to confer on us the right to be harsh and merciless toward others. The impression somehow prevails that the true believer, particularly the religious individual, is a humble person. The truth is that the surrendering and humbling of the self breed pride and arrogance. The true believer is apt to see himself as one of the chosen, the salt of the earth, a prince disguised in meekness, who is destined to inherit this earth and the kingdom of heaven, too. He who is not of his faith is evil; he who will not listen shall perish.

The faith in which I was brought up assured me that I was better than other people; I was saved, they were damned.... Our hymns were loaded with arrogance - self-congratulation on how cozy we were with the Almighty and what a high opinion he had of us, what hell everybody else would catch come Judgment Day.

... what such people miscall their religion, is a vent for their bad humours and arrogance.

A spoiled saint, a Pharisee, an inquisitor, or a magician, makes better sport to Hell than a mere common tyrant or debauchee.

Vanity, showing off, is an attitude that reduces spirituality to a worldly thing, which is the worst sin that could be committed in the church.

Volumes might be written upon the impiety of the pious.

Religious people often prefer to be right rather than compassionate. Often, they don't want to give up their egotism. They want their religion to endorse their ego, their identity.

Pretensions to moral superiority are devastatingly destructive.

No egoism is so insufferable as that of the Christian with regard to his soul.

There is not in the universe a more ridiculous, nor a more contemptible animal, than a proud clergyman.

Being virtuous is wonderful thing, but feeling virtuous is a shortcut to vice.

Power tends to confuse itself with virtue, and a great nation is particularly susceptible to the idea that its power is a sign of God's favor.

Atheists have not produced so much evil as hypocrites have produced, or even simply those who preached God without being prepared for Him, daring to pronounce His name with unsanctified lips.

The people who talk the most about God are people who are the least like God.

Avoid self-righteousness like the devil- nothing is so self-blinding.

God has nothing to say to the self-righteous.

Self-righteousness is the fruit of a low view of God's law and a lite view of your own sin.

Materialism, attachment to things of the world, includes pride. Many religious people suffer from pride: taking pleasure or even delight in being good, or religious.

There are people who are known to be very liberal, yet they never give without scolding or pride or even insolence.

I am sometimes shocked by the blasphemies of those who think themselves pious.

Sincerity that thinks it is the sole possessor of the truth is a deadlier sin than hypocrisy, which knows better.