Lewis B. Smedes Quotes

Salvation and Christ's love is a gift. You don't earn it. You've got to receive that gift.

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

The gospel announces that God doesn't relate to us based on our feats for Jesus, but Jesus' feats for us.

Christ does not save us by acting a parable of divine love; he acts the parable of divine love by saving us. That is the Christian faith.

In Christ the original image of God is restored, by faith in this world and by sight in the world to come.

There's no way to get around the fact that Jesus is the only way to Heaven, and He is so good that He exchanged His place in Heaven to come suffer on a cross for humanity and rose to set us free from eternal life in Hell.

I believe Jesus Christ is God. I believe He loves every single human being that has ever lived, no matter what they have done, even if they don't believe in Him.

When we imply that our works are for God and not our neighbor, we perpetuate the idea that God's love for us is dependent on what we do instead of on what Christ has done.

For God so loved the World that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

I would like everyone to feel loved by the God who gave his son for us and showed us his boundless love. I want everyone to feel the joy of being Christian.

No one can be saved - in virtue of what he can do. Everyone can be saved - in virtue of what God can do.

Sin does not stop God's grace from flowing, but God's grace will stop sin.

My understanding of the Scriptures has been made simple by the person of Christ. Christ teaches that God is love.

Grace is a much more accurate word to use when dealing with the state of human existence. God gives us unmerited favor through Jesus Christ, and since Adam and Eve, our lives have depended on it.

I marvel to think that the Son of God would condescend to save us, as imperfect, impure, mistake-prone, and ungrateful as we often are. I have tried to understand the Savior's Atonement with my finite mind, and the only explanation I can come up with is this: God loves us deeply, perfectly, and everlastingly.

Ultimately, the soul will receive either judgment or mercy through Christ.

Through faith in the Lord Jesus alone can we obtain forgiveness of our sins, and be at peace with God; but, believing in Jesus, we become, through this very faith, the children of God; have God as our Father, and may come to Him for all the temporal and spiritual blessings which we need.

Many have a vague idea that they must make some wonderful effort in order to gain the favor of God. But all self-dependence is vain. It is only by connecting with Jesus through faith that the sinner becomes a hopeful, believing child of God.

It is a great thing to be a child of God, and joint-heir with Jesus Christ. If this is your privilege, you will know the fellowship of Christ's sufferings.

The righteousness of Jesus Christ is one of those great mysteries, which the angels desire to look into, and seems to be one of the first lessons that God taught men after the fall.

The Bible tells us that Jesus Christ came to do three things. He came to have my past forgiven, you get a purpose for living and a home in Heaven.

It is not repentance per se that saves man. It is the blood of Jesus Christ that saves us.

The words 'come unto Christ' are an invitation. It is the most important invitation you could ever offer to another person. It is the most important invitation anyone could accept.

Consider then, O man! whether there can be anything more wretched and poor, more naked and miserable, than man when he dies, if he be not clothed with Christ's righteousness, and enriched in his God.

Catholics should be proselytizing about a God who is love, who represents a hereafter where there's no hell, who wants you to lead a life where you can confess your sins and feel much better afterwards. Those are lovely concepts of God.