Pope John Paul II Quotes

The gospel may not make a sow's ear into a silk purse, but it will make everybody better if they live it. I've tried it. It stands the test.

I'm ensuring my place in heaven.

To pass from estrangement from God to be a son of God is the basic fact of conversion. That altered relationship with God gives you an altered relationship with yourself, with your brother man, with nature, with the universe.

I needed a concept of God that worked for me, and I wound up giving my life to Jesus Christ. I thought I was always going to have to wear skirts over my knees, not be able to listen to music, and have no personality. Fortunately, it's so completely opposite.

I can remember the night I became a Christian. And man, this weight came off of me and all that kind of stuff. What I didn't realize was, that was just the beginning - of a huge journey.

Whether this was explicitly taught or implicitly caught, I grew up with the impression that when it comes to the Christian life, justification was step one and sanctification was step two and that once we get to step two there's no reason to revisit step one.

Can human hearts be changed? Why, of course! It happens every day in the great missionary work of the Church. It is one of the most widespread of Christ's modern miracles. If it hasn't happened to you - it should.

Well, I've never left my faith - but have I made a lot of mistakes? But was I fortunate that I was brought up in that Pentecostal church, where I heard about God's love and God's forgiveness.

When you choose to follow Christ, you choose to be changed.

Only the supernatural love of God through changed lives can solve the problems that we face in our world.

Many of the insights of the saint stem from their experience as sinners.

Christians were instructed to serve others, and the thanksgiving was for the grace of God and the fact that God offered a way for man to return to a positive relationship with Him.

Being reminded about the incredible power of God's love, and living as He intended, is the most powerful motivation to change.

I'm not getting to heaven on my integrity. I'm not getting to heaven on my goodness.

It's always good to have fears for your eternal soul.

No one comes face to face with God and remains unchanged.

Salvation brings the soul a deep awareness of God's love. Life takes on more meaning, for it now has a purpose.

The grace that does not change my life will not save my soul.

Holiness is not the way to Christ. Christ is the way to holiness.

Despair of ever being saved, "except thou be born again," or of seeing God "without holiness," or of having part in Christ except thou "love him above father, mother, or thy own life." This kind of despair is one of the first steps to heaven.

Not only does the Atonement of Jesus Christ overcome the effects of the Fall of Adam and make possible the remission of our individual sins and transgressions, but His Atonement also enables us to do good and become better in ways that stretch far beyond our mortal capacities.

Because I am not yet living up to what Jesus expects me to be in those red letters in the Bible, I always define myself as somebody who is saved by God's grace and is on his way to becoming a Christian. (...) Being saved is trusting in what Christ did for us, but being Christian is dependent on the way we respond to what he did for us.

The Atonement is real. As you steadily do the things the Lord would have you do, a change will occur in you, and Satan's ability to lead you into the things that will destroy you and bring misery to you will become lessened.

The only way to get to Heaven is to go through Hell.

God wills in man only that which is good, in the kingdom of his grace; where the free will yields itself up into the grace, there God wills that which is good in the will, through the grace.