Pope Benedict XVI Quotes

The Christian idea of 'putting on Christ' is the whole of Christianity.

One encounter with Jesus Christ is enough to change you, instantly, forever.

I went to preaching again. The sermons were not different; I did not present any new truths, and yet hundreds were converted. I would not now be placed back where I was before that blessed experience if you should give me all the world - it would be as dust in the balance.

Most Christians when asked what is the essence of the Christian faith will say it is all in the rules to be acceptable by God. That is anti-Christian, but they don't know that.

It is impossible for a man to be a Christian without having Christ; and if he has Christ he has at the same time all that is in Christ.

A Christian is not a person who believes in his head the teachings of the Bible. Satan believes in his head the teachings of the Bible! A Christian is a person who has died with Christ, whose stiff neck has been broken, whose brazen forehead has been shattered, whose stony heart has been crushed, whose pride has been slain, and whose life is now mastered by Jesus Christ.

No one can truly see Christ, and drink in the influence of his character, and not be a Christian at heart.

I thought that Christian was a noun, a person looking for authenticity. I never understood that idea that a band could be Christian or something could be Christian. But it just can be and is.

I was a runner who happened to be a Christian. I needed to become a Christian who happened to be a runner.

Being a Christian is not just about following commandments: it is about letting Christ take possession of our lives and transform them.

Our mission as Christians is to conform ourselves evermore to Jesus as the model of our lives.

Today we need whatever methods or help we can receive to allow the Christian message to take us to a deeper level of transformation.

The Christian's God is a God of metamorphoses. You cast grief into his bosom: you draw thence, peace. You cast in despair: 'tis hope that rises to the surface. It is a sinner whose heart he moves. It is a saint who returns him thanks.

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.

If Mitchell was ever going to become a good Christian, he would have to stop disliking people so intensely.

Becoming a Christian is the work of a moment; being a Christian is the work of a lifetime.

To call someone a Christian simply because he does some Christian-y things is giving false comfort to the unsaved.

This new birth in Christ, thus firmly believed and continually desired, will do everything that thou wantest to have done in thee, it will dry up all the springs of vice, stop all the workings of evil in thy nature, it will bring all that is good into thee, it will open all the gospel within thee, and thou wilt know what it is to be taught of God.

If we are not inwardly wrought upon, and changed by the powerful operations of the Holy Spirit, and our moral actions proceed from a principle of a new nature, however we may call ourselves Christians, we shall be found naked at the great day.

I'm afraid I haven't become a born-again Christian. I'm sort of 'Church of England, lapsed' is about as far as I go.

You can never completely get it - being a Christian - but I think I really got it when my first son was born in 2006. I just realized the love that God has for all of us. It was seeing my son born and knowing the unconditional love that I have for him.

The greatest joy of a Christian is to give joy to Christ.

The stool of repentance and the foot of the cross are the favorite positions of instructed Christians.

The gospel costs nothing. We cannot buy it or earn it. It can only be received as a free gift, compliments of God’s grace. So it costs nothing, but it demands everything. And that is where most of us get stuck — spiritual no-man’s-land. We’re too Christian to enjoy sin and too sinful to enjoy Christ. We’ve got just enough Jesus to be informed, but not enough to be transformed.

Our faith is well founded; but it is necessary that this faith become part of our lives. A great effort must therefore be made in order for all Christians to transform themselves into 'witnesses,' ready and able to shoulder the commitment of testifying - always and to everyone - to the hope that animates them.