Martin Luther Quotes

To be a Christian is not only to believe the teaching of Christ, and to practice it; it is not only to try to follow the pattern and example of Christ; it is to be so vitally related to Christ that His life and His power are working in us. It is to be "in Christ," it is for Christ to be in us.

We look upon prayer simply as a means of getting things for ourselves, but the biblical purpose of prayer is that we may get to know God Himself.

'Doing your own thing' and being a Christian is an oxymoron. As Christians, every day we need to be presenting ourselves before the Lord, thanking Him for His mercy and asking Him to make us more like Him by emptying us of our will, so God's will can be done.

It is by letting the world go and coming unto Christ that we increasingly live as women of God.

I had been raised in the church, but I wasn't a Christian. I had a lot of head knowledge but no heart knowledge.

I don't think I could truly value human love until I developed divine love.

Ask God for what you want, but you cannot ask if you are not asking for a right thing. When you draw near to God, you cease from asking for things."Your Father knows what things you have need of, before you ask him." Then, why ask? That you may get to know Him.

The problem with Western Christians is not that they aren't where they should be but that they aren't what they should be where they are.

Christ's indwelling presence has freed us from exclusive orientation toward ourselves and opened us up in two directions: toward God, to receive the good things in faith, and toward our neighbor, to pass them on in love.

Open your heart and invite God into every circumstance because when God enters the scene, miracles happen.

Salvation is not a religion. It's not rules or regulations or rituals. Salvation is a relationship. That relationship doesn't begin when you get to Heaven; it begins here on Earth.

The most vital question to ask about all who claim to be Christian is this: Have they a soul thirst for God? ... Is their life centered on Him? Do they press forward more and more that they might know Him.

If you are what you've always been, you are not a Christian. A Christian is a new creation.

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

I still describe myself as a Christian, and my love of God and my relationship with God is fundamental, but its manifestations in my life and the practices of it are constantly changing. I find incredible freedom in my faith.

We weren't meant to be somebody--we were meant to know Somebody

If we are Christians, we must look like Christ - this is my deep conviction.

Every Christian would agree that a man's spiritual health is exactly proportional to his love for God.

... if, to me, to live is Christ (Phil. 1:21), truly my words ought to be about Christ, my every thought and deed ought to depend upon His commandments, and my soul to be fashioned after His.

Christian holiness consists not of trying as hard as we can to be good but of learning to live in the new world created by Easter, the new world we publicly entered in our baptism. There are many parts of the world we can't do anything about except pray. But there is one part of the world, one part of physical reality, that we can do something about, and that is the creature each of us call "myself.

The expression of Christian character is not good doing, but God-likeness. If the Spirit of God has transformed you within, you will exhibit Divine characteristics in your life, not good human characteristics . God's life in us expresses itself as God's life, not as human life trying to be godly.

CHRISTIAN LIVING MOVES from what God has freely done for us in Christ to what we should freely do for others.

Oh that I was lowly in heart! Honor and dishonor, good report and evil report would then be alike, and prove a furtherance to me in my Christian cause.

The greatest competitor of devotion to Jesus is service to Him. It is never 'Do, do' with the Lord, but 'Be, be' and He will 'do' through you. The only way to keep true to God is by a steady persistent refusal to be interested in Christian work and to be interested alone in Jesus Christ.

Consumer Christianity is now normative. The consumer Christian is one who utilizes the grace of God for forgiveness and the services of the church for special occasions, but does not give his or her life and innermost thoughts, feelings, and intentions over to the kingdom of the heavens. Such Christians are not inwardly transformed and not committed to it.