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Christian Quotes by John R. W. Stott
October 10, 2001
We should not ask, "What is wrong with the world?" for that diagnosis has already been given. Rather, we should ask, "What has happened to the salt and light?"
John R. W. Stott
John Stott Ministries
April 29, 2002
The Gospel is good news of mercy to the undeserving. The symbol of the religion of Jesus is the cross, not the scales.
John R. W. Stott
July 29, 2002
His authority on earth allows us to dare to go to all the nations. His authority in heaven gives us our only hope of success. And His presence with us leaves us no other choice.
John R. W. Stott
February 22, 2003
Social responsibility becomes an aspect not of Christian mission only, but also of Christian conversion. It is impossible to be truly converted to God without being thereby converted to our neighbour.
John R. W. Stott
July 17, 2003
The incentive to peacemaking is love, but it degenerates into appeasement whenever justice is ignored. To forgive and to ask for forgiveness are both costly exercises. All authentic Christian peacemaking exhibits the love and justice - and so the pain - of the cross.
John R. W. Stott
October 17, 2003
Sin and the child of God are incompatible. They may occasionally meet; they cannot live together in harmony.
John R. W. Stott
August 28, 2004
The modern world detests authority but worships relevance. Our Christian conviction is that the Bible has both authority and relevance, and that the secret of both is Jesus Christ.
John R. W. Stott
March 11, 2005
The Christian community is a community of the cross, for it has been brought into being by the cross, and the focus of its worship is the Lamb once slain, now glorified. So the community of the cross is a community of celebration, a eucharistic community, ceaselessly offering to God through Christ the sacrifice of our praise and thanksgiving. The Christian life is an unending festival. And the festival we keep, now that our Passover Lamb has been sacrificed for us, is a joyful celebration of his sacrifice, together with a spiritual feasting upon it.
John R. W. Stott
May 9, 2005
The Christian life is not just our own private affair. If we have been born again into God's family, not only has he become our Father but every other Christian believer in the world, whatever his nation or denomination, has become our brother or sister in Christ. But it is no good supposing that membership of the universal Church of Christ is enough; we must belong to some local branch of it. Every Christian's place is in a local church, sharing in its worship, its fellowship, and its witness.
John R. W. Stott
May 30, 2006
Good works are indispensable to salvation - not as its ground or means, however, but as its consequence and evidence.
John R. W. Stott
June 30, 2006
I could never myself believe in God if it were not for the cross......In the real world of pain, how could one worship a God who was immune to it? I have entered many Buddhist temples in different Asian countries and stood respectfully before the statute of Buddha - - his legs crossed, arms folded, eyes closed, the ghost of a smile playing round his mouth, a remote look on his face, detached from the agony of the world. But each time, after awhile, I have had to turn away. And in imagination, I have turned instead to that lonely, twisted, tortured figure on the cross -- nails through his hands and feet, back lacerated, limbs wrenched, brow bleeding from thorn pricks, mouth dry and intolerably thirsty, plunged in God-forsaken darkness. That is the God for me ! He laid aside his immunity to pain. He entered our world of flesh and blood, tears and death. He suffered for us. Our sufferings become more manageable in light of his. There is still a question mark against human suffering, but over it we boldly stamp another mark, the cross, which symbolizes divine suffering. The cross of Christ is God's only self justification in such a world as ours.
John R. W. Stott
April 21, 2007
The very first thing which needs to be said about Christian ministers of all kinds is that they are "under" people as their servants rather than "over" them (as their leaders, let alone their lords). Jesus made this absolutely plain. he chief characteristic of Christian leaders, he insisted, is humility not authority, and gentleness not power.
John R. W. Stott
September 7, 2007
Our God is often too small because he is too religious. We imagine that he is chiefly interested in religion - in religious buildings (churches and chapels), religious activities (worship and ritual), and religious books (Bibles and prayer books). Of course he is concerned about these things, but only if they are related to the whole of life. According to the Old Testament prophets and the teaching of Jesus, God is very critical of 'religion," if by that is meant religious services divorced from real life, loving service and the moral obedience of the heart.
John R. W. Stott
November 1, 2007
God must speak to us before we have any liberty to speak to him. He must disclose to us who he is before we can offer him what we are in acceptable worship. The worship of God is always a response to the Word of God. Scripture wonderfully directs and enriches our worship.
John R. W. Stott
July 25, 2008
Instead of always being one of the chief bastions of the social status quo, the Church is to develop a Christian counter-culture with its own distinctive goals, values, standards, and lifestyle - a realistic alternative to the contemporary technocracy which is marked by bondage, materialism, self-centredness, and greed. Christ's call to obedience is a call to be different, not conformist. Such a Church - joyful, obedient, loving, and free - will do more than please God: it will attract the world. It is when the Church evidently is the Church, and is living a supernatural life of love by the power of the Holy Spirit, that the world will believe.
John R. W. Stott
December 13, 2008
What, then, is the biblical basis for social concern? Why should Christians get involved? In the end there are only two possible attitudes which Christians can adopt towards the world: Escape and Engagement...'Escape' means turning our backs on the world in rejection, washing our hands of it ... and steeling our hearts against its agonized cries for help. In contrast, 'engagement' means turning our faces towards the world in compassion, getting our hands dirty, sore and worn in its service, and feeling deep within us the stirring of the love of which cannot be contained.
John R. W. Stott
July 13, 2009
The Gospel is good news of mercy to the undeserving. The symbol of the religion of Jesus is the cross, not the scales.
John R. W. Stott
September 9, 2009
There is no need for us to wait, as the one hundred and twenty had to wait [Acts 1], for the Spirit to come. For the Holy Spirit did come on the day of Pentecost, and has never left his church. Our responsibility is to humble ourselves before his sovereign authority, to determine not to quench him, but to allow him his freedom. For then our churches will again manifest those marks of the Spirit's presence which many young people are especially looking for, namely biblical teaching, loving fellowship, living worship, and an ongoing, outgoing evangelism.
John R. W. Stott
John Stott Ministries
July 28, 2011
If worship is right because God is worthy of it, it is also the best of all antidotes to our own self-centredness, the most effective way to "disinfect us of egotism," as one writer put it long ago. In true worship we turn the searchlight of our mind and heart upon God and temporarily forget about our troublesome and usually intrusive selves. We marvel at the beauties and intricacies of God's creation. We "survey the wondrous cross on which the Prince of glory died." We are taken up with God, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit...Because we are normally so turned in on ourselves, we will not find this easy. But we have to persevere, since nothing is more right or more important.
John R. W. Stott
John Stott Ministries
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