Faithful God Quotes (page 6)
We can say that true gratitude does not give rise to the debtor's ethic because it gives rise to faith in future grace. With true gratitude there is such a delight in the worth of God's past grace, that we are driven on to experience more and more of it in the future...it is done by transforming gratitude into faith as it turns from contemplating the pleasures of past grace and starts contemplating the promises of the future.
John Piper
It's the same thing with faith, by the way." We don't want to get stuck having to go to services all the time, or having to follow all the rules. We don't want to commit to God. We'll take Him when we need Him, or when things are going good. But real commitment? That requires staying power---in faith and in marriage."And if you don't commit? I asked."Your choice. But you miss what's on the other side."What's on the other side?"Ah." He smiled, "A happiness you cannot find alone.
Mitch Albom
Every faith in the world is based on fabrication... Every religion describes God through metaphor, allegory, and exaggeration, from the early Egyptians through modern Sunday school... Should we wave a flag and tell the Buddhists that we have proof the Buddha did not come from a lotus blossom? Or that Jesus was not born of a literal virgin birth? Those who truly understand their faiths understand the stories are metaphorical.
Dan Brown
We must be convinced that there are no such things as 'Christian principles.' There is the Person of Christ, who is the principle of everything. But if we wish to be faithful to Him, we cannot dream of reducing Christianity to it certain number of principles (though this is often done), the consequences of which can be logically deduced. This tendency to transform the work of the Living God into a philosophical doctrine is the constant temptation of theologians, and also of the faithful, and...
Jacques Ellul
For each of you to receive revelation unique to your own needs and responsibilities, certain guidelines prevail. The Lord asks you to develop 'faith, hope, charity and love, with an eye single to the glory of God.' Then with your firm 'faith, virtue, knowledge, temperance, patience, brotherly kindness, godliness, charity, humility, [and] diligence,' you may ask, and you will receive; you may knock, and it will be opened unto you (D& C 4:5–6; emphasis added).
Russell M. Nelson
Democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns in to universal, rather than religion-specific, values... it requires that their proposals be subject to argument and amenable to reason. Now I may be opposed to abortion for religious reasons, to take one example, but if I seek to pass a law banning the practice, I cannot simply point to the teachings of my church or evoke God's will. I have to explain why abortion violates some principle that is accessible to people...
Barack Obama