Mere Christianity Quotes

November 21, 2011

11:00 pm

"A Christian society is not going to arrive until most of us really want it;  and we are not going to want it until we become fully Christian.  I may repeat 'Do as you would be done by' till I am black in the face, but I cannot really carry it out till I love my neighbor as myself:  and I cannot love my neighbor as myself till I learn to love God:  and I cannot learn to love God except by learning to obey Him.  And so, as I warned you, we are driven on to something more inward -- driven on from social matters to religious matters.  For the longest way round is the shortest way home."

“everyone says forgiveness is a lovely idea, until they have something to forgive.”

Charity means ‘Love, in the Christian sense’. But love, in the Christian sense, does not mean an emotion. It is a state not of the feelings but of the will; that state of the will which we have naturally about ourselves, and must learn to have about other people...."

Christian Love, either towards God or towards man, is an affair of the will. If we are trying to do His will we are obeying the commandment, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God.” He will give us feelings of love if He pleases. We cannot create them for ourselves, and we must not demand them as a right. But the great thing to remember is that, though our feelings come and go, His love for us does not. It is not wearied by our sins, or our indifference; and, therefore, it is quite relentless in its determination that we shall be cured of those sins, at whatever cost to us, at whatever cost to Him."

"Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists."

"If  I found myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world."

"Faith is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted, in spite of your changing moods."

Daily prayers and religious readings and churchgoing are necessary parts of the Christian life. We have to be continually reminded of what we believe.

No man knows how bad he is till he has tried very hard to be good.

The first half is, "Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling"--which looks as if everything depended on us and our good actions: but the second half goes on, "For it is God who worketh in you"--which looks as if God did everything and we nothing.