Christian/Christianity

Many Christians don’t get much help from the Holy Spirit.  That is because He can’thelp us until we stop relying on our schemes for self-improvement.—Jim Peterson in Church Without Walls

Too many of us are caught acting as Christians.  The life of many Christians to-day is largely a pretence.  They live a ‘spiritual’ life, talk a ‘spiritual’ language, adopt ‘spiritual’ attitudes, but they are doing the whole thing themselves.  It is the effort involved that should reveal to them that something is wrong.—Watchman Nee in Sit Walk Stand

Christianity begins not with a big DO, but with a big DONE.—Watchman Nee in Sit Walk Stand

If the life of a Christian is to be pleasing to God it must be properly adjusted to Him in all things.—Watchman Nee in Sit Walk Stand

Let me repeat it again: no Christian experience can begin with walking; it must always begin with a definite sitting down.  The secret of deliverance from sin is not to dosomething but to rest on what God has done.—Watchman Nee in Sit Walk Stand

A Christian should act as a Christian because he is a Christian. The right kind of life spontaneously produces the right kind of behaviour.—Watchman Nee in Twelve Baskets Full Vol. I

Christianity is not the removal of weakness, nor is it merely the manifestation of divine power; it is the manifestation of divine power in human weakness.—Watchman Nee in Twelve Baskets Full Vol. II
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The Christian lives, and is guided, not by rules specifying just how far he may mix with men, but by these inward qualities which are mediated to him by God’s Holy Spirit.—Watchman Nee in Love Not the World

Most of us will agree that outward Christianity today is in a sorry state.  It manifests all the ailments and weaknesses of the world.  Its work is reduced to a little preaching and a little social service.  Its impact on men is negligible.—Watchman Nee in What shall this man do?

Even with the efforts of countless experts, consultants, analysts, and communicators—and in spite of reams of materials, calendars crowded with resourcing opportunities, and homes full of Christian products—the evangelical world is tired, ineffective , and for the most part, powerless.—Jan David Hettinga in Follow Me

If your Christianity is not contagious it may be contaminated-Chester H Johnson

The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried.—G.K. Chesterton in What’s Wrong With the World (Boston: Adamant Media, 2004), 48.

Christianity is realistic because it says that if there is no truth, there is also no hope; and there can be no truth if there is no adequate base.—Francis Schaeffer in The God Who Is There ​

Christianity is personal, passionate devotion to Jesus Christ as God manifest in the flesh.—Oswald Chambers in Approved Unto God

The passion of Christianity is that I deliberately sign away my own rights and become a bondslave of Jesus Christ.—Oswald Chambers in He Shall Glorify Me 

In Christianity the kingdom and its laws and principles must be put first, and everything else second.—Oswald Chambers in Christian Discipline

Christianity, according to Jesus Christ, has never been tried and failed; it has been tried and abandoned in individual cases because it has been found a bit too hard, too definite and emphatic, and for the same reason it has been abandoned in nations and in churches; but Christianity has never been tried and gone through with honourably and found to fail.—Oswald Chambers in The Shadow of an Agony

Christianity is other-worldliness in the midst of this-worldliness.—Oswald Chambers in The Highest Good 

Christianity is a complete sham or a supernatural miracle from beginning to end; immediately we admit it is a miracle we are responsible for walking in the light of what we know Jesus Christ to be.—Oswald Chambers in The Highest Good

The difference between the Christianity stamped by the Holy Spirit and that stamped by ecstasy and fanaticism is just here: the one makes the supernatural spooky and puts the natural nowhere; the other makes the supernatural natural.—Oswald Chambers in He Shall Glorify Me 

Christianity is not a thing of times and seasons, but of God and faith.—Oswald Chambers in The Love of God 

The essence of Christianity is not adherence to principles but a personal relationship to God through Jesus Christ at work in the whole of my life.—Oswald Chambers in Shade of His Hand

If Christianity depends on decisions for Christ, it is better to keep away from it; but our Lord tells us to come to Him because we are not able to decide—a very different proposition.—Oswald Chambers in Shade of His Hand

The test of Christianity is that a man lives better than he preaches.—Oswald Chambers in Baffled to Fight Better 

Christianity makes no allowance for heroic moods.  It is easy to feel heroic in an armchair, when everything goes well, but Christianity deals with God’s standard in the common days when you are out of your armchair, and when things are not going well.—Oswald Chambers in Run Today’s Race

Christianity is not service for Jesus Christ, not winning souls; it is nothing less than the life of Jesus being manifested more and more in my mortal flesh.—Oswald Chambers in Run Today’s Race

Christianity means staking ourselves on the honour of Jesus; His honour means that He will see us through time, death and eternity.—Oswald Chambers in Run Today’s Race

The evidence of Christianity is not the good works that go on in the world; these are the outcomes of the good there is in human nature, which still holds remnants of what God designed it to be.—Oswald Chambers in The Psychology of Redemption

A Christian is a disciple of Jesus Christ’s by the possession of a new heredity (John 3:3), one who has been brought into personal relationship with Jesus Christ by the indwelling Spirit of God, one with certain forms of creed or doctrine; these are the effects of his relationship not the ground of it.—Oswald Chambers in The Shadow of an Agony

The test of a Christian, according to the New Testament, is not that a man believes aright, but that he lives as he believes, that is, he is able to manifest that he has a power which, apart from his personal relationship to Jesus, he would not have.—Oswald Chambers in The Shadow of an Agony

The natural pagan, one whose word is as good as one’s bond, a moral and upright person, is more delightful to meet than the Christian who has enough of the Spirit to God to spoil his or her sin but not enough to deliver from it.—Oswald Chambers in The Place of Help 

When a Christian is not a Christian at heart, he is miserable; he carries his religion like a headache instead of something that is worth having.—Oswald Chambers in The Servant as His Lord 

A Christian is one who can live in the midst of the trouble and turmoil with the glory of God indwelling him, while he steadfastly looks not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen.—Oswald Chambers in The Message of Invincible Consolation  

Christianity is a power religion.—Peter Marshall and David Manuel in The Light and the Glory

I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen; not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else. –C.S. Lewis

I believe in Christianity as I believe that the Sun has risen not only because I see it but because by it I see everything else.—C.S. Lewis in Screwtape Proposes a Toast and Other Pieces

Do not attempt to water Christianity down.—C.S. Lewis in The Joyful Christian

Christianity is a statement which, if false, is of no importance, and, if true, is of infinite importance.  The one thing it cannot be is moderately important.—C.S. Lewis in God in the Dock: Essays on Theology and Ethics

Christianity without beauty becomes a disembodied religion of the mind.—Gary Thomas

Unfortunately, today’s Christianity breeds settlers rather than pioneers.—Eric & Leslie Ludy in When God Writes Your Life Story

Christianity can be condensed into four words-admit, submit, commit and transmit.—Samuel Wilberforce

Christianity had its beginning in the omnipotence of God, and in every soul it must have its continuance in that omnipotence.  All the possibilities of the higher Christian life have their origin in a new apprehension of Christ’s power to work all God’s will in us.—Andrew Murray in Absolute Surrender

Christianity takes for granted the absence of any self-help and offers a power which is nothing less than the power of God.—A.W. Tozer in God’s Pursuit of Man

On your knees, spread your legs.  Now repeat after me, "I will not speak Christianese around other human beings, and if I do so, I will be infested with the fleas of a thousand llamas.” —Carl Medearis in Speaking of Jesus

We’re aware of Jesus, but we are obsessed with Christianity.—Carl Medearis in Speaking of Jesus

For some unknown reason, Christians are known almost universally as the people who are “against things.”—Carl Medearis in Speaking of Jesus

Stop ten people on the street and ask them what they think of when they hear the word Christianity, and they will give you ten different answers.—Donald Miller in Blue Like Jazz

Christianity has been buried inside the walls of churches and secured with the shackles of dogmatism.  Let it be liberated to come into the midst of us and teach us freedom, equality and love.—Minna Canth

Christianity teaches a secret neither communism nor capitalism knows: how to die to self.—W.E. Sangster in Daily Readings

Second, it was Christianity’s devotion to reason and logic that resulted in the pursuit of science and technological advances.—Chris and Ted Stewart in 7 Tipping Points that Saved the World

Christianity is not essentially assent to or belief in tenets of truth, but rather receptivity to and participation in the activity of the Being of the One who is Truth (John 14:6).  Jesus did not say, “I came that you might have orthodox beliefs and defend them apologetically.”  He said, “I came that you might have life (the very Being of God) and have such more abundantly (in the abundant expression of God’s character in our behavior).” (John 10:10)—James A. Fowler in Christianity Is Not Religion

Believers are largely indistinguishable from nonbelievers in how they think and live.—George Barna in Growing True Disciples   

NOT I BUT CHRIST these four little words are the most complete description in the New Testament of the heart of the Christian Life.—Roy Hession

Be leery of Christian pit bulls.—Larry Osborne

My prayer today is that God would make me an extraordinary Christian—George Whitefield

Can a genuine Christian fall away from the faith and become an apostate? No.  Scripture is quite clear about that.  Those who do depart from the faith, like Judas, simply demonstrate that they never had true faith to begin with.—John MacArthur in The Truth War

Being a convert or a Christian does not necessarily equal reproduction.  Many Christians are spiritually sterile; many don’t take the gospel forward.  When a disciple is made, two good things happen: a disciple is healthy and godly; disciples reproduce themselves, and some become disciple makers, resulting in multiplication.  Therefore, disciples solve the crisis at the heart of the church. Disciple making creates a quality product and an effective work force.--Bill Hull in The Disciple Making Pastor

Christians who know the Bible, love to  with other Christians, and pray on a regular basis, but don’t do outreach militate against the cause of Christ.  They form a wing of Christianity that is selfish and nitpicky. They are much like an untrained army. The only thing they can do is be obsessed with the cleanliness of the barracks, the parade grounds and the mess hall. They read military history and talk about battle, but when they are called upon for action, they are unarmed and helpless.—Bill Hull in The Disciple Making Pastor
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