Quotes by Timothy J. Keller

To be loved but not known is comforting but superficial. To be known and not loved is our greatest fear. But to be fully known and truly loved is, well, a lot like being loved by God. It is what we need more than anything. It liberates us from pretense, humbles us out of our self-righteousness, and fortifies us for any difficulty life can throw at us.

Falling in love in a Christian way is to say,I am excited about your future and I want to be part of getting you there. Im signing up for the journey with you. Would you sign up for the journey to my true self with me? Its going to be hard but I want to get there.

Love without truth is sentimentality; it supports and affirms us but keeps us in denial about our flaws. Truth without love is harshness; it gives us information but in such a way that we cannot really hear it. Gods saving love in Christ, however, is marked by both radical truthfulness about who we are and yet also radical, unconditional commitment to us. The merciful commitment strengthens us to see the truth about ourselves and repent. The conviction and repentance moves us to cling to and rest in Gods mercy and grace.

...Singles, too, must see the penultimate status of marriage. If single Christians dont develop a deeply fulfilling love relationship with Jesus, they will put too much pressure on their DREAM of marriage, and that will create pathology in their lives as well.

If believers in God dont honor the cries and claims of the poor, we dont honor him, whatever we profess, because we hide his beauty from the eyes of the world. When we pour ourselves out for the poor—that gets the worlds notice.

This principle - that your spouse should be capable of becoming your best friend - is a game changer when you address the question of compatibility in a prospective spouse. If you think of marriage largely in terms of erotic love, then compatibility means sexual chemistry and appeal. If you think of marriage largely as a way to move into the kind of social status in life you desire, then compatibility means being part of the desired social class, and perhaps common tastes and aspirations for lifestyle. The problem with these factors is that they are not durable. Physical attractiveness will wane, no matter how hard you work to delay its departure. And socio-economic status unfortunately can change almost overnight. When people think they have found compatibility based on these things, they often make the painful discovery that they have built their relationship on unstable ground. A woman lets herself go or a man loses his job, and the compatibility foundation falls apart.

The gospel is this: We are more sinful and flawed in ourselves than we ever dared believe, yet at the very same time we are more loved and accepted in Jesus Christ than we ever dared hope.

While Christianity was able to agree with pagan writers that inordinate attachment to earthly goods can lead to unnecessary pain and grief, it also taught that the answer to this was not to love things less but to love God more than anything else. Only when our greatest love is God, a love that we cannot lose even in death, can we face all things with peace. Grief was not to be eliminated but seasoned and buoyed up with love and hope.

It is not the strength of your faith but the object of your faith that actually saves you.

If you go to Jesus to get a new personality, Lewis says, you still havent really gone to Jesus. Your real self will not come out as long as you are looking for it; it will only emerge when youre looking for Him.

Jesus Christ says, Kill me and in 3 days, not only this temple, but all temples in the whole world will be out of business. This is the most stunning thing any human being has ever said.

If you have money, power, and status today, it is due to the century and place in which you were born, to your talents and capacities and health, none of which you earned. In short, all your resources are in the end the gift of God.

To the degree you experience Gods love towards you - seeing you as beautiful and radiant - to that degree sex wont ruin your life.

Men, youll never be a good groom to your wife unless youre first a good bride to Jesus.

The early church was strikingly different from the culture around it in this way - the pagan society was stingy with its money and promiscuous with its body. A pagan gave nobody their money and practically gave everybody their body. And the Christians came along and gave practically nobody their body and they gave practically everybody their money.

Only with time do we really learn who the other person is and come to love the person for him- or herself and not just for the feelings and experiences they give us.

[Spiritual friendship] is eagerly helping one another know, serve, love, and resemble God in deeper and deeper ways.

All change comes from deepening your understanding of the salvation of Christ and living out the changes that understanding creates in your heart.

Jesus, unlike the founder of any other major faith, holds out hope for ordinary human life. Our future is not an ethereal, impersonal form of consciousness. We will not float through the air, but rather will eat, embrace, sing, laugh, and dance in the kingdom of God, in degrees of power, glory, and joy that we cant at the present imagine.

Anyone who wonders if a Christian can sin is ignorant about sins enslaving nature.