Billy Graham Quotes - Page 29

Satan will do everything he can to divide Christians and destroy our witness. Only the Holy Spirit can subdue our old nature and overcome it with God’s love.

Among those Christians to whom hell means little, Calvary means less.

Jesus Christ said the gate that leads to destruction is wide and the way is broad, but the gate which leads to life is straight and the way narrow.

[The Bible] warns us about “the little foxes, that spoil the vines” [Song of Solomon 2:15 KJV]. This is a picture of the way “little” sinscan destroy our fruitfulness for the Lord.

What shall I do, then, with Jesus who is calledthe Christ?” (Matthew 27:22 NIV). This is the most important question that has ever been asked. It is also the question you must ask yourself.

If God were to remove all evil from our world (but somehow leave human beings on the planet), it would mean that the essence of 'humanness' would be destroyed. We would become robots.Let me explain what I mean by this. If God eliminated evil by programming us to perform only good acts, we would lose this distinguishing mark - the ability to make choices. We would no longer be free moral agents. We would be reduced to the status of robots.Let's take this a step further. Robots do not love. God created us with the capacity to love. Love is based upon one's right to choose to love. We cannot force others to love us. We can make them serve us or obey us. But true love is founded upon one's freedom to choose to respond.

Life is just a schoolroom with a glorious opportunity to prepare us for eternity.

Amazing things can happen when the family of God bands together.

Christians ought to carry written in our hearts the solemn truth of how short is our opportunity to witness for Christ and live for Him.

We are commissioned to make disciples, to bring them into the same direct relationship with Christ as those who left their nets and their fishing boats to become “fishers of men.

In a decadent society the will to believe, to resist, to contend, to fight, to struggle is gone. In place of this will to resist, there is the desire to conform, to drift, to follow, to yield, and not give up.

‎Sincerity is the biggest part of selling anything -- including the Christian plan of salvation.

I have been asked the question, “Who do you go to for counsel, for spiritual guidance?’ My answer: My wife, Ruth. She is the only one I completely confide in.

The searchlight of [God’s] Spirit will probe the inner depths of your soul and reveal things that you think you have already yielded, but you have not.

Believers need the gift of discernment, or at least respect for the opinions of those who have it . . .believers are to test the various spirits and doctrines that abound.Most of all we are to test them against thestandard of the Word of God.

The central message of the Bible is Jesus Christ.

Grief turns us inward, but compassion turns us outward, and that’s what we need when grief threatens to crush us. The Bible says, “Carry each other’s burdens” [Galatians 6:2 NIV].

The human conscience is often beyond the grasp of a psychiatrist . . .Humans are helpless to detach themselves from the gnawing guilt of a heart bowed down with the weight of sin. But where humans have failed, God has succeeded.

Our chaotic, confused world has no greater need than to hear the Gospel truth.

Many people plan financially for retirement—but not spiritually and emotionally.

The greatest tribute a boy can give to his father is to say, “When I grow up, I want to be just like my dad.” It is a convicting responsibility for us fathers and grandfathers.

I don’t believe that young people today can live clean, pure lives without the help of God. The peer pressure is too great and the temptations they see in the movies and on television, and what they hear in their music is too much. Only Christ can give them the power to say no.

Our souls set us apart from every other living creature, and that makes us unique. It also makes us fully human.

One kind of loneliness is the loneliness of solitude. If you have repented, surrendered, and committed your heart and life to Him, Christ forgives . . . and takes you into His family; He brings you to the hearth, and you feel the warmth of the fire. If you are lonely today, seek Christ and know the fellowship that He brings.

If a child is to survive, he or she must know the rules of safety. If he is to be healthy, he must know the rules of health. If he is to drive a car, he must know the rules of the road. If he is to become a ball player, he must learn the rules of the game. And, contrary to popular thinking, children appreciate rules.

To a sinner, a righteous person is an oddity and an abnormality. A Christian’s goodness is a rebuke to the wicked; his being right-side up is a reflection upon the worldling’s inverted position.

As long as you look only at the situation in the world today, it will be very hard . . . to overcome your worries because it is true that there are many problems and the future is unknown to us. Lift your eyes beyond your circumstances and learn instead to trust God. Worrying . . . won’t change anything.

The Christian’s journey through life isn’t a sprint but a marathon.

Persecution is one of the natural consequences of living the Christian life. It is to the Christian what “growing pains” are to the growing child. No pain, no development. No suffering, no glory. No struggle, no victory. No persecution, no reward!

Are your beliefs anchored in a faith that can withstand emotionalism, the drug culture, social and peer pressure, and material temptations? The world is seething with demonic energy. Only supreme inner strength can resist its ceaseless hassling.

The world I once knew as a boy has changed dramatically . . . I don’t even recognize the world we live in today.

America has probably been the most successful experiment in history. The American Dream was a glorious attempt. It was built on a religious foundation. Its earliest concepts came from Holy Scripture.

We relegate God to our spare time—but end up never having any spare time! Jesus said, “Seek first his kingdom” [Matthew 6:33 NIV].

Man is precisely what the Bible says he is. Human nature is behaving exactly as the Bible said it would. The course of human events is flowing just as Christ predicted.

If ever we needed to put the Golden Rule into action, it’s with our aging parents.

The greatest barrier to knowing God’s will is simply that we want to run our own lives. Our problem is that a battle is going on in our hearts—a battle between our wills and God’s will.

Think of working forever at something you love to do, for [the] one you love with all your heart, and never getting tired! We will never know weariness in heaven.

Do not expect me to fall in with the evil customs and ways of the world. I am in Rome, but I will not do as Rome does. I am an alien, a stranger, and a foreigner. My citizenship is in heaven.

Satan didn’t lose any of his beguiling ways when he became the fallen prince. He took his charm, his subtleties, and his clever plots to use on us.

Oh God, if You want me to preach, I will do it.

Without Ruth’s partnership and encouragement over the years, my own work would have been impossible. We were called by God as a team.

God promises no easy life or days without troubles, trials, difficulties, and temptations. He never promises that life will be perfect. He does not call His children to a playground, but to a battleground.

A loving God ordained monogamous marriage and the sanctity of what we call the traditional family.

Salvation is free! God puts no price tag on the Gift of gifts.

Our lives are to be characterized by patience, for it is important in developing the mature, stable character which God wants to produce in His people.

Satan does not care how much you theorize about Christianity or how much you profess to know Christ. What he opposes vigorously is the way you live Christ.

God’s will is for us to commit our lives to Christ and follow Him. God’s will also is that we avoid sin.

The Bible is actually a library of books—some long, some short—written over hundreds of years by many authors. Behind each one, however, was [the] Author: the Spirit of God.

Jesus said our souls are more valuable than all the rest of the world put together.

The evangelistic ministry is a fight, not a frolic.

While we’re looking up to see the rainbow—God’s promises—we’re ignoring floodwaters rising. While we’re looking down to see how close we can get to the edge of the world without being trapped by Satan, we’re taking our eyes off of Christ.

[There are] seven gifts God gives you when you commit your life to Christ: a new relationship, a new citizenship, a new family, a new purpose, a new power, a new destiny, and a new journey.

One of the joys of heaven . . . will be discovering the hidden ways that God in His sovereignty acted in our lives on earth to protect and guide us [that we might] bring glory to His name, in spite of our frailty.

Man seeks to excuse himself of sin, but God seeks to convict him of it and to save him from it. Sin is no amusing toy—it is a terror to be shunned! Learn, then, what constitutes sin in the eyes of God!

God wants us to work (whether at home or on the job), but that doesn’t mean it’s wrong to retire. The Levites (who assisted in Israel’s worship) were required to retire at fifty.

Hundreds of philosophies and scores of religions have been invented to circumvent the Word of God. Modern philosophers and psychologists are still trying to make it appear that there is some way out other than the path of Jesus.

Millions of professing Christians are only just that—“professing.” They have never possessed Christ. They live lives characterized by the flesh.

The central theme of the universe is the purpose and destiny of every individual. Every person is important in God’s eyes.

If people stumble, we help them get back on their feet; if they veer off course, we urge them back. On this journey we are all brothers and sisters in the same family—the family of God.

What greater glory can we anticipate than to stand before the throne of God, to humble ourselves before His great and incomparable majesty.