A Call to the Unconverted to Turn and Live, Preface.
“The essence of grace is that God is for you.”
Where Is God (2009, Thomas Nelson publishers)
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
Do you have more details about the quote "The essence of grace is that God is for you." by John Townsend?
John Townsend 30
Canadian clinical psychologist and author 1952Related quotes
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
(1906–1945) German Lutheran pastor, theologian, dissident anti-Nazi
Costly Grace, p 43.
Costly Grace
Context: Cheap grace is the deadly enemy of our Church. We are fighting to-day for costly grace. Cheap grace means grace sold on the market like cheapjacks’ wares. The sacraments, the forgiveness of sin, and the consolations of religion are thrown away at cut prices. Grace is represented as the Church’s inexhaustible treasury, from which she showers blessings with generous hands, without asking questions or fixing limits. Grace without price; grace without cost! The essence of grace, we suppose, is that the account has been paid in advance; and, because it has been paid, everything can be had for nothing. Since the cost was infinite, the possibilities of using and spending it are infinite. What would grace be if it were not cheap?
Jerry Bridges
(1929–2016) American writer
Source: The Discipline of Grace: God's Role and Our Role in the Pursuit of Holiness
“The grace of God is the thing that is needful. One should pray for the grace of God.”
Sarada Devi
(1853–1920) Hindu religious figure, spiritual consort of Ramakrishna
[Swami Tapasyananda, Swami Nikhilananda, Sri Sarada Devi, the Holy Mother; Life and Conversations, 301]
“There, but for the grace of God, goes God.”
Herman J. Mankiewicz
(1897–1953) American screenwriter
On Orson Welles, quoted in the New York Times, 11 October 1985
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
(1906–1945) German Lutheran pastor, theologian, dissident anti-Nazi
Source: Costly Grace, p. 49.
Context: God did not reckon his Son too dear a price to pay for our life, but delivered him up for us. Costly grace is the Incarnation of God.
Costly grace is the sanctuary of God; it has to be protected from the world, and not thrown to the dogs. It is therefore the living word, the Word of God, which he speaks as it pleases him. Grace is costly because it compels a man to submit to the yoke of Christ and follow him; it is grace because Jesus says: "My yoke is easy and my burden is light."
“The essence of our God is obscure.”
The Saviors of God (1923)
Context: The essence of our God is obscure. It ripens continuously; perhaps victory is strenghened with our every valorous deed, but perhaps even all these agonizing struggles toward deliverance and victory are inferior to the nature of divinity.
Whatever it might be, we fight on without certainty, and our virtue, uncertain of any rewards, acquires a profound nobility.
“What is the essence of our God? The struggle for freedom.”
The Saviors of God (1923)
Context: What is the essence of our God? The struggle for freedom. In the indestructible darkness a flaming line ascends and emblazons the march of the Invisible. What is our duty? To ascend with this blood-drenched line.
Whatever rushes upward and helps God to ascend is good. Whatever drags downward and impedes God from ascending is evil.
All virtues and all evils take on a new value. They are freed from the moment and from earth, they exist completely within man, before and after man, eternally.
For the essence of our ethic is not the salvation of man, who varies within time and space, but the salvation of God, who within a wide variety of flowing human forms and adventures is always the same, the indestructible rhythm which battles for freedom.
We, as human beings, are all miserable persons, heartless, small, insignificant. But within us a superior essence drives us ruthlessly upward.
From within this human mire divine songs have welled up, great ideas, violent loves, an unsleeping assault full of mystery, without beginning or end, without purpose, beyond every purpose.
