In His Image: 10 Ways God Calls Us to Reflect His Character QUOTES

2 " Forgiving lavishly does not mean that we continue to place ourselves in harm's way. The Bible takes great pains to address the dangers of keeping company with those who perpetually harm others. Those who learn nothing from their past mistakes are termed fools. While we may forgive the fool for hurting us, we do not give the fool unlimited opportunity to hurt us again. To do so would be to act foolishly ourselves. When Jesus extends mercy in the Gospels, he always does so with an implicit or explicit, "Go and sin no more." When our offender persists in sinning against us, we are wise to put boundaries in place. Doing so is itself an act of mercy toward the offender. By limiting his opportunity to sin against us, we spare him further guilt before God. Mercy never requires submission to abuse, whether spiritual, verbal, emotional, or physical. "

― , In His Image: 10 Ways God Calls Us to Reflect His Character

4 " For the believer wanting to know God’s will for her life, the first question to pose is not “What should I do?” but “Who should I be? "

― , In His Image: 10 Ways God Calls Us to Reflect His Character

6 " If we want our lives to align with God’s will, we will need to ask a better question than “What should I do?” . . . God is always more concerned with the decision-maker than he is with the decision itself. "

― , In His Image: 10 Ways God Calls Us to Reflect His Character

8 " It is not new truths we need; we need old truths recently forgotten. "

― , In His Image: 10 Ways God Calls Us to Reflect His Character

10 " While we may forgive the fool for hurting us, we do not give the fool unlimited opportunity to hurt us again. To do so would be to act foolishly ourselves. When Jesus extends mercy in the Gospels, he always does so with an implicit or explicit “Go and sin no more.” When our offender persists in sinning against us, we are wise to put boundaries in place. Doing so is itself an act of mercy toward the offender. By limiting his opportunity to sin against us, we spare him further guilt before God. Mercy never requires submission to abuse, whether spiritual, verbal, emotional, or physical. "

― , In His Image: 10 Ways God Calls Us to Reflect His Character

12 " Scarcity has a way of revealing our true understanding of the Golden Rule. Here’s the bare truth: when there is one piece of pie, I don’t want to deny myself and bless someone else with it, and I don’t want to divide it equitably. I want the whole piece. And that’s precisely why I should give the whole piece to someone else—because in doing so, I fulfill the Golden Rule. Yes, at bare minimum I want to be treated fairly by others. But what I really want is to be treated preferentially. My love of preferential treatment displays itself in a thousand ways. I want the best concert seats, the best parking spot, the upgrade to first class, the most comfortable seat in the living room, the biggest serving of pie, the last serving of pie, all the pie all the time. Giving someone else the preferential treatment that I want requires humility. But God gives grace to the humble. Any time we dine on humble pie, we can be certain it will be accompanied by an oversized dollop of grace. "

― , In His Image: 10 Ways God Calls Us to Reflect His Character

14 " The fact that you are currently inhaling and exhaling at this very moment means that you are a recipient of mercy. "

― , In His Image: 10 Ways God Calls Us to Reflect His Character

16 " No other attribute is joined to the name of God with greater frequency than holiness. "

― , In His Image: 10 Ways God Calls Us to Reflect His Character

18 " He gives us daily bread, and often more than just that, though we are given to the habit of complaining for what we lack rather than contentment with what we possess. He gives us the joy of family and friends, though we are more prone to rage against him for the hard relationships than to thank him for the sweet ones. He grants us, on the whole, more days of joy than of sorrow, though our darkened hearts are more apt to curse him for the hard times than to bless him for the happy ones. Though he had every right to bar his goodness behind the flaming sword of the cherubim at Eden’s eastern exit, instead he allowed his goodness to follow Adam and Eve all the days of their life, even after their expulsion. And so he does for every son of Adam and daughter of Eve to this day. "

― , In His Image: 10 Ways God Calls Us to Reflect His Character

20 " Jerry Bridges notes, “True salvation brings with it a desire to be made holy.”6 "

― , In His Image: 10 Ways God Calls Us to Reflect His Character