justification

Evil would never bring Good, however much they wanted to believe that it would. By the time they discovered the truth, it would be too late.

The Spirit of God draws or leads the sinner from one phase to another, gradually, in proportion as one is found having a disposition to responsive hearing. Grace flows ordinarily from prevenient grace through the grace of baptism through the grace of justification toward sanctifying grace leading toward consummation in glory. The power by which one cooperates with grace is grace itself. In this way God draws all to himself, eliciting a hunger for righteousness and a desire for truth.

Before there could be any permanent reformation the people must be led to feel their utter inability in themselves to render obedience to God.

Sin is the transgression of the law, the death of Christ is the satisfaction of the law, justification is the verdict of the law, and sanctification is the believer's fulfillment of the law.

The only man who has the right to say that he is justified by grace alone is the man who has left all to follow Christ.

The reason placing blame repeatedly fails to work is that I repeatedly place it on everyone else instead of where it actually belongs.

I remember an hypothesis argued upon by the young students, when I was at St. Omer's, and maintained with much learning and pleasantry on both sides, 'Whether supposing that the flavour of a big who obtained his death by whipping (per flagellationem extremem) superadded a pleasure upon the palate of a man more intense than any possible suffering we can conceive in the animal, is man justified in using that method of putting an animal to death?' I forget the decision.

To use the past to justify the present is bad enough__ut it__ just as bad to use the present to justify the past.

There is more experience on the field of justification than on the camp of training. Sometimes, you got to take actions to learn more.

Like crying wolf, if you keep looking for sympathy as a justification for your actions, you will someday be left standing alone when you really need help.

True freedom is the gift of the Spirit, the result of grace: but, precisely because it is freedom FOR as well as freedom FROM, it isn't simply a matter of being forced now to be good, against our wills and without our cooperation, but a matter of being released from slavery precisely into responsibility, into being able at last to choose, to exercise moral muscle, knowing both that one is doing it oneself and that the Spirit is at work within, that God himself is doing that which I too am doing.

Predestination therefore, as it regards the thing itself, is the Decree of the good pleasure of God in Christ, by which He resolved within Himself from all eternity, to justify, adopt, and endow with everlasting life, to the praise of His own glorious grace, believers on whom He had decreed to bestow faith.

It's said that people who give excuses for the reason not do something always formulate those excuses, waiting for the reason to surface to justify their excuses!

The ones with no imagination are always the quickest to justify themselves

A compass calibrated by my greed is a rather shrewd way to legitimize my agenda. However, true north on a compass such as this is a straight line to the edge of a really big cliff.

If you punish them, they are your slaves and if you forgive them they are your brothers.

We can hide a lot of stuff until God shows up, for when God shows up nothing is hidden, which includes both our embarrassment and His forgiveness.

The immoral woman in Luke 7 has the faith to anticipate Christ's forgiveness. She can act in love with no words to justify.