163 Quotes by D. A. Carson

To put the matter at its most basic, Paul’s prayer is the product of his passion for people. His unaffected fervency in prayer is not whipped-up emotionalism but the overflow of his love for brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus. That means that if we are to improve our praying, we must strengthen our loving. As we grow in disciplined, self-sacrificing love, so we will grow in intercessory prayer. Superficially fervent prayers devoid of such love are finally phony, hollow, shallow.

To walk into the unknown with a God of unqualified power and unfailing goodness is safer than a known way.

We need not think that the only sins that will keep us from prayer are large and gross. We so often fall at the subtle points.

Damn all false antitheses to hell, for they generate false gods, they perpetuate idols, they twist and distort our souls, they launch the church into violent pendulum swings who oscillations succeed only in dividing brothers and sisters in Christ.

At heart, therefore, they really have grasped the message of Christ crucified, even if they have not brought their lives into conformity with this message.

Or have we ourselves become so caught up in the spirit of this age that we are content to be rich in information and impoverished in wisdom and godliness?

God’s purpose for the men and women he redeems is not simply to have them believe certain truths but to transform them in a lifelong process that stretches toward heaven.

God’s valuation of his people is established by his valuation of Christ.

Not a drop of rain can fall outside the orb of Jesus’ sovereignty. All our days – our health, our illnesses, our joys, our victories, our tears, our prayers, and the answers to our prayers – fall within the sweep of the sovereignty of one who wears a human face, a thorn-shadowed face.