105 Quotes by Steve Brown

The loitering thing is brand new for Georgia, ... The moment they stop and stay in that area and don't move, they're in violation.

Forgiveness is at the very heart of the Christian faith. It’s not about getting better, becoming more religious, or following the rules so God will love you. It’s all about forgiveness, dummy! Everything else is secondary. If we don’t keep the main thing the main thing, then everything else will turn sour on us.

Do you want to know what God is like? Then look at Jesus. If you want to know how God reacts to people, look at how Jesus reacted to people. If you want to know what God thinks, how he acts and who he is, don’t get with a group of people and vote on it. One doesn’t discover divine truth with an election. If you want to know the truth about God, don’t get a book on theology, listen to a preacher, or even read a book like this one. For God’s sake, go to Jesus.

The good news is that Christ frees us from the need to obnoxiously focus on our goodness, our commitment, and our correctness. Religious has made us obsessive almost beyond endurance. Jesus invited us to a dance... and we’ve turned in into a march of soldiers, always checking to see if we’re doing it right and are in step and in line with the other soldiers. We know a dance would be more fun, but we believe we must go through hell to get to heaven, so we keep marching.

Love in response to goodness isn’t love, but reward. Fortunately for us, that’s not God’s way. Our relationship with God is not a matter of reward, but of love. And that’s why we can enjoy such staggering freedom in his presence.

There really is something neurotic about Christians who spend most of their time trying desperately to please a God who is already very pleased. They don’t have any freedom, and they sometimes take away the freedom of others.

Perfectionism will make you sour, mean, and judgmental, and it will rob you of the freedom Jesus died to give you.

If Jesus said we’re free, we ought to accept his declaration at face value and run with it. It ought to help us define ourselves. But it doesn’t. Christians will do almost anything to get away from the simple meaning of the word and the wonderful experience of freedom.

I can think of hardly anything that will kill your joy and freedom more than wearing a mask geared to get others to accept you because you are acting like them.