403 Quotes by Tullian Tchividjian

Being the middle child, I couldn’t figure out where I fit in the home. I couldn’t figure out whether I was the youngest of the older three or the oldest of the younger three.

William Temple in the nineteenth century, I like to remind myself and others that the only thing you contribute to your salvation and to your sanctification is the sin that makes them necessary.

I was a surfer so I hung out with people who were surfers and made fun of people who weren’t surfers and I listened to surf music and made fun of people who didn’t listen to surfer music.

I didn’t realize that I was in a self-made prison of human approval and human acceptance. Didn’t even realize it. Most of the prisons we live in we are not conscious of.

In fact, most of us convince ourselves that we’re actually honoring Jesus with our rules and regulations, that we’re paying attention to him and pleasing him more than ever. But all the while, we’re only demonstrating that we believe in ourselves much more than we do in Jesus. Our default faith mode is to trust, above all things, our own ability to create a safe, controllable, predictable world.

The gospel is good news for losers, not winners. It’s for those who long to be freed from the slavery of believing that all of their significance, meaning, purpose, and security depend on their ability to “become a better you.” The gospel tells us that weakness precedes usefulness – that, in fact, the smaller you get, the freer you will be.

The truth, whether we admit it or not, is that grace scares us to death. It scares us primarily because it wrestles control and manageability out of our hands – introducing chaos and freedom.

God’s grace is so counterintuitive and everything we do in our life is just based on conditions. You do this for me and I’ll do that for you. Or if you don’t do this for me, I won’t do that for you. And God’s grace works in a completely different direction.

The law offends us because it tells us what to do – and most of the time, we hate anyone telling us what to do. But ironically, grace offends us even more, because it tells us that there is nothing we can do, that everything has already been done. And if there is something we hate more than being told what to do, it’s being told that we can’t do anything, that we can’t earn anything – that we are helpless, weak, and needy.