Quotes that have impacted me… (Part 1)

I love good quotes. I have a folder on my laptop reserved for my favorite quotes. Here are some quotes that have inspired and challenged me. (Spoiler Warning: Be prepared for a healthy dose of Richard Rohr, one of my favorite authors)

“Real grace is simply inexplicable, inappropriate, out of the box, out
of bounds, offensive, excessive, too much, (and) given to the wrong
people.”

“…at the heart of true Christian experience is this inexplicable,
annoyingly inappropriate, wondrously superlative experience of Jesus
saying, “I don’t condemn you. Go and live your life.” He says it to the divorced. To the expelled. To the unemployed. He says it to criminals. To perverts. To the damaged and the worthless. He says it to cutters, to whores, to greedy businessmen, to unfaithful husbands, to porn addicts and thieves. He says it to the lazy, the unholy, the confused and even the religious. He says it to you and to me. It’s how he changes lives, and it’s as dangerous as ever.”
-Michael Spencer (InternetMonk)

“Jesus did not come to change the mind of God about humanity; Jesus came to change the mind of humanity about God.” -Richard Rohr (RR)

“This historic Christian doctrine of the divinity of Christ does not simply mean that Jesus is like God. It is far more radical than that. It means that God is like Jesus.”
-Elton Trueblood

"You can take it as a general rule that when you don't transform your pain you will always transmit it." -RR

"True transformation always demands that we pay the price for the other's growth. We would rather punish and coerce a response. God is much more patient." -RR

"Jesus receives our hatred and does not return it. He suffers and does not make the other suffer. He does not first look at changing others, but pays the price of change within Himself. He absorbs the mystery of human sin rather than passing it on. He does not use His suffering and death as power over others to punish them, but as power for others to transform them." -RR

"In the Divine Economy nothing is wasted, not even sin, evil or death." -RR

"Jesus is, in some ways, the only true revolutionary. Most revolutions merely rearrange the furniture on the deck of the Titanic. Jesus built a new boat." -RR

"You cannot think yourself into a new way of living, but you must live yourself into a new way of thinking" -RR

"God uses all of us as instruments. Christians just have the advantage of knowing they are indeed instruments - and living in that joy now." -RR

"Until the present falls apart, we will never look for Something More." -RR

“We do know that no man can be saved except through Christ; we do not know that only those who know Him can be saved through Him.” -C.S. Lewis

“If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.” – the Apostle Paul

"The best criticism of the bad is the practice of the better." -RR

“I think that the deepest challenge of the spiritual quest is not to defend the answers of our spiritual ancestors but to do as they did—to dig and scrape and take ourselves into that uncomfortable space where growth happens.”
-From Dr. Valerie Tarico- Non-theists and
Evangelicals: The IM Interview July 31, 2009

What are some quotes that have impacted you?