John Stott Quotes

63 Sourced Quotes

God does not love us because Christ died for us; Christ died for us because God loved us.

John Stott
No man has ever appreciated the gospel until the law has first revealed him to himself. It is only against the inky blackness of the night sky that the stars begin to appear, and it is only against the dark background of sin and judgment that the gospel shines forth.

John Stott
Don't neglect your critical faculties. Remember that God is a rational God, who has made us in His own image. God invites and expects us to explore His double revelation, in nature and Scripture, with the minds He has given us, and to go on in the development of a Christian mind to apply His marvellous revealed truth to every aspect of the modern and post-modern world.

John Stott
The church lies at the very center of the eternal purpose of God. It is not a divine afterthought.

John Stott
Envy is the reverse side of a coin called vanity - Nobody is ever envious of others who is not first proud of himself.

John Stott
Circumcision stands for a religion of human achievement, of what man can do by his own good works; Christ stands for a religion of divine achievement, of what God has done through the finished work of Christ.

John Stott
The law requires works of human achievement; the gospel requires faith in Christ's achievement. The law makes demands and bids us obey; the gospel brings promises and bids us believe.

John Stott
There is something inherently inappropriate about cherishing small ambitions for God.

John Stott
The gospel creates the church, which spreads the gospel, which creates more churches, which in turn spread the gospel further ad infinitum.

John Stott
Christian people should surely have been in the vanguard of the movement for environmental responsibility, because of our doctrines of creation and stewardship. Did God make the world? Does he sustain it? Has he committed its resources to our care? His personal concern for his own creation should be sufficient to inspire us to be equally concerned.

John Stott
Good works are indispensable to salvation - not as its ground or means, however, but as its consequence and evidence.

John Stott
The Christian community is a community of the cross, for it has been brought into being by the cross, and the focus of its worship is the Lamb once slain, now glorified.

John Stott
Because in no other person but the historic Jesus of Nazareth has God become man and lived a human life on earth, died to bear the penalty of our sins, and been raised from death and exalted to glory, there is no other Savior, for there is no other person who is qualified to save.

John Stott
Instead of inflicting upon us the judgment we deserved, God in Christ endured it in our place.

John Stott
When Jesus is truly our Lord, He directs our lives and we gladly obey Him. Indeed, we bring every part of our lives under His lordship - our home and family, our sexuality and marriage, our job or unemployment, our money and possessions, our ambitions and recreations.

John Stott
The authority by which the Christian leader leads is not power but love, not force but example, not coercion but reasoned persuasion. Leaders have power, but power is safe only in the hands of those who humble themselves to serve.

John Stott
Christianity is in its very essence a resurrection religion. The concept of resurrection lies at its heart. If you remove it, Christianity is destroyed.

John Stott
We are sent into the world, like Jesus, to serve. For this is the natural expression of our love for our neighbors. We love. We go. We serve.

John Stott
If we truly worship God, acknowledging and adoring his infinite worth, we find ourselves impelled to make him known to others, in order that they may worship him too. Thus worship leads to witness, and witness in its turn to worship, in a perpetual circle.

John Stott
Persecution is simply the clash between two irreconcilable value-systems.

John Stott
Grace is God loving, God stooping, God coming to the rescue, God giving himself generously in and through Jesus Christ.

John Stott
The first and great evidence of our walking by the Spirit or being filled with the Spirit is not some private mystical experience of our own, but our practical relationships of love with other people.

John Stott
When the Christian loses himself, he finds himself, he discovers his true identity.

John Stott
The chief reason why the Christian believes in the divine origin of the Bible is that Jesus Christ Himself taught it.

John Stott
Saving faith is resting faith, the trust which relies entirely on the Savior.

John Stott
Christian giving is to be marked by self-sacrifice and self-forgetfuln ess, not by self-congratula tion.

John Stott
If Christ seldom makes offers without demands, He also seldom makes demands without offers. He offers His strength to enable us to meet His demands.

John Stott
Nothing is more important for mature Christian discipleship than a fresh, clear, true vision of the authentic Jesus.

John Stott
The Spirit of God leads the people of God to submit to the Word of God.

John Stott
Do not be content with a static Christian life. Determine rather to grow in faith and love, in knowledge and holiness.

John Stott