Tim Keller (pastor) Quotes

177 Sourced Quotes

The world is polarizing over religion. It is getting both more religious and less religious at the same time.

Tim Keller
Remember that according to the Bible, the heart is not primarily the emotions but rather the seat of our fundamental commitments and trusts, and therefore it is the control center of the whole life. So to preach to the heart means to go right for the commanding commitments of people's lives that drive their desires, thinking, feeling, and action.

Tim Keller
The prerequisite for receiving the grace of God is to know you need it.

Tim Keller
We are so evil and sinful and flawed that Jesus had to die for us... But we are so lobed and valued that he was willing to due for us.

Tim Keller
To discover the real you, look at what you spend time thinking about when no one is looking.

Tim Keller
Only if you first seek inner forgiveness will your confrontation be temperate, wise, and gracious. Only when you have lost the need to see the other person hurt will you have any chance of actually bringing about change, reconciliation, and healing. You have to submit to the costly suffering and death of forgiveness if there is going to be any resurrection.

Tim Keller
Anything can serve as a counterfeit god, especially the very best things in life.

Tim Keller
Without immersion in God's words, our prayers may not be merely limited and shallow but also untethered from reality.

Tim Keller
We don't merely need the money from work to survive. We need the work itself to survive and live fully human lives more than money.

Tim Keller
The determining factor in our relationship with God is not our past but Christ's past.

Tim Keller
Jesus is the only Lord who, if you receive him, will fulfill you completely, and, if you fail him, will forgive you eternally.

Tim Keller
The most liberating act of free, unconditional grace demands that the recipient give up control of his or her life.

Tim Keller
In the secular view, suffering is never seen as a meaningful part of life but only as an interruption.

Tim Keller
Jesus' claims are particularly unnerving, because if they are true there is no alternative but to bow the knee to him.

Tim Keller
Suffering dispels the illusion that we have the strength and competence to rule our own lives and save ourselves.

Tim Keller
The church does not simply have a missions department; it should wholly exist to be a mission.

Tim Keller
There are many ways to cover up our sin. We may justify or minimize it by blaming circumstances and others people. However, real repentance first admits sin as sin and takes full responsibility. True confession and repentance begins when blame shifting ends...Just as real repentance begins only where blame shifting ends, so it also begins where self-pity ends, and we start to turn from our sin out of love for God rather than mere self-interest.

Tim Keller
The basic purpose of prayer is not to bend God's will to mine, but to mold my will into His.

Tim Keller
We modern people think of miracles as the suspension of the natural order, but Jesus meant them to be the restoration of the natural order.

Tim Keller
It is one thing to say that science is only equipped to test for natural causes and cannot speak to any others. It is quite another to insist that science proves that no other causes could possibly exist.... There would be no experimental model for testing the statement: 'No supernatural cause for any natural phenomenon is possible.' It is therefore a philosophical presupposition and not a scientific finding.

Tim Keller
The Gospel is the deepest consolation you can offer to the human heart.

Tim Keller
Repentance is like antiseptic. You pour antiseptic onto a wound and, at first, it stings. Then it heals.

Tim Keller
Prayer is continuing a conversation that God has started through his Word and his grace, which eventually becomes a full encounter with him.

Tim Keller
To stay away from Christianity because part of the Bible's teaching is offensive to you assumes that if there is a God he wouldn't have any views that upset you. Does that belief make sense? If you don't trust the Bible enough to let it challenge and correct your thinking, how could you ever have a personal relationship with God? In any truly personal relationship, the other person has to be able to contradict you.

Tim Keller
We must not settle for an informed mind without an engaged heart.

Tim Keller
Jesus says, "I want you to follow me so fully, so intensely, so enduringly that all other attachments in your life look weak by comparison"

Tim Keller
Doing justice includes not only the righting of wrongs but generosity and social concern, especially toward the poor and vulnerable.

Tim Keller
When I forget the gospel I become dependent on the smiles and evaluation of others.

Tim Keller
Most people in the world believe that if there is a God, you relate to God by being good. Most religions are based on that principle, though there are a million different variations on it...But they all have the same logic: If I perform, if I obey, I'm accepted. The gospel of Jesus is not only different from that but diametrically opposed to it: I'm fully accepted in Jesus Christ, and therefore I obey.

Tim Keller
It is no more narrow to claim that one religion is right than to claim that one way to think about all religions is right.

Tim Keller