Tullian Tchividjian Quotes

Your identity is firmly anchored in Christ's accomplishment, not yours; his strength, not yours; his performance, not yours; his victory, not yours.

The people who tend to be the most gracious are those who know how badly they need grace

Legalism says God will love us if we change. The gospel says God will change us because He loves us.

God's acceptance of us cannot be gained by our successes nor forfeited by our failures.

God's ability to clean things up is infinitely greater than our ability to mess things up.

I ended up dropping out of high school at 16 and getting kicked out of my home. My parents told me, sadly, that because I was so disruptive to the rest of the household, that I could no longer live under their roof.

The desperate addict is closer to the heart of grace than the devout moralist.

Here's one way I can know that I've forgotten the gospel of grace: when your sin bothers me more than my sin.

Christianity is not about good people getting better. It is good news for bad people coping with their failure to be good.

Nothing makes me want to obey more than knowing that God unconditionally loves me and forgives me even when I disobey.

If people knew the REAL us, they would run. God knows, stays, and loves.

We are broken people living in a broken world with other broken people. We all need grace.

Grace is unconditional acceptance given to an undeserving person by an unobligated giver.

If you feel compelled to respond every time you're criticized it reveals just how much you've built your identity on being right.

Remember on your best day that Jesus had to die for you. Remember on your worst day that he did.

God is not interested in what you think you should be or feel. He is not interested in the narrative you construct for yourself, or that others construct for you. Rather, He is interested in you, the you who suffers, the you who inflicts suffering on others, the you who hides, the you who has bad days (and good ones). And He meets you where you are.

Rest assured: Before God, the righteousness of Christ is all we need; before God, the righteousness of Christ is all we have.

The heart of the Christian faith is Good News, not good advice, good technique, or good behavior.

If the depths of everyone's sin was made public, we would all be much more gracious to each other.

Legalism breeds a sense of entitlement that turns us into complainers.

I think there is tribalism is a big deal inside of the church, that the church thinks of themselves as a tribe and not a mission.

Passive righteousness tells us that God does not need our good works. Active righteousness tells us that our neighbor does. The aim and direction of good works are horizontal, not vertical.

God loves broken people because broken people are all that there are.

Grace always runs downhill, meeting us at the bottom, not the top.

The ironic thing about legalism is that it not only doesn't make people work harder, it makes them give up. Moralism doesn't produce morality; rather, it produces immorality.

Mt. Sinai says, 'You must do. Mt. Calvary says, 'Because you couldn't, Jesus did.' Don't run to the wrong mountain for your hiding place

Because Jesus was strong for me, I am free to be weak; because Jesus won for me, I am free to lose; because Jesus was someone, I am free to be no one; because Jesus was extraordinary, I am free to be ordinary; because Jesus succeeded for me, I am free to fail.

Grace frees you to be honest about what you've always known to be true about yourself: that you're weaker & more afraid than you want to be.

Self-righteousness is the fruit of a low view of God's law and a lite view of your own sin.

Graciousness is the fruit of someone who knows how badly they themselves need grace.

The Bible is one long story of God meeting our rebellion with His rescue, our sin with His salvation, our guilt with His grace, our badness with His goodness. The overwhelming focus of the Bible is not the work of the redeemed but the work of the Redeemer. Which means that the Bible is not first a recipe for Christian living but a revelation book of Jesus who is the answer to our un-Christian living.

The law demands that we do it all; the gospel declares that Jesus paid it all.

The gospel doesn't just free me from what people think of me, but also from what I think of me.

A preacher who doesn't believe he's that bad will attract people who don't think they're that bad. And that's bad.

Our deepest fear is judgment. Our deepest longing is love. The gospel of grace removes the one and provides the other.

The grace of God sets us free from a life of perfection, performing, and pretending.

There is no better news than that the God who makes the demand for perfection also meets the demand for perfection on our behalf.

My observation of Christendom is that most of us tend to base our relationship with God on our performance instead of on His grace.

The gospel is for the defeated, not the dominant.

Only when we see that the way of God's law is absolutely inflexible will we see that God's grace is absolutely indispensable. A high view of the law reminds us that God accepts us on the basis of Christ's perfection, not our progress. Grace, properly understood, is the movement of a holy God toward an unholy people. He doesn't cheapen the law or ease its requirements. He fulfills them in his Son, who then gives his righteousness to us. That's the gospel. Pure and simple.

Jesus plus nothing equals everything; everything minus Jesus equals nothing.

The good news of the gospel [for sufferers] is not an exhortation from above to 'hang on at all costs,' or 'grin and bear it' in the midst of hardship. No, the good news is that God is hanging on to you, and in the end, when all is said and done, the power of God will triumph over every pain and loss.

We don't need answers and explanations as much as we need God's presence in and through the suffering.

Only the gospel can truly save you. The gospel doesn't make good people good; it makes dead people alive. That's the difference between the gospel of Jesus Christ and every other world religion. All the others exhort their followers to save themselves by being good, by conforming their lives to whatever their worshiped deity is. But the gospel is God's acceptance of us based on what Christ has done, not on what we can do.

If you uproot the idol and fail to plant the love of Christ in its place, the idol will grow back.

What I'm most deeply grateful for is that God's love for us, approval of us, and commitment to us does not ride on our resolve but on Jesus' resolve for us. The gospel is the good news announcing Jesus' infallible devotion to us despite our inconsistent devotion to Him. The gospel is not a command to hang on to Jesus; it's a promise that no matter how weak and unsuccessful our faith and efforts may be, God is always holding on to us.

Grace is love that seeks you out when you have nothing to give in return. Grace is love coming at you that has nothing to do with you. Grace is being loved when you are unlovable.

The biggest lie about grace that Satan wants the church to buy is the idea that it’s dangerous and therefore needs to be kept in check.

The lifeblood of Christianity is not our persistence in moving toward God but God's persistence in moving toward us.

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.