Ravi zacharias quotes

I think the reason we sometimes have the false sense that God is so far away is because that is where we have put him. We have kept him at a distance, and then when we are in need and call on him in prayer, we wonder where he is. He is exactly where we left him.

Everyone - pantheist, atheist, skeptic, polytheist - has to answer these questions: 'Where did I come from? What is life's meaning? How do I define right from wrong and what happens to me when I die?' Those are the fulcrum points of our existence.

When secularization has had its full sway, it will leave a generation devoid of shame. And if you show me a generation that lacks shame, I will show you a generation that is monstrous in its appetite... never satisfied.

Having killed God, the atheist is left with no reason for being, no morality to espouse, no meaning to life, and no hope beyond the grave.

I remember the time an older man asked me when I was young, "Do you know what you are doing now?" I thought it was some kind of trick question. Tell me," I said. You are building your memories," he replied, "so make them good ones.

The mocker will not have the last laugh. You see, dancing on the grave of an extinguished Christianity is farcical at best. Because the grave is empty. And the one who knows the way out of the grave sits in the heavens and laughs.

A mood can be a dangerous state of mind, because it can crush reason under the weight of feeling.

When your life is changed by Jesus, you are a new creature. God not only changes what you do, He also changes what you want to do.

A man rejects God neither because of intellectual demands nor because of the scarcity of evidence. A man rejects God because of a moral resistance that refuses to admit his need for God.

There are so many needs in the world, and our hearts cannot carry them all. You must walk to the priorities God has set before you.

If God is the author of life, there must be a script.

Atheism is an exercise in intellectual contempt.

What you applaud you encourage, but beware what you celebrate.

You cannot really have the world and hold on to it. It is all too temporary and the more you try to hold on to it, the more it actually holds you. By contrast, the more you hold on to the true and the good, the more you are free to really live.

The New Atheists are not open or willing to go where the evidence leads, unless that evidence sustains their own naturalistic assumptions. They have covertly reduced all philosophical thought and deduction to-- ironically-fait h!

I have absolutely no doubt that if you are a praying Christian, your faith in God is what is carrying you, through both the good times and the hard times. However, if you are not a praying person, you are carrying your faith - you are trying to make your faith work for you apart from your source of power - and trying to carry the infinite is very exhausting.

Study hard. Understand not only the questions, but the questioner. Know how best to articulate the answers, but do it with humility, because ultimately the answer is in a person, the person of Christ, not in an argument. So, do your work and know how to present the answer, but do it with gentleness and meekness.

We have to find the back door to peoples' hearts because the front door is heavily guarded.

In today's society, looking good and feeling good often trumps doing good and being good. And some people don't know the difference anymore.

The denial of an objective moral law, based on the compulsion to deny the existence of God, results ultimately in the denial of evil iteself.

Whenever you try to break God's moral law, you end up breaking yourself and hurting others - all while proving His law in the process.

An argument may remove doubt, but only the Holy Spirit can convict of truth.

An expenditure of words without income of ideas will lead to intellectual bankruptcy.

Goodness can endure a few moments; holiness is life-defining.

Outside of the cross of Jesus Christ, there is no hope in this world. That cross and resurrection at the core of the Gospel is the only hope for humanity. Wherever you go, ask God for wisdom on how to get that Gospel in, even in the toughest situations of life.

All religions are not the same. All religions do not point to God. All religions do not say that all religions are the same. At the heart of every religion is an uncompromising commitment to a particular way of defining who God is or is not and accordingly, of defining life's purpose. Anyone who claims that all religions are the same betrays not only an ignorance of all religions but also a caricatured view of even the best-known ones. Every religion at its core is exclusive.

It was not the volume of sin that sent Christ to the cross; it was the fact of sin.

The Biblical world-view is the only one that accepts the reality of evil and suffering while giving both the cause and the purpose, while offering God-given strength and sustenance in the midst of it.

History is a grim reminder of what happens to those who think they have no law but themselves.

Let us remember that every worldview-not just Christianity's-must give an explanation or an answer for evil and suffering...this is not just a problem distinctive to Christianity. It will not do for the challenger just to raise the question. This problem of evil is one to which we all must offer an answer, regardless of the belief system to which we subscribe.

But life's joys are only joys if they can be shared.

Isn't it ironic that after 70 years Russia wants God back while we are trying to kick him out?

The loneliest people in the world are those who have exhausted pleasure and come away empty.

The Bible places supreme value in the thought life. "As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he," Solomon wrote. Jesus asserted that sin's gravity lay in the idea itself, not just the act. "Paul admonished the church at Philippi to have the mind of Christ, and to the same people he wrote, "Whatever is true ... pure ... if there be any virtue ... think on these things." Thus, the follower of Christ must demonstrate to the world what it is not just to think, but to think justly.

You'll never get to a person's soul until you understand their hurts.

I came to Him because I did not know which way to turn. I remained with Him because there is no other way I wish to turn. I came to Him longing for something I did not have. I remain with Him because I have something I will not trade. I came to Him as a stranger. I remain with Him in the most intimate of friendships. I came to Him unsure about the future. I remain with Him certain about my destiny. I came amid the thunderous cries of a culture that has 330 million deities. I remain with Him knowing that truth cannot be all-inclusive.

Love is a commitment that will be tested in the most vulnerable areas of spirituality, a commitment that will force you to make some very difficult choices. It is a commitment that demands that you deal with your lust, your greed, your pride, your power, your desire to control, your temper, your patience, and every area of temptation that the Bible clearly talks about. It demands the quality of commitment that Jesus demonstrates in His relationship to us.

If truth is not undergirded by love, it makes the possessor of that truth obnoxious and the truth repulsive.

Respect for the right of another to be wrong does not mean that the wrong is right

Jesus and Buddha cannot both be right

We talk so much about one's rights... so little about what is actually right.

Where destruction is the motive, unity is dangerous.

When you find your definitions in God, you find the very purpose for which you were created. Put your hand into God's hand, know His absolutes, demonstrate His love, present His truth, and the message of redemption and transformation will take hold.

God put enough into the world to make faith in Him a reasonable thing. But He left enough out to make it impossible to live by reason alone.

Anyone who claims that all religions are the same betrays not only an ignorance of all religions but also a caricatured view of even the best-known ones. Every religion at its core is exclusive.

The primary purpose of a home is to reflect and to distribute the love of Christ. Anything that usurps that is idolatrous.

Christian faith is exclusivistic. Christian faith lays claim upon our lives. The sanctity of life, what we do with a life, is very definitive in the Christian faith, what we do with sexuality, what we do with marriage, all of the fundamental questions of life have points of reference for answers, and people just have an aversion for that. That I think is the biggest reason they feel hostile towards the Christian faith.

What we need is not a religion that is right where we are right, but one that is right where we are wrong.

Love is as much a question of the will as it is of the emotion. And if you WILL to love somebody, you can.

I have little doubt that the single greatest obstacle to the impact of the gospel has not been its inability to provide answers, but the failure on our part to live it out.

The biggest difference between Jesus Christ and ethical and moral teachers who have been deified by man. Is that these moralists came to make bad people good. Jesus came to make dead people live!

It is the resurrection that makes Good Friday good.

The person who demands a sign and at the same time has already determined that anything that cannot be explained scientifically is meaningless is not merely stacking the deck; he is losing at his own game.

My longings, my hopes, my dreams, and my every effort has been to live for Him who rescued me, to study for Him who gave me this mind, to serve Him who fashioned my will, and to speak for Him who gave me a voice.

Justice is the handmaiden of truth, and when truth dies, justice is buried with it.

The older we become, the more difficult it is to fill our hearts with wonder. Only God is big enough to keep filling us with wonder.

When you think of it, really there are four fundamental questions of life. Youve asked them, Ive asked them, every thinking person asks them. They boil down to this; origin, meaning, morality and destiny. How did I come into being? What brings life meaning? How do I know right from wrong? Where am I headed after I die?

Having the answers is not essential to living. What is essential is the sense of God's presence during dark seasons of questioning.

I am absolutely convinced that meaninglessness does not come from being weary of pain; meaninglessness comes from being weary of pleasure. And that is why we find ourselves emptied of meaning with our pantries still full.

There is no greater discovery than seeing God as the author of your destiny.

When a plane crashes and some die while others live, a skeptic calls into question God's moral character, saying that he has chosen some to live and others to die on a whim; yet you say it is your moral right to choose whether the child within you should live or die. Does that not sound odd to you? When God decides who should live or die, he is immoral. When you decide who should live or die, it's your moral right.

When God is our Holy Father, sovereignty, holiness, omniscience, and immutability do not terrify us; they leave us full of awe and gratitude. Sovereignty is only tyrannical if it is unbounded by goodness; holiness is only terrifying if it is untempered by grace; omniscience is only taunting if it is unaccompanied by mercy; and immutability is only torturous if there is no guarantee of goodwill.

When we look into the human heart we see the lust, the greed, the hate, the pride, the anger, and the jealousies that are so destructive. This is at the heart of the human predicament, and the Scriptures call this condition sin.

Love is the greatest apologetic. It is the essential component in reaching the whole person in a fragmented world. The need is vast, but it is also imperative that we be willing to follow the example of Jesus and meet the need.

We do not live so that we can eat, nor do we just eat so that we can live. Life is worth living in and of itself. Life cannot be satisfied when it is lived out as a consuming entity. When it is filled by that which satisfies a hunger that is both physical and spiritual in a mutuality that sustains both without violation of either, only then can life be truly fulfilling.

Where the eye is focused, there the imagination finds its raw material. The right focus must be won at immense cost and discipline. Train the eye to see the good, and the imagination will follow suit.

I do not believe that one can earnestly seek and find the priceless treasure of God's call without a devout prayer life. That is where God speaks. The purpose of prayer and of God's call in your life is not to make you number one in the world's eyes, but to make him number one in your life. We must be willing to be outshone while shining for God. We hear very little about being smaller in our own self-estimate.

Worship is a posture of life that takes as its primary purpose the understanding of what it really means to love and revere God.

It is a mindless philosophy that assumes that one's private beliefs have nothing to do with public office. Does it make sense to entrust those who are immoral in private with the power to determine the nation's moral issues and, indeed, its destiny? One of the most dangerous and terrifying trends in America today is the disregard for character as a central necessity in a leader's credentials. The duplicitous soul of a leader can only make a nation more sophisticated in evil.

If you believe in subjective morality, why do you lock your doors at night?

Jesus does not offer to make bad people good but to make dead people alive.

Like a child who suddenly stops sobbing when he is clasped in the arms of his mother, such will be the grip of heaven upon our souls.

We have a right to believe whatever we want, but not everything we believe is right.

The day that each person willingly accepts himself or herself for who he or she is and acknowledges the uniqueness of God's framing process marks the beginning of a journey to seeing the handiwork of God in each life

Beginning well is a momentary thing; finishing well is a lifelong thing

Truth cannot be sacrificed at the altar of pretended tolerance. Real tolerance is deference to all ideas, not indifference to the truth.

While theoretically a person may block God out, logically there will be a breakdown because ultimately all enunciation implies a moral doctrine of some kind. And if that moral doctrine is not absolute then the definer himself becomes undefined. That's what we are living with - an undefined definer giving us definitions for our course, and we are being trapped in the quicksand of the absence of objective truth.

The atheist risk everything for the present and the future, on the basis of a belief that we are uncaused by any intelligent being. We just happen to be here. That one is willing to live and die in that belief is a very high price to pay for conjecture.

Marriage means handing over yourself, your body, your future, your keeping to the one whom you dearly love, although this person may, in many ways, remain a stranger. This tremendous act of faith is something that can unlock in each lover powers of compassion, generosity, joy, passion, fidelity and hope that no one guessed was even there. That is why the confidence of young lovers is not foolish or arrogant, but an expression of a basic fact in human experience that the greatest of human gifts are set to work only when people are prepared to risk everything and first you risk it before God.

Conviction is not merely an opinion. It is something rooted so deeply in the conscience that to change a conviction would be to change the very essence of who you are.

Love is hard work. It is the hardest work I know of, work from which you are never entitled to take a vacation.

Attempting to satisfy the passions that rage inside us and the longings that motivate us, we invent spirituality, lean on political solutions, create new villains, turn our backs on Jesus, and blame a thousand tyrannies- but we never come to terms with the source of the problem deep within the heart and inclination of every human being.

What I believe in my heart must make sense in my mind.

To allow God to be God we must follow Him for who He is and what He intends, and not for what we want and what we prefer.

One of the most staggering truths of the Scriptures is to understand that we do not earn our way to heaven. ...works have a place--but as a demonstration of having received God's forgiveness, not as a badge of merit of having earned it.

We cannot discuss human rights, when we are denying people the right to live.

To sustain the belief that there is no God, atheism has to demonstrate infinite knowledge, which is tantamount to saying, “I have infinite knowledge that there is no being in existence with infinite knowledge

Christianity is not a political theory. It is not even a cultural theory. It is, at its root, all about changing the heart of each man and woman, boy and girl, so that we begin to think God's thoughts and act in accordance with his character.

All religions, plainly and simply, cannot be true. Some beliefs are false, and we know them to be false. So it does no good to put a halo on the notion of tolerance as if everything could be equally true. To deem all beliefs equally true is sheer nonsense for the simple reason that to deny that statement would also, then, be true. But if the denial of the statement is also true, then all religions are not true.

The purpose of prayer and of God's call in your life isn't to make you number one in the world's eyes but to make Him number one in your life.

None of us like the concept of law because none of us like the restraints it puts on us. But when we understand that God has given us his law to aid us in guarding our souls, we see that the law is for our fulfillment, not for our limitation. The law reminds us that some things, some experiences, some relationships are sacred. When everything has been profaned, it is not just my freedom that has been lost- the loss is everyone's. God gave us the law to remind us of the sacredness of life, and our created legal systems only serve to remind us of the profane judgments we make.

The purity of man is the absence of something, the purity of Jesus is the presence of something.

What does it mean to be human? It means we are created in the image of God for the glorious reality of being in permanent fellowship with Him.

The single most important thread in working through your disappointments is that your heart and mind ponder and grasp what the cross of Jesus Christ is all about. There is no pattern without the cross. There is no Good News without it. That is what the gospel is all about.

When we talk politics, we moralize. When we talk morality, we politicize.

The grace of forgiveness, because God Himself has paid the price, is a Christian distinctive and stands splendidly against our hate-filled, unforgiving world. God's forgiveness gives us a fresh start.

Many Christians have so busied themselves with programs and activities that they no longer know how to be silent and meditate on God's word or recognize the mysteries that are in the Person of Christ.

We all want Canaan without going through the wilderness.

The Christian faith, simply stated, reminds us that our fundamental problem is not moral; rather, our fundamental problem is spiritual. It is not just that we are immoral, but that a moral life alone cannot bridge what separates us from God. Herein lies the cardinal difference between the moralizing religions and Jesus' offer to us. Jesus does not offer to make bad people good but to make dead people alive.

You cannot have a boundary-less existence, because your neighbor has his own boundaries, and who is going to give you the ethics between the two boundaries? If there is no objective moral law, relativism will take hold, and relativism ultimately will lead to self-destruction.

When you say there's too much evil in this world you assume there's good. When you assume there's good, you assume there's such a thing as a moral law on the basis of which to differentiate between good and evil. But if you assume a moral law, you must posit a moral Law Giver, but that's Who you're trying to disprove and not prove. Because if there's no moral Law Giver, there's no moral law. If there's no moral law, there's no good. If there's no good, there's no evil. What is your question?

In his book Modern Times, the historian Paul Johnson referred to Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini as the three devils of the twentieth century. Interestingly, Nietzshean dogma influenced each of them.

Every time you get on your knees and pray to God, 'Holy' keeps the respect and reverence while 'Father' brings Him close & intimate.

When you come to religion, you come to a place. When you come to Jesus Christ, you come to a person.

These days its not just that the line between right and wrong has been made unclear, today Christians are being asked by our culture today to erase the lines and move the fences, and if that were not bad enough, we are being asked to join in the celebration cry by those who have thrown off the restraints religion had imposed upon them. It is not just that they ask we accept, but they now demand of us to celebrate it too.

Faith in the biblical sense is substantive, based on the knowledge that the One in whom that faith is placed has proven that He is worthy of that trust. In its essence, faith is a confidence in the person of Jesus Christ and in His power, so that even when His power does not serve my end, my confidence in Him remains because of who He is.

Unless I understand the Cross, I cannot understand why my commitment to what is right must be precedence over what I prefer.

You have to plan it [your devotion to God] every day. And, the best time to plan it is before your day begins. If you don't plan it, your day will plan you. And so, I make a disciplined life of the study of the scriptures, reading the word every day.

Does that not sound odd to you? When God decides who should live or die, he is immoral, When you decide who should live or die, it's your moral right. There was a pin-drop silence.

You can only learn so much from books. You can only learn so much from education. Ultimately, it is the wisdom of God that will carry you through in the toughest situations of life.

Love is a command, not just a feeling. Somehow, in the romantic world of music and theater we have made love to be what it is not. We have so mixed it with beauty and charm and sensuality and contact that we have robbed it of its higher call of cherishing and nurturing.

The Samaritan woman grasped what He said with fervor that came from an awareness of her real need. The transaction was fascinating. She has come with a buket. He sent her back with a spring of living water. She had come as a reject. He sent her back being accepted by God Himself. She came wounded. He sent her back whole. She came laden with questions. He sent her back as a source for answers. She came living a life of quiet desperation. She ran back overflowing with hope. The disciples missed it all. It was lunchtime for them.

Success is more difficult to handle than failure.

The cross stands as a mystery because it is foreign to everything we exalt- self over principle, power over meekness, the quick fix over the long haul, cover-up over confession, escapism over confrontation, conform over sacrifice, feeling over commitment, legality over justice, the body over the spirit, anger over forgiveness, man over God.

Pleasure without God, without the sacred boundaries, will actually leave you emptier than before. And this is biblical truth, this is experiential truth. The loneliest people in the world are amongst the wealthiest and most famous who found no boundaries within which to live. That is a fact I've seen again and again.

Who is God? Who are we? What is our purpose? All these questions remain unanswered. I want to reach the genuine seeker of spiritual well-being. My goal is to satisfy the hunger and longing for those who are seeking the truth.

There are no unique postures and times and limitations that restrict our access to God. My relationship with God is intimate and personal. The Christian does not go to the temple to worship. The Christian takes the temple with him or her. Jesus lifts us beyond the building and pays the human body the highest compliment by making it His dwelling place, the place where He meets with us. Even today He would overturn the tables of those who make it a marketplace for their own lust, greed and wealth.

Ours is not a problem of the intellect but of spiritual poverty. That is why we need a Savior.

Only God is able to humble us without humiliating us and to exalt us without flattering us.

God is the shaper of your heart. God does not display his work in abstract terms. He prefers the concrete, and this means that at the end of your life one of three things will happen to your heart: it will grow hard, it will be broken, or it will be tender. Nobody escapes

Our sense of wonder is a blessing from God, given so that we would be continually amazed at His beauty and creation.

Only through repentance and faith in Christ can anyone be saved. No religious activity will be sufficient, only true faith in Jesus Christ alone.

Truth by definition excludes.

Wonder is retained by wise pondering.

The ultimate test of any civilization is how we treat the most vulnerable... what we do to our children. Our world has lost its direction.