Pleasing God Quotes

“Sanctification is a process. It is a gradual process. Run for your life from those who promise you instant sanctification.”
― R.C. Sproul, Pleasing God: Discovering the Meaning and Importance of Sanctification

“Christian pilgrims live in tents. They are seminomads. They are never so at home in this world that they completely settle in. Life is always a frontier for them. The water they drink is never stagnant.”
― R.C. Sproul, Pleasing God: Discovering the Meaning and Importance of Sanctification

“The journey has but one guarantee: Christ promises to go with us and to bring us out the other side. Our Lord finishes what He starts. He does not abort His handiwork in the middle of its creation. He does not leave us staring at walking trees.”
― R.C. Sproul, Pleasing God: Discovering the Meaning and Importance of Sanctification

“The redeemed of God who are snatched from the flames by the hand of the Lord are still covered with ashes. We remain streaked with charcoal and blemished with soot. We are redeemed, but not sinless. Satan is quick to call attention to the dirt. He wants us to be more conscious of our sin than of God’s mercy.”
― R.C. Sproul, Pleasing God

“Satan’s chief device of temptation is to attack the truth of God.”
― R.C. Sproul, Pleasing God

“Seek the kingdom. Seek righteousness. These are the priorities of the Christian life.”
― R.C. Sproul, Pleasing God: Discovering the Meaning and Importance of Sanctification

“Rebirth is instantaneous. Justification is instantaneous. But sanctification is a lifelong process. It involves a diligent struggle against a multitude of obstacles.”
― R.C. Sproul, Pleasing God: Discovering the Meaning and Importance of Sanctification

“To reduce the demands of God’s law is to do violence to the holiness of God. To inflate one’s own self-assessment to the point of self-delusion is an extreme form of pride.”
― R.C. Sproul, Pleasing God: Discovering the Meaning and Importance of Sanctification

“The work of perfecting our spiritual state is called glorification. Glorification does not take place in this life.”
― R.C. Sproul, Pleasing God: Discovering the Meaning and Importance of Sanctification

“two vitally important truths about the Christian life: we are pilgrims, and we make progress.”
― R.C. Sproul, Pleasing God: Discovering the Meaning and Importance of Sanctification

“The world or the soul? Please the world or please God?”
― R.C. Sproul, Pleasing God: Discovering the Meaning and Importance of Sanctification

“The theater of God’s redemption is this world. It is to this world that God came in Christ. Christ refused to allow His disciples to hide in an upper room with the doors locked because of fear. No tabernacles were allowed on the Mount of Transfiguration. We are called to be Christ’s witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8). Jerusalem is in this world. Judea is in this world. Samaria is in this world. The ends of the earth are still on this earth. So we should not flee this world. But, oh, how many Christians try to do so. And in doing so, they may actually be displeasing the God who wants the world to be redeemed, not escaped.”
― R.C. Sproul, Pleasing God

“To seek God is a lifelong pursuit.”
― R.C. Sproul, Pleasing God: Discovering the Meaning and Importance of Sanctification

“They are seeking the benefits of God. Natural humanity’s sin is precisely this: wanting the benefits of God without God Himself.”
― R.C. Sproul, Pleasing God: Discovering the Meaning and Importance of Sanctification

“Paul declared, “There is none who seeks after God” (Rom. 3:11). The unbeliever never seeks God. The unbeliever is a fugitive from God. The natural pattern for humanity is to run from Him, to hide from Him. Jesus came to seek and to save the lost (Luke 19:10). He is the Seeker; we are the ones who are running. In humanity’s sinful state, we may look for answers to life’s puzzles, but we do not seek God.”
― R.C. Sproul, Pleasing God: Discovering the Meaning and Importance of Sanctification

“The journey has but one guarantee: Christ promises to go with us and to bring us out the other side. Our Lord finishes what He starts. He does not abort His handiwork in the middle of its creation.”
― R.C. Sproul, Pleasing God: Discovering the Meaning and Importance of Sanctification

“There is a poisonous doctrine—one that dies hard in Christian circles—called the doctrine of perfectionism. It teaches that some people have already attained spiritual perfection in this world. Those who teach this doctrine promise a “second work of grace,” a “second blessing” of instant sanctification. Turn away from such teachers.”
― R.C. Sproul, Pleasing God: Discovering the Meaning and Importance of Sanctification

“The term “born-again Christian” is a redundancy. It is a kind of theological stuttering. If one is born again, then one is a Christian. If one is a Christian, then one is born again. There are no non-born-again Christians and no born-again non-Christians. To be reborn is to be born into Christ by the Holy Spirit. This is a prerequisite for the Christian life. It is also the genesis, the beginning of the Christian life.”
― R.C. Sproul, Pleasing God: Discovering the Meaning and Importance of Sanctification

“Regeneration is the beginning of a journey. It is a journey with successes and failures, with growth amid stumbling. At times, the progress seems painfully slow, but progress is there.”
― R.C. Sproul, Pleasing God: Discovering the Meaning and Importance of Sanctification

“In this life, we need the second touch of Christ. Indeed, we require a third, fourth, fifth, and continual touch. Though the scales are removed from our eyes, we still need to be led by the hand of Jesus.”
― R.C. Sproul, Pleasing God: Discovering the Meaning and Importance of Sanctification

“When God quickens a human soul, He does it immediately. When I say “immediately,”
― R.C. Sproul, Pleasing God: Discovering the Meaning and Importance of Sanctification

“Regeneration does not take place in stages. It is instantaneous. It is accomplished by one touch of the Holy Spirit on our souls. It is a sovereign work, a thoroughly effective work accomplished by the immediate power of the omnipotence of God. Only God can bring something out of nothing and life out of death. Only God can quicken the human soul.”
― R.C. Sproul, Pleasing God: Discovering the Meaning and Importance of Sanctification

“There is such a thing as backsliding. Sometimes the slide seems as if it is greased with the slickest substance the Devil can use. But like children who totter at the top of a slide, fearful to move, we have a heavenly Father who guards the edge and who waits at the bottom of the slide to catch us in His arms.”
― R.C. Sproul, Pleasing God: Discovering the Meaning and Importance of Sanctification

“What higher approval could a person enjoy than to know that what he or she has done is pleasing to God? Every Christian should have a passion to please God. We are to delight in honoring Him. It should be our greatest desire to please our Redeemer.”
― R.C. Sproul, Pleasing God: Discovering the Meaning and Importance of Sanctification

“we need to learn to “read with a comb”—that is, developing a value system that gives us the ability to be critical of what we study. Here the word critical does not mean approaching our studies with a negative attitude. It means being cautious and discerning.”
― R.C. Sproul, Pleasing God: Discovering the Meaning and Importance of Sanctification

“We neither surrender to the world nor flee from the world. We are to penetrate the world with a new and different spirit.”
― R.C. Sproul, Pleasing God: Discovering the Meaning and Importance of Sanctification

“Only God can bring something out of nothing and life out of death.”
― R.C. Sproul, Pleasing God: Discovering the Meaning and Importance of Sanctification