In His Image Quotes

“For the believer wanting to know God’s will for her life, the first question to pose is not “What should I do?” but “Who should I be?”
― Jen Wilkin, In His Image: 10 Ways God Calls Us to Reflect His Character

“It is not coincidental that a lack of discernment and a neglected Bible are so often found in company.”
― Jen Wilkin, In His Image: 10 Ways God Calls Us to Reflect His Character

“Forgiving lavishly does not mean that we continue to place ourselves in harm's way. The Bible takes great pains to address the dangers of keeping company with those who perpetually harm others. Those who learn nothing from their past mistakes are termed fools. While we may forgive the fool for hurting us, we do not give the fool unlimited opportunity to hurt us again. To do so would be to act foolishly ourselves. When Jesus extends mercy in the Gospels, he always does so with an implicit or explicit, "Go and sin no more." When our offender persists in sinning against us, we are wise to put boundaries in place. Doing so is itself an act of mercy toward the offender. By limiting his opportunity to sin against us, we spare him further guilt before God. Mercy never requires submission to abuse, whether spiritual, verbal, emotional, or physical.”
― Jen Wilkin, In His Image: 10 Ways God Calls Us to Reflect His Character

“If we focus on our actions without addressing our hearts, we may end up merely as better behaved lovers of self.”
― Jen Wilkin, In His Image: 10 Ways God Calls Us to Reflect His Character

“No longer can we parse our fellow humans into the categories of ‘lovable’ and ‘unlovable.’ If love is an act of the will — not motivated by need, not measuring worth, not requiring reciprocity — then there is no such category as ‘unlovable.”
― Jen Wilkin, In His Image: 10 Ways God Calls Us to Reflect His Character

“Everything we say or do will either illuminate or obscure the character of God. Sanctification is the process of joyfully growing luminous.”
― Jen Wilkin, In His Image: 10 Ways God Calls Us to Reflect His Character

“It is not new truths we need; we need old truths recently forgotten.”
― Jen Wilkin, In His Image: 10 Ways God Calls Us to Reflect His Character

“If we want our lives to align with God’s will, we will need to ask a better question than “What should I do?” . . . God is always more concerned with the decision-maker than he is with the decision itself.”
― Jen Wilkin, In His Image: 10 Ways God Calls Us to Reflect His Character

“The fact that you are currently inhaling and exhaling at this very moment means that you are a recipient of mercy.”
― Jen Wilkin, In His Image: 10 Ways God Calls Us to Reflect His Character

“We seek to be holy as God is holy as a joyful act of gratitude. We never seek holiness as a means to earn God’s favor or to avoid his displeasure. We have his favor, and his pleasure rests upon us. The motive of sanctification is joy. Joy is both our motive and our reward.”
― Jen Wilkin, In His Image: 10 Ways God Calls Us to Reflect His Character

“We repeat what we most want remembered, what is most important, and what is most easily forgotten.”
― Jen Wilkin, In His Image: 10 Ways God Calls Us to Reflect His Character

“Scarcity has a way of revealing our true understanding of the Golden Rule. Here’s the bare truth: when there is one piece of pie, I don’t want to deny myself and bless someone else with it, and I don’t want to divide it equitably. I want the whole piece. And that’s precisely why I should give the whole piece to someone else—because in doing so, I fulfill the Golden Rule. Yes, at bare minimum I want to be treated fairly by others. But what I really want is to be treated preferentially. My love of preferential treatment displays itself in a thousand ways. I want the best concert seats, the best parking spot, the upgrade to first class, the most comfortable seat in the living room, the biggest serving of pie, the last serving of pie, all the pie all the time. Giving someone else the preferential treatment that I want requires humility. But God gives grace to the humble. Any time we dine on humble pie, we can be certain it will be accompanied by an oversized dollop of grace.”
― Jen Wilkin, In His Image: 10 Ways God Calls Us to Reflect His Character

“Come to the table in view of God’s mercy. Come once. Come again. How many times is the table of his body and blood spread before you? Forgive that many times. Forgive, and keep forgiving. He presented his body as a sacrifice. Now present yours, as your reasonable act of worship (Rom. 12:1). Mercy triumphs over justice. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. Blessed are the merciful, for they have received mercy. Blessed are the merciful, for the mercy they have received is without end.”
― Jen Wilkin, In His Image: 10 Ways God Calls Us to Reflect His Character

“While we may forgive the fool for hurting us, we do not give the fool unlimited opportunity to hurt us again. To do so would be to act foolishly ourselves. When Jesus extends mercy in the Gospels, he always does so with an implicit or explicit “Go and sin no more.” When our offender persists in sinning against us, we are wise to put boundaries in place. Doing so is itself an act of mercy toward the offender. By limiting his opportunity to sin against us, we spare him further guilt before God. Mercy never requires submission to abuse, whether spiritual, verbal, emotional, or physical.”
― Jen Wilkin, In His Image: 10 Ways God Calls Us to Reflect His Character

“He gives us daily bread, and often more than just that, though we are given to the habit of complaining for what we lack rather than contentment with what we possess. He gives us the joy of family and friends, though we are more prone to rage against him for the hard relationships than to thank him for the sweet ones. He grants us, on the whole, more days of joy than of sorrow, though our darkened hearts are more apt to curse him for the hard times than to bless him for the happy ones. Though he had every right to bar his goodness behind the flaming sword of the cherubim at Eden’s eastern exit, instead he allowed his goodness to follow Adam and Eve all the days of their life, even after their expulsion. And so he does for every son of Adam and daughter of Eve to this day.”
― Jen Wilkin, In His Image: 10 Ways God Calls Us to Reflect His Character

“Often, we pray for wisdom when, in fact, we are seeking knowledge. Tell me what to do, Lord. Tell me which commitment to accept, what words to say, where to live, and who to work for. We may even remind God that in James 1:5 he told us we would receive wisdom if we asked. But we are not asking for understanding; we are asking for information. And in doing so, we betray our unwillingness to move from immaturity to maturity as a disciple.”
― Jen Wilkin, In His Image: 10 Ways God Calls Us to Reflect His Character

“Un día el Salvador regresará en un caballo blanco, llevando el nombre de Fiel y Verdadero (Ap 19:11). Aunque esperamos ese día en medio de las dificultades, del trabajo duro y de la tentación, esperamos con la certeza de que mil años son como un día para Dios. En el momento indicado, los cielos se abrirán. Por lo tanto: “Mantengamos firme la esperanza que profesamos, porque fiel es el que hizo la promesa” (Heb 10:23).”
― Jen Wilkin, A Su imagen: 10 maneras en la que Dios nos llama a reflejar Su carácter

“But we can know this: no one gets away with anything. Nothing is hidden from his sight. There is no such thing as a secret sin.”
― Jen Wilkin, In His Image: 10 Ways God Calls Us to Reflect His Character

“The tenth commandment forbids coveting because doing so denies the goodness of God. Jesus speaks against hoarding because doing so denies the goodness of God. Coveting implies a lack in God's present provision and hoarding anticipates a lack in God's good provision in the future. Neither mind-set will translate into generosity. Generosity flourishes only when we do not fear loss.”
― Jen Wilkin, In His Image: 10 Ways God Calls Us to Reflect His Character

“When we devote heart, soul, mind, and strength to loving him, we perceive ourselves rightly - no room for pride or self-exaltation - which prepares us to love our neighbour freely. Rightly perceiving ourselves to be unworthy recipients of the agape of God, we become willing to love our neighbour in spite of himself because God first loved us in spite of ourselves. We do not wait to feel love; rather, we will ourselves to act in love whether we feel it or not. Agape transcends our feelings.”
― Jen Wilkin, In His Image: 10 Ways God Calls Us to Reflect His Character

“Growing in holiness means growing into being loving, just, good, merciful, gracious, faithful, truthful, patient, and wise. It means learning to think, speak, and act like Christ every hour of every day that God grants us to walk this earth as the redeemed.”
― Jen Wilkin, In His Image: 10 Ways God Calls Us to Reflect His Character

“But the God of Israel possess a holiness so blinding that no one can look on him and live, a moral purity so devastating that not even the sinless angelic beings who inhabit his immediate presence can bear to look upon him, instead shielding their gaze with their wings: and day and night they never cease to say, "Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come!”
― Jen Wilkin, In His Image: 10 Ways God Calls Us to Reflect His Character

“Only God is infinite, incomprehensible, self-existent, eternal, immutable, omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent, and sovereign. When we strive to become like him in any of these traits, we set ourselves up as his rival. Human beings created to bear the image of God aspire instead to become like God (...) Like our father Adam and our mother Eve, we long for that which is only intended for God, rejecting our God-given limits and craving the limitlessness we foolishly believe we are capable of wielding and entitled to possess.”
― Jen Wilkin, In His Image: 10 Ways God Calls Us to Reflect His Character

“How should the knowledge that God is ______ change the way I live?”
― Jen Wilkin, In His Image: 10 Ways God Calls Us to Reflect His Character

“God's will for our lives is that we conform to the image of Christ, whose incarnation shows us humanity perfectly conformed to the image of God.”
― Jen Wilkin, In His Image: 10 Ways God Calls Us to Reflect His Character

“If we focus on our actions without addressing our hearts, we may end up merely as better behaved lovers of self (...) The hope of the gospel in our sanctification is not simply that we would make better choices, but that we would become better people.”
― Jen Wilkin, In His Image: 10 Ways God Calls Us to Reflect His Character

“God’s will for our lives is that we conform to the image of Christ, whose incarnation shows us humanity perfectly conformed to the image of God.”
― Jen Wilkin, In His Image: 10 Ways God Calls Us to Reflect His Character

“Those who do not cast themselves upon the perfect sacrifice of Christ will spend their lives attempting to make atonement by offering their own good works to a God of their own imagining. They will seek to justify themselves by whatever means they can. They will live lives of striving and futility.”
― Jen Wilkin, In His Image: 10 Ways God Calls Us to Reflect His Character

“Jerry Bridges notes, “True salvation brings with it a desire to be made holy.”6”
― Jen Wilkin, In His Image: 10 Ways God Calls Us to Reflect His Character

“In memory of RC Sproul, who taught profound truth in plain speech, and who dignified everyday disciples as capable theologians.”
― Jen Wilkin, In His Image: 10 Ways God Calls Us to Reflect His Character