Ravi Zacharias famous 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.
-- Ravi Zacharias

#Prayer #Distance #Thinking

Competence is a big word. It is important. I almost want to nuance it with the idea of giftedness because sometimes you can teach a lot of skills on exposition but a person may not have the competence or the giftedness to do it. Therefore, it is very important to have that.
-- Ravi Zacharias

#Skills #Ideas #Important

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.
-- Ravi Zacharias

#Biblical #People #World

Years ago I was asked this question: Do terrorists fear anything? I said, 'I suspect they would fear a morally strong America.' They would know that a morally strong America would not be dislodged. You can always appeal to a point of vulnerability which would break a people up. [Terrorists] don't fear so much the weaponry as the moral courage, and I think a morally strong America would be intimidating to them.
-- Ravi Zacharias

#Strong #Thinking #Years

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.
-- Ravi Zacharias

#Men #Intellectual #Needs

My goal is to satisfy the hunger and longing for those who are seeking the truth.
-- Ravi Zacharias

#Goal #Hunger #Longing

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.
-- Ravi Zacharias

#Children #Character #Doe

As I see our world, I have never seen greater confusion, greater loss of meaning, greater uncertainty, and greater fear of what looms in front of us. Politics has gotten out of control everywhere. Nobody sees a mascot or a leader, and everyone wants to know what really lies ahead here.
-- Ravi Zacharias

#Lying #Loss #Our World

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

#Believe #Christian Inspirational #Want

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.
-- Ravi Zacharias

#Self #Law #Two

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.
-- Ravi Zacharias

#Relationship #Jesus #Commitment

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.
-- Ravi Zacharias

#Block #Giving #Doctrine

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

#Religious #Jesus #Christ

You see misery, you see misfortune, you see pain, you see suffering. It's all part of the fatalistic way of looking at life.
-- Ravi Zacharias

#Pain #Suffering #Way

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.
-- Ravi Zacharias

#Christian #Spiritual #Jesus

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.
-- Ravi Zacharias

#Generations #Shame #Appetite

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

#Hard Work #Love Is #Vacation

One often sees a call only in retrospect. This too is God's design. God often reinforces our faith after we trust him, not before.
-- Ravi Zacharias

#Design #Retrospect

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

#Commitment #Crosses

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.
-- Ravi Zacharias

#Christian #Moving #Culture

It is the resurrection that makes Good Friday good.
-- Ravi Zacharias

#Friday #Good Friday #Resurrection

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

#Dark #Essentials #Answers

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.
-- Ravi Zacharias

#Pain #Doe #Pleasure

The loss of something that is never thought of, felt, or sought for when lost is not a loss at all.
-- Ravi Zacharias

#Loss #Lost

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.
-- Ravi Zacharias

#Loss #Law #Soul

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
-- Ravi Zacharias

#Journey #Accepting #Mark

The character of Jesus has not only been the highest pattern of virtue, but the strongest incentive in its practice, and has exerted so deep an influence, that it may be truly said that the simple record of three years of active life has done more to regenerate and to soften mankind than all the disquisitions of philosophers and all the exhortations of moralists.
-- Ravi Zacharias

#Jesus #Character #Simple

I thank the Lord that, even though things were so wrong in my life here, I finally was brought to the realization of what all those struggles were about. There are some wonderful things from your painful past, things with a beauty you may not have realized at the time.
-- Ravi Zacharias

#Struggle #Past #Realization

Truth by definition excludes.
-- Ravi Zacharias

#Definitions

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

#Believe #Night #Doors

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.
-- Ravi Zacharias

#Hands #Redemption #Definitions

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
-- Ravi Zacharias

#Atheist #Atheism #Belief

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.
-- Ravi Zacharias

#Atheist #Book #Devil

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.
-- Ravi Zacharias

#Love Is #Feelings #World

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

#Home #Purpose #Christ

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

#Love Is #Emotion

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

#Defining #Holiness #Moments

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

#Disappointment #Destiny #Discovery

Beginning well is a momentary thing; finishing well is a lifelong thing
-- Ravi Zacharias

#Finishing #Lifelong #Wells

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

#Mean #Understanding #Purpose

Our intellect is not intended to be an end in itself, but only a means to the very mind of God.
-- Ravi Zacharias

#Mean #Mind #Ends

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

#Truth Is #Obnoxious

It is easier to hide behind philosophical arguments, heavily footnoted for effect, than it is to admit our hurts, our confusions, our loves, and our passions in the marketplace of life's heartfelt transactions.
-- Ravi Zacharias

#Hurt #Philosophical #Passion

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.
-- Ravi Zacharias

#Christian #Hate #Giving

The world is larger and more beautiful than my little struggle.
-- Ravi Zacharias

#Beautiful #Struggle #Littles

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.
-- Ravi Zacharias

#Christian #Jesus #Unique

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

#Hurt #Soul #Persons

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

#Scripts

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.
-- Ravi Zacharias

#Hate #Heart #Pride

The use or abuse of Christianity in contradiction to the very message of the gospel reveals not the gospel for what it is, but the heart of man. That is why atheism is so bankrupt as a view of life, for it miserably fails to deal with the human condition as it really is.
-- Ravi Zacharias

#Atheist #Heart #Men

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.
-- Ravi Zacharias

#Trying #World #Contrast

The antitheist is quick to excoriate all religious belief by generically laying the blame at the door of all who claim to be religious, without distinction. By the same measure, why is there not an equal enthusiasm to distribute blame for violence engendered by some of the irreligious?
-- Ravi Zacharias

#Religious #Atheist #Doors

Wonder is retained by wise pondering.
-- Ravi Zacharias

#Wise #Wonder #Pondering

Every worldview has to bring together reason and faith.
-- Ravi Zacharias

#Together #Reason #Worldview

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.
-- Ravi Zacharias

#Memories #Men #Kind

Changes in language often reflect the changing values of a culture.
-- Ravi Zacharias

#Culture #Language #Values

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.
-- Ravi Zacharias

#Jesus #Love Is #Example

What I believe in my heart must make sense in my mind.
-- Ravi Zacharias

#Believe #Heart #Mind

Time is the brush of God, as he paints his masterpiece on the heart of humanity.
-- Ravi Zacharias

#Time #Heart #Humanity

In Christian engagement, the goal is to win the person who is of the other worldview - not to destroy the person.
-- Ravi Zacharias

#Christian #Winning #Goal

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.
-- Ravi Zacharias

#Atheist #Answers #What Is Life

No matter how much we try to run away from this thirst for the answer to life, for the meaning of life, the intensity only gets stronger and stronger. We cannot escape these spiritual hungers.
-- Ravi Zacharias

#Running #Spiritual #Trying

Evil is a violation of purpose, the purpose of your creator and mine.
-- Ravi Zacharias

#Evil #Purpose #Violation

We all want Canaan without going through the wilderness.
-- Ravi Zacharias

#Want #Wilderness

There can be no reproach to pain unless we assume human dignity, there is no reason for restraints on pleasure unless we assume human worth, there is no legitimacy to monotony unless we assume a greater purpose to life, there is no purpose to life unless we assume design, death has no significance unless we seek what is everlasting.
-- Ravi Zacharias

#Pain #Design #Purpose

Redemption is prior to righteousness. You cannot be righteous until you are first redeemed,
-- Ravi Zacharias

#Firsts #Redemption #Righteous

Teaching at best beckons us to morality, but it is not in itself efficacious. Teaching is like a mirror. It can show you if your face is dirty, but it the mirror will not wash your face.
-- Ravi Zacharias

#Teaching #Dirty #Mirrors

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.
-- Ravi Zacharias

#Spring #Real #Water

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

#Crush #Feelings #Mind

Historic figures have homes to visit for posterity; the Lord of history left no home. Luminaries leave libraries and write their memoirs; He left one book, penned by ordinary people. Deliverers speak of winning through might and conquest; He spoke of a place in the heart.
-- Ravi Zacharias

#Book #Writing #Heart

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

#Joy

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.
-- Ravi Zacharias

#Destiny #Knowing #Wish

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.
-- Ravi Zacharias

#Essence #Would Be #Opinion

What is the message of Christmas? It is the birth of the One who promised peace, joy and love.
-- Ravi Zacharias

#Joy #Messages #And Love

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

#Facts #Sin #Christ

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.
-- Ravi Zacharias

#Heaven #Way #Scripture

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

#Needs

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

#Jesus #People #Doe

Without the will, marriage is a mockery; without emotion, it is a drudgery. You need both.
-- Ravi Zacharias

#Needs #Emotion #Mockery

In naturalism, man is actually very insignificant, but arrogates to himself stupendous power. In Christianity, man is actually the apex of created significance, but is called to see it in abject humility.
-- Ravi Zacharias

#Humility #Men #Christianity

The loneliest moment in life is when you have just experienced that which you thought would deliver the ultimate, and it has just let you down.
-- Ravi Zacharias

#Religion #Atheism #Life Is

In the gospel message, the beginning of change occurs in the heart of each individual. This heart change makes a difference in the home, then in the community, and ultimately in the nation- and in turn it shapes the future of a cultural ethos.
-- Ravi Zacharias

#Home #Heart #Ethos

What you applaud you encourage, but beware what you celebrate...
-- Ravi Zacharias

#Celebrate

God makes appointments with us in our disappointments. To see the pattern we must take three steps involving the heart, the mind, and the cross
-- Ravi Zacharias

#Disappointment #Heart #Mind

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?
-- Ravi Zacharias

#Destiny #Thinking #Fundamentals

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.
-- Ravi Zacharias

#Gratitude #Father #Grace

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.
-- Ravi Zacharias

#Evil #Silence #Suffering

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.
-- Ravi Zacharias

#Evil #Giving #Suffering

Nothing, absolutely nothing, has a more direct bearing on the moral choices made by individuals or the purposes pursued by society than belief or disbelief in God.
-- Ravi Zacharias

#Choices #Atheism #Purpose

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

#Spiritual #Needs #Poverty

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.
-- Ravi Zacharias

#Heart #Priorities #Needs

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.
-- Ravi Zacharias

#Biblical #Reality #Offering

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

#Justice #Buried

To be born in India is to arrive into the world swimming in religion.
-- Ravi Zacharias

#Swimming #World #India

Where destruction is the motive, unity is dangerous.
-- Ravi Zacharias

#Unity #Destruction #Dangerous

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!
-- Ravi Zacharias

#Atheist #Philosophical #Assumption

Capturing the beauty of the conversion of the water into wine, the poet Alexander Pope said, "The conscious water saw its Master and blushed." That sublime description could be reworked to explain each one of these miracles. Was it any different in principle for a broken body to mend at the command of its Maker? Was it far-fetched for the Creator of the universe, who fashioned matter out of nothing, to multiply bread for the crowd? Was it not within the power of the One who called all the molecules into existence to interlock them that they might bear His footsteps?
-- Ravi Zacharias

#Wine #Broken #Water

Truth is that which affirms propositionally the nature of reality as it is.
-- Ravi Zacharias

#Reality #Truth Is

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

#Rights #People #Human Rights

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.
-- Ravi Zacharias

#Impact #Doubt #Answers