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" Retributive justice did not arise from any Christian principle; almost every pre-Christian society dealt with wrongdoers by causing them pain. "
Lewis B. Smedes
Justice
Dealt
Christian
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" To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you. "
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" Common sense suggests that if no one ever judged other people, there would be no real human community. "
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" You will know that forgiveness has begun when you recall those who hurt you and feel the power to wish them well. "
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" The Holy Spirit, thank God, often enables people to forgive even though they are not sure how they did it. "
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" The God who has the whole world in his hands has grace for the whole world in his heart. "
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" Modern Americans suffer from a fear of judging. Passing judgment on the behavior of fellow human beings is considered an act of medieval, undemocratic intolerance. "
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" Restorative justice is not a replacement of retributive justice, but a complement. It seeks the rehabilitation of the wrongdoer and the repair of the victim's injury. "
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" Forgiving does not erase the bitter past. A healed memory is not a deleted memory. Instead, forgiving what we cannot forget creates a new way to remember. We change the memory of our past into a hope for our future. "
Lewis B. Smedes
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" The lies we tell ourselves are the most subtle of all lies. "
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" At the cross, God was punishing Jesus for the sins of the world. God's justice required a penalty from sinners, and in his unspeakable love, he paid the penalty himself in the person of his crucified Son. "
Lewis B. Smedes
Son
Person
God
" God does not give us salvation because we believe. Our believing is only the normal way of receiving the salvation he freely gives. "
Lewis B. Smedes
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" Promise keeping is a powerful means of grace in a time when people hardly depend on each other to remember and live by their word. "
Lewis B. Smedes
People
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Grace
" The right to personal privacy is precious. Without it, we are all potential victims for a prying secret police. "
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Potential
Police
" The blood of Christ covers all of our sins, but each of us must do personal business with God in order to experience his forgiveness. "
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" I believe that we should, on biblical grounds, tell all parents of mentally disabled children that God loves their children, regrets terribly that they are disabled, and will, when they die, carry them gently into a heavenly life where every person is forever whole. "
Lewis B. Smedes
Children
Parents
Life
" As I read the New Testament, I find only one path to salvation - the path of an informed faith in Jesus Christ. "
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Faith
Find
Jesus Christ
" Some people still make promises and keep those they make. When they do, they help make life around them more stably human. "
Lewis B. Smedes
Help
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" Any lazy or biased fool can have opinions; making judgments is the hard work of responsible and compassionate people. "
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Work
Hard Work
Fool
" When we forgive evil we do not excuse it, we do not tolerate it, we do not smother it. We look the evil full in the face, call it what it is, let its horror shock and stun and enrage us, and only then do we forgive it. "
Lewis B. Smedes
Horror
Forgive
Face
" Some people have loved ones they will not forsake, even though they are a pain in the neck. "
Lewis B. Smedes
Will
Loved
Pain
" In a sinful world, no community can exist for long where nobody is ever held accountable: no teacher would grade a student's performance; no citizen would sit on a jury or call a failed leader to account. "
Lewis B. Smedes
Community
World
Teacher
" The problem with revenge is that it never evens the score. It ties both the injured and the injurer to an escalator of pain. Both are stuck on the escalator as long as parity is demanded, and the escalator never stops. "
Lewis B. Smedes
Pain
Problem
Revenge
" When we have been badly injured and clearly wronged, we make an instant caricature of the person who did it to us. We define him totally by the one wrong he did. "
Lewis B. Smedes
Wrong
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Him
" Seeing reality for what it is is what we call discernment. The work of discernment is very hard. "
Lewis B. Smedes
Seeing
Reality
Hard
" Forgiving is love's toughest work, and love's biggest risk. "
Lewis B. Smedes
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Love
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" No doubt, corporate CEOs who lie to their shareholders and politicians who lie to their public know and believe intellectually that lying is immoral. Why then do they lie? They lie to others because they first lie to themselves. "
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" My father was only thirty-one when he died of a heart attack, much too young for a father to die and leave his young wife with five rambunctious little kids to take care of. I was the youngest. Only a couple of months old when he died. "
Lewis B. Smedes
Take Care
Care
Father
" Our society is pluralistic. We who accept the privilege of membership in that society agree to respect the people's right to live by their own religious precepts. "
Lewis B. Smedes
Accept
Society
Respect
" What is a disloyal act? A person is disloyal if he treats you as a stranger when, in fact, he belongs to you as a friend or partner. Each of us is bound to some special others by the invisible fibers of loyalty. "
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Loyalty
" Jesus said that we should render to the state what properly belongs to the state, and though he had taxes in mind, we might reasonably infer that giving the state the job of punishing wrongdoers is one way of giving the state its due. "
Lewis B. Smedes
Mind
Taxes
Way