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" Seeing reality for what it is is what we call discernment. The work of discernment is very hard. "
Lewis B. Smedes
Seeing
Reality
Hard
Related Quotes:
" 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
Us
Him
" Common sense suggests that if no one ever judged other people, there would be no real human community. "
Lewis B. Smedes
Common Sense
Real
People
" 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. "
Lewis B. Smedes
Seeks
Justice
Injury
" Some people still have causes they will not desert, even though the cause seems lost. "
Lewis B. Smedes
Desert
Lost
People
" No one really forgives unless he has been hurt. "
Lewis B. Smedes
He
Forgives
Been
" 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
" 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
" 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
Life
Human
" Our history is an inevitable component of our being. One thing only can release us from the grip of our history. That one thing is forgiveness. "
Lewis B. Smedes
History
Inevitable
Us
" 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
" Any lazy or biased fool can have opinions; making judgments is the hard work of responsible and compassionate people. "
Lewis B. Smedes
Work
Hard Work
Fool
" Sometimes I like to list the strongest arguments I can find to support a point of view I think is wrong. When I have them before me, I am up against a real opponent rather than a hypothetical one that is an easy target for me to hit. "
Lewis B. Smedes
Think
Me
Support
" Nothing is more private than a woman's body; it is her physical, emotional, and moral citadel. She cannot be free at all if she is not free to decide for herself, in private, what to do with her body. "
Lewis B. Smedes
Body
Nothing
Free
" 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
" True, the apostles did not expressly say that people will be saved only if they repent, believe, and confess. But most evangelicals assume - with good reason - that this is what the apostles implied. "
Lewis B. Smedes
True
Believe
Good
" Nothing enables us to forgive like knowing in our hearts that we have been forgiven. "
Lewis B. Smedes
Knowing
Nothing
Like
" The Holy Spirit, thank God, often enables people to forgive even though they are not sure how they did it. "
Lewis B. Smedes
Thank God
Spirit
People
" It takes one person to forgive, it takes two people to be reunited. "
Lewis B. Smedes
Relationship
People
Forgive
" 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. "
Lewis B. Smedes
Partner
You
Loyalty
" The God who has the whole world in his hands has grace for the whole world in his heart. "
Lewis B. Smedes
Heart
Hands
Grace
" 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
Believing
God
Us
" Forgiving is love's toughest work, and love's biggest risk. "
Lewis B. Smedes
Forgiving
Love
Biggest
" 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. "
Lewis B. Smedes
Judging
Behavior
Judgment
" Some people have loved ones they will not forsake, even though they are a pain in the neck. "
Lewis B. Smedes
Will
Loved
Pain
" 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
Live
Grace
" Our sense of fairness tells us that people should pay for the wrong they do. "
Lewis B. Smedes
Us
Wrong
Sense
" 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
" 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. "
Lewis B. Smedes
Faith
Find
Jesus Christ
" 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