Quotes by Kent Hughes
Kent Hughes (b. 1942) — Geistlicher, Theologe und Buchautor · reformiert-evangelikal · USA
Richard Kent Hughes (* 1942) ist ein US-amerikanischer reformiert-evangelikaler Geistlicher und Theologe, der fast drei Jahrzehnte lang die College Church in Wheaton leitete und Praktische Theologie lehrte. Er begründete den Charles Simeon Trust mit und profilierte sich als Herausgeber der Auslegungsreihe „Preaching the Word“ sowie durch Schriften zur geistlichen Jüngerschaft wie „Disciplines of a Godly Man“. Bibellesern vermittelt er schriftzentrierte Auslegungen und praxisnahe Impulse zur Lebensführung, wenngleich Kritiker seinen Frömmigkeitsidealen bisweilen eine stark moralisierende Prägung vorhalten.
Era: Today
Recurring topics: Relationships & Family, Growth & Character, Grace & Redemption, Discipleship, Guilt & Forgiveness, Ethical Questions, Freedom & Truth, Love
Quotes by Kent Hughes
Gossip is saying behind a person’s back what you would never say to his or her face; flattery is saying to a person’s face what you would never say behind his or her back.
Kent Hughes
The gospel is not “reconcile yourselves.” The gospel is “be reconciled.” Receive reconciliation from God.
Kent Hughes
It is impossible to truly pray for someone and hate them at the same time.
Kent Hughes
The baby Mary carried was not a Caesar, a man who would become a god, but a far greater wonder – the true God who had become a man!
Kent Hughes
We are not called to make peace with God — that is God’s work! The method of reconciliation is reckoning, God “not counting their trespasses against them”… There is a reckoning of sins. But they are reckoned not to the sinner but to Christ.
Kent Hughes
God is not looking for gifted people or people who are self-sufficient. He is looking for inadequate people who will give their weakness to Him and open themselves to the ministry of the Holy Spirit and the transforming grace of the new covenant as it is ministered by Christ Jesus Himself.
Kent Hughes
On the most elementary level, you do not have to go to church to be a Christian. You do not have to go home to be married either. But in both cases if you do not, you will have a very poor relationship.
Kent Hughes
The man who sanctifies his wife understands that this is his divinely ordained responsibility… Is my wife more like Christ because she is married to me? Or is she like Christ in spite of me? Has she shrunk from His likeness because of me? Do I sanctify her or hold her back? Is she a better woman because she is married to me?
Kent Hughes
The ministry of reconciliation is not telling people to make peace with God, but telling them that God has made peace with the world.
Kent Hughes
There are two views which the Christian ought to cultivate with all that he has: the Devil’s back and the face of God [see James 4:7].
Kent Hughes
In my ministry I have noticed that when people are hurting, they frequently express their hope for Christ’s return – “Oh! I wish the Lord would return today!” But I have never heard anyone say, “Things are going so well…I wish Christ would return right now!”
Kent Hughes
Never ever make a promise to your children you do not keep! …You may forget, but you have a little boy or girl who will remember it eighty years from now.
Kent Hughes
The Cross is the ultimate evidence that there is no length the love of God will refuse to go in effecting reconciliation.
Kent Hughes
The key to liberation from the power of materialism is not an exodus from culture – abandoning Wall Street or leaving the wealth of the nation to others – but the grace of giving… Givers for God disarm the power of money. They invite God’s grace to flow through them.
Kent Hughes
God can have our money and not have our hearts, but He cannot have our hearts without having our money.
Kent Hughes
Pride is the sin we cannot see in ourselves and yet so detest in others.
Kent Hughes
Men are never manlier than when they are tender with their children – whether holding a baby in their arms, loving their grade-schooler, or hugging their teenager or adult children.
Kent Hughes
The true test of a man’s spirituality is not his ability to speak, as we are apt to think, but rather his ability to bridle his tongue.
Kent Hughes
Some fathers exasperate their children by being overly strict and controlling. They need to remember that rearing children is like holding a wet bar of soap – too firm a grasp and it shoots from your hand, too loose a grip and it slides away. A gentle but firm hold keeps you in control… We ought to begin our fatherhood by holding the tiny helpless bar snugly, but as it grows, gradually and wisely loosen our grip.
Kent Hughes
A legalistic commitment to duration can kill one’s prayer life.
Kent Hughes
Not a few preachers’ kids have been catapulted into rebellion because their fathers squeezed their lives to fit their parishioners’ expectations. What a massive sin against one’s children!
Kent Hughes
Satan knows that if he can get us to laugh at things we believe we would never do, our defenses will fall.
Kent Hughes
What are our crosses? They are not simply trials and hardships… A cross results from specifically walking in Christ’s steps, embracing His life. It comes from distain because we follow the narrow way of Jesus Christ… Our crosses come from and are proportionate to our dedication to Christ. Difficulties do not indicate cross-bearing, though difficulties for Christ’s sake do.
Kent Hughes
[For Christians] the ground is level at the foot of the cross. This being so, it is absurd to be partial toward anyone. All should be treated equally – as beings created in the image of God. Rich and poor should be accorded equal honor and cordiality. Discrimination or favoritism is spiritually irrational.
Kent Hughes
Judgmentalism is an unwitting revelation of one’s own soul, because people rush to condemn their own sins in others… The greedy delight to condemn the greed in others. The ambitious charge others with self-ambition. Liars love to call others liars. Somehow judgmental people imagine they will lessen their guilt by judging their sins in others.
Kent Hughes
Nothing is of greater importance than loving God! If we fail to take this seriously, we may find at the end of our lives that all of our works counted for nothing… [However] He wants us to be before we do. Love first!
Kent Hughes
It is better to fail in an attempt to exercise faith than to let it lie dormant and fruitless. God never belittles those who attempt to follow Him, but He does chasten those who refuse to attempt anything for Him.
Kent Hughes
Gossip often veils itself in acceptable conventions such as “Have you heard…” or “Did you know…?” or “They tell me…” or “Keep this to yourself, but…” or “I do not believe it is true, but I heard that…” or “I wouldn’t tell you, except that I know it will go no further.” Of course, the most infamous such rationalization in Christian circles is, “I am telling you this so you can pray.”
Kent Hughes
It works like this: we hunger spiritually and are then filled and become supremely satisfied. The satisfaction then makes way for a deeper spiritual hunger, a further filling and blessed satisfaction. And so it goes on in sublime paradox: hunger – filling – satisfaction, hunger – filling – satisfaction. We become more and more full of Christ.
Kent Hughes
A taste of righteousness can be easily perverted into an overweening sense of self-righteousness and judgmentalism.
Kent Hughes
Above all, we [as parents] must make sure that the open book of our lives – our example – demonstrates the reality of our instruction, for in watching us they will learn the most.
Kent Hughes
Contemplation of God brings reflection on sin, and reflection on sin brings contemplation of God.
Kent Hughes
The height of devotion is reached when reverence and contemplation produce passionate worship, which in turn breaks forth in thanksgiving and praise in word and song.
Kent Hughes
We meet God the Creator as a worker in Genesis 1:1 – 2:2… The image of God in man means man is to be a worker. The way we work will reveal how much we have allowed the image of God to develop in us.
Kent Hughes
The grace of giving has nothing to do with having a good financial situation.
Kent Hughes
We must remember that for Jesus words are sacramental – an outward sign of an inward condition. Jesus said, “For out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks” (Matthew 12:34; cf Mark 7:14-23). A continually truthful spirit will produce an increasing veracity of speech.
Kent Hughes
Christians are often persecuted not for their Christianity, but for their lack of it. Sometimes they simply have unpleasant personalities. They are rude, insensitive, thoughtless – piously obnoxious. Some are rejected because they are discerned as proud and judgmental. Others are disliked because they are lazy and irresponsible. Either arrogance or incompetence mixed with piety is sure to bring rejection.
Kent Hughes
Giving is a “grace” as it demonstrates that God has met your needs and that His grace has inclined you to give to others.
Kent Hughes
The word discipline in “discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness” (1 Timothy 4:7, NASB) is a word with the smell of the gym in it – the sweat of a good workout. It is an unabashed call to spiritual sweat.
Kent Hughes
But underlying much of the conscious rejection of spiritual discipline is the fear of legalism… But nothing could be farther from the truth if you understand what discipline and legalism are. The difference is one of motivation: legalism is self-centered; discipline is God-centered. The legalistic heart says, “I will do this thing to gain merit with God.” The disciplined heart says, “I will do this thing because I love God and want to please Him.” There is an infinite difference between the motivation of legalism and discipline! (Paul) knew this implicitly and fought the legalists bare-knuckled all the way across Asia Minor, never giving an inch. And now he shouts to us, “Train (discipline) yourself to be godly”! If we confuse legalism and discipline, we do so to our soul’s peril.
Kent Hughes
71 quotes in total — browse the collection.
Sources: wikipedia.org, crossway.org, cslewisinstitute.org, desiringgod.org
All quotes · lumen.bible