Clarence Jordan Quotes

• What the poor need is not charity but capital, not caseworkers but coworkers. And what the rich need is a wise, honorable and just way of divesting themselves of their overabundance.

  Clarence Jordan

  Wise, Money, Differences

  62 Copy quote

• It is not enough to limit your love to your own nation, to your own group. You must respond with love even to those outside of it. . . . This concept enables people to live together not as nations, but as the human race.

  Clarence Jordan

  Race, People, Together

  Clarence Jordan (2005). “The Substance of Faith: and Other Cotton Patch Sermons”, p.76, Wipf and Stock Publishers

  60 Copy quote

• The resurrection of Jesus was simply God's unwillingness to take our 'no' for an answer. He raised Jesus, not as an invitation to us to come to heaven when we die, but as a declaration that he himself has now established permanent, eternal residence here on earth. He is standing beside us, strengthening us in this life. The good news of the resurrection of Jesus is not that we shall die and go home to be with him, but that he has risen and comes home with us, bringing all his hungry, naked, thirsty, sick prisoner brothers with him.

  Clarence Jordan

  God, Death, Christian

  Clarence Jordan (2005). “The Substance of Faith: and Other Cotton Patch Sermons”, p.26, Wipf and Stock Publishers

  63 Copy quote

• The crowning evidence that he lives is not a vacant grave, but a spirit-filled fellowship. Not a rolled-away stone, but a carried-away church.

  Clarence Jordan

  God, Faith, Christian

  "The Substance of Faith: and Other Cotton Patch Sermons".

  50 Copy quote

• Even though people about us choose the path of hate and violence and warfare and greed and prejudice, we who are Christ's body must throw off these poisons and let love permeate and cleanse every tissue and cell. Nor are we to allow ourselves to become easily discouraged when love is not always obviously successful or pleasant. Love never quits, even when an enemy has hit you on the right cheek and you have turned the other, and he's also hit that.

  Clarence Jordan

  Love, Jesus, Hate

  57 Copy quote

• God is not a celestial prison warden jangling the keys on a bunch of lifers--he's a shepherd seeking for sheep, a woman searching for coins, a father waiting for his son.

  Clarence Jordan

  God, Christian, Father

  Clarence Jordan (2005). “The Substance of Faith: and Other Cotton Patch Sermons”, p.170, Wipf and Stock Publishers

  67 Copy quote

• Now faith is the turning of dreams into deeds. It is betting your life on the unseen realities

  Clarence Jordan

  Dream, Reality, Unseen

  Clarence Jordan (2004). “Cotton Patch Gospel: Hebrews and the General Epistles”, p.9, Smyth & Helwys Publishing, Inc.

  33 Copy quote

• The measure of a Christian is not in the height of his grasp but in the depth of his love

  Clarence Jordan

  Christian, Depth, Height

  36 Copy quote

• Behold a tree. Does it not speak to us thusly: 'Don't you see that God is not working himself into a frenzy in me? I am calmly, quietly, silently pouring forth my life and bringing forth fruit. Do thou likewise.'

  Clarence Jordan

  Tree, Doe, Pouring

  24 Copy quote

• One wonders why Christians today get off so easily. Is it because unchristian Americans are that much better than unchristian Romans, or is our light so dim that the tormentor can't see it? What are the things we do that are worth persecuting?

  Clarence Jordan

  Christian, Light, Today

  Clarence Jordan (2003). “Essential Writings”

  31 Copy quote

• Wars are generally fought for material things; they're not fought over ideals. After we get into them, we are told we are fighting for ideals. We are fighting for oil and tin and rubber and markets, and as long as we insist on a standard of life that is so high above all the rest of the world, we're going to have to pay for our standard of living with a lot of blood. I think we ought to re-examine the fact that Jesus was a pauper, and we should be committing ourselves to a very humble, simple way of life.

  Clarence Jordan

  Jesus, War, Humble

  22 Copy quote

• Faith is not belief in spite of evidence but a life in scorn of the consequences.

  Clarence Jordan

  Belief, Spite, Evidence

  Clarence Jordan (2005). “The Substance of Faith: and Other Cotton Patch Sermons”, p.43, Wipf and Stock Publishers

  20 Copy quote

• What the poor need is not charity, but capital, not caseworkers but coworkers.

  Clarence Jordan

  Needs, Charity, Coworker

  56 Copy quote

• Fear is the polio of the soul which prevents our walking by faith.

  Clarence Jordan

  Soul, Walk By Faith, Polio

  Clarence Jordan (2005). “The Substance of Faith: and Other Cotton Patch Sermons”, p.45, Wipf and Stock Publishers

  19 Copy quote

• God will seek us -- how long? Until he finds us. And when he's found the last little shriveling rebellious soul and has depopulated hell, then death will be swallowed up in victory, and Christ will turn over all things to the Father that he may be all and in all. Then every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

  Clarence Jordan

  Jesus, Father, Long

  17 Copy quote

• Fear is the polio of the soul. Faith is the life based on unseen realities; it is the word become flesh.

  Clarence Jordan

  Reality, Soul, Unseen

  15 Copy quote

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