Elyse Fitzpatrick Quotes

Believe that God is strong enough to save your children, no matter how you fail.

The one encouragement we can always give our children (and one another) is that God is more powerful than our sin, and He's strong enough to make us want to do the right thing.

We need days of failure because they help humble us, and through them we can see how God's grace is poured out on the humble.

The gospel frees us from demanding our own way, because nothing we desire to obtain is worth sinning against such love and kindness.

The sinful heart is never transformed by conformity to the imperatives but only by relationship with the One who cleanses hearts.

When we fail to respond in Christlikeness to the disappointments of life, it's usually because we've forgotten all he has accomplished for us.

I thought parenting was going to reveal my strengths, never realizing that God had ordained it to reveal my weaknesses.

The only way that we can avoid the sin of idolatry is by immersing ourselves in Spirit-enlightened study of God through the Scripture.

God loves us so much that he crushed his Son so that we might be his and that this love isn't based on our worthiness or performance. His love doesn't fluctuate from day-to-day. It was settled the moment he set it upon you before the foundation of the world.

If you wonder why you choose to worship other gods rather than wholeheartedly devote yourself to the Lord you love, examine the thought and desires that captivate your heart. That’s where you’ll fin the answer to every sin and failure in your life. Don’t be deceived into thinking that you need to develop more willpower. We need to develop godly thoughts and desires.

Let us be so taken up with the knowledge of God's goodness and the desire to fellowship with Him that our emotions are warmed and our outer man reflects great love. Although we must not seek emotional experiences for their own sake, we must not shun them merely because others misuse them or ignore God's instructions on worship.

Everything that isn't gospel is law. Let us say it again: Everything that isn't gospel is law. Every way we try to make our kids good that isn't rooted in the good news of the life, death, ressurection, and assension of Jesus Christ is damnable, crushing, despair-breeding, Pharisee-producing law. We won't get the results we want from the law. We'll get either shallow self-righteousness or blazing rebellion or both (frequently from the same kid on the same day!). We'll get moralistic kids who are cold and hypocritical and who look down on others (and could easily become Mormons), or you'll get teens who are rebellious and self-indulgent and who can't wait to get out of the house. We have to remember that in the life of our unregenerate children, the law is given for one reason only: to crush their self-confidence and drive them to Christ.

But the Bible isn't mainly about you and what you should be doing. It's about God and what He has done.

I did my best parenting by prayer. I began to speak less to the kids and more to God. It was actually quite relaxing.

Faith, then, is simply a believing that there is a God who loves us, in spite of the poison of sin coursing through our soul.

Idols aren't just stone statues. No, idols are the thoughts, desires, longings, and expectations that we worship in the place of the true God. Idols cause us to ignore the true God in search of what we think we need. Covenantal Gods

The weaknesses, failures, and sins of our family are the places where we learn that we need grace too. It is there, in those dark mercies, that God teaches us to be humbly dependent. It is there that He draws near to us and sweetly reveals His grace. Paul's suffering teaches us to reinterpret our thorn. Instead of seeing it as a curse, we are to see it as the very thing that keeps us "pinned close to the Lord.

And we neglect the glorious gospel when we fail to recognize his preeminence. How frequently we forget that everything is for him and about him. We forget that he is to be first, in our honor and in our worship. Whenever the gospel slips from our conscious thought, our religion becomes all about our performance, and then we think everything that happens or will ever happen isa bout us. When I forget the incarnation, sinless life, death, resurrection, and ascension, I quickly believe that I'm supposed to be the unrivaled supreme, and matchless one. It's at this point that I'm particularly in need of an intravenous dose of gospel truth. He is preeminent.

One can be addicted to either lawlessness or lawfulness. Theologically there is no difference since both break relationship with God, the giver. ~ GERHARD O. FORDE

Our obedience has its origin in God's prior action, and forgetting that truth results in self-righteousness, pride, and despair.

I am more sinful and flawed than I ever dared believe, more loved and welcomed than I ever dared hope. ELYSE M. FITZPATRICK

God is too great to be glorified only through the lives of His victorious children. He is glorified by our suffering and even by our sin. His sustaining strength is glorified when we walk through the furnace of affliction.

When I neglect the gospel, I'll want nice vacations and nice compliments and nice things to make my life nicer. I'll long to be able to compare myself favorably with others and to know that I am successful. I'll look down on those who don't meet my standards, and I'll idolize those who excel. I'll forget that he is preeminent.

Most of us are painfully aware that we’re not perfect parents. We’re also deeply grieved that we don’t have perfect kids. But the remedy to our mutual imperfections isn’t more law, even if it seems to produce tidy or polite children. Christian children (and their parents) don’t need to learn to be “nice.” They need death and resurrection and a Savior who has gone before them as a faithful high priest, who was a child himself, and who lived and died perfectly in their place. They need a Savior who extends the offer of complete forgiveness, total righteousness, and indissoluble adoption to all who will believe. This is the message we all need. We need the gospel of grace and the grace of the gospel. Children can’t use the law any more than we can, because they will respond to it the same way we do. They’ll ignore it or bend it or obey it outwardly for selfish purposes, but this one thing is certain: they won’t obey it from the heart, because they can’t. That’s why Jesus had to die.

We're women and men who are so sinful and flawed that we deserve hell, but we've been so loved and welcomed that every spiritual blessing, adoption, tender fellowship with our Father and each other, forgiveness, reconciliation, and eternal life is ours. Christ's accomplishments and perfections are ours now. Everything about us is different.

The declarations of the gospel are unavoidably tied to the obligations of the Gospel.

for it is only an appreciation of his love that can motivate genuine obedience.

Do you love me with an all-consuming devotion that rules out all other loves?

We are partners with our children because we are just like them, dearly loved sinners.

True Christianity is not a program of self-improvement; it's an acknowledgment that something more than self-improvement is needed.

Our problem is not that we desire happiness. No, our problem is that we continue to foolishly believe that we can attain it apart from him. We think that if we just try hard enough, the next time we'll get it right (whatever it is) and we'll be happy. Instead of pushing through to the true source of all joy and happiness, we sinfully believe the false promises of lesser gods.

You're not just one in millions, a face lost in the crowd. In the heart of God you're unique, a distinct person with a particular name, chosen from before the foundation of the world (Eph. 1:4).

Real progress in the Christian life is not gauged by our knowledge of scripture, our church attendance, time in prayer, or even our witnessing (although it isn't less than these things) Maturity in the Christian life is measured by only one test: how much closer to his character have we become? the result of the Spirit's work is more not more activity. No, the results of his work are in in our quality of life, they are "love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.

in my heart is rooted in lovelessness and thanklessness.... By contrast, every truly holy act, including even the inner desire to be holy, springs out of the love and worship that He has placed in my heart.

Pure, unadulterated, consistent love for God and pure, unadulterated, consistent love for others is the summation of all the law God has given us in both the Old and New Testaments. Of course, the problem is that we never obey these simple commands. We always love ourselves more than we love God or others. We are always erecting idols in our hearts and worshipping and serving them. We are always more focused on what we want and how we might get it than we are on loving Him and laying down our life for others. The law does show us the right way to live, but none of us obeys it. Not for one millisecond. Even though our children cannot and will not obey God's law, we need to teach it to them again and again. And when they tell us that they can't love God or others in this way, we are not to argue with them. We are to agree with them and tell them of their need for a Savior.

Our faith works because we love, and we love because he has first loved us. Our faith is then emboldened by this responsive love; we've been loved, we've been assured of our justification; our Father speaks of our sanctification as if it had already occurred. By faith, then, we can courageously pursue growth into our true identity.

It would be against God’s character to give us a promise that our children will be saved if we raise them in a certain way. That would mean that he was telling us to trust in something other than Christ and his grace and mercy.

Give grace to your children today by speaking of sin and mercy. Tell Susan that she can relax into God’s loving embrace and stop thinking that she has to perform in order to get her welcoming Father to love her. Tell David that he can have hope that even though he really struggles, he’s the very sort of person Jesus loved being around. Dazzle them with his love.

We forget the gospel when we neglect our adoption and think that we're still just a hired servant. The Father doesn't let us come to him on those terms. We will either come as sons or we will stay with the pigs. He won't let us earn anything from him because there will be no boasting in his sight. It will either be that Jesus and his glorious gospel has the preeminence or we will go it on our own.

Man and woman are designed to rule together. Exclusion of women is the opposite of God’s design. To exclude women is to exclude half of God’s creation means of ruling the earth. This means that we must include and celebrate the influence and presence of women in all realms of life. Women should be sought after and encouraged, educated and equipped, taught, learned with and learned from, celebrated and needed as essential partners in a shared task.

The obvious difference between Paul and us is that Paul bragged about his weakness, and we try to hide it.

We need assurance that there is a God who is sovereignly ruling over our journeys and will one day put everything right.

Any obedience that isn't motivated by his great love is nothing more than penance.

Again, the resurrection is God’s “Amen” to Christ’s “It is finished!

Idolatry is always subject to the law of diminishing returns.

We're very comfortable thinking, good parenting in, good children out.

Justification is a word that simply means that our record is both “just as if we had never sinned” and also “just as if we had always obeyed.

Idolatry, like all sin, is devastating to the soul. It cuts us off from the comforts of grace, the peace of conscience, and the joy that is to be our strength.

We need the encouragement, correction, and loving involvement of others who are willing to risk everything for the sake of the beauty of his bride.

I admit that at times my prayer for my children is nothing more than vocalized unbelief aimed at God.

Like us, our children crave the blessed benediction: “You are good!” But the Bible says that because we are not good, those words no longer apply to us. We’re not good.

If you’re willing to sin to obtain your goal or if you sin when you don’t get what you want, then your desire has taken God’s place and you’re functioning as an idolater.

The gospel is not good news to those who pride themselves on their hard work. It is infuriating news.

the Spirit of God can change a human heart. Only God’s love in Christ can make us grow in love and delight in him.

When we lose the centrality of the cross, Christianity morphs into a religion of self-improvement and becomes about us, about our accomplishments, and about getting our act together.

Do you need hope? Look at the tiny baby in a cow trough. See the adult's gentle hands blessing the children. Hear his words of invitation and see those hands pierced with spikes. Contemplate the blood-soaked mud. View the empty tomb and the folded grave clothes. See him rise physically to return to his Father, clothed in human flesh. Anticipate his return on the clouds and your eternal union and reign with him. Don't turn away from the hope of the gospel: Christ is utterly and eternally preeminent. You need this hope to face your day; don't look away to yourself or any other person.

Perhaps one of the reasons why God chooses to leave us in this terribly broken world with its various disappointments is to create in our souls a certain dissatisfaction, an insatiable hunger for home.

Let's face it: most of our children believe that God is happy if they're "good for goodness' sake." We've transformed the holy, terrifying, magnificent, and loving God of the Bible into Santa and his elves.

It is only within the context of the church that ongoing spiritual care, encouragement, and accountability can occur. It is only as we use the powerful word of the gospel in each other’s lives that we can change.

Love is the first cause of all the graces we desire; it “warms the heart, and sweetly and powerfully influences our affections to delight in, and to walk in love with such an exceedingly gracious and merciful God.

Most of us have never really understood that Christianity is not a self-help religion meant to enable moral people to become more moral. We don’t need a self-help book; we need a Savior. We don’t need to get our collective act together; we need death and resurrection and the life-transforming truths of the gospel. And we don’t need them just once, at the beginning of our Christian life;we need them every moment of every day.

Since the fall of the human race, we've been alternately telling ourselves that we are good, that if we try hard enough we'll be good enough, or that being or that being good is an impossibility, so we should just give up and have fun.

But that’s not all. The resurrection is also God’s “Amen” to our “It is finished, for I believe that when he died, I died, and when he rose, I arose; I believe that you have forgiven me and made me righteous and will raise me up on the last day.

Every faithful parent must give their children guidance, direction, rules, and commands. What we are saying is that these things are not to be the primary theme of our teaching. The primary theme is to be Jesus Christ and the work he’s already done.

When we fail to believe the truth about who Jesus is and miss the impact of His astounding work in suffering and dying for our sin, it will be impossible to resist the allurement of the gods of this earth as they whisper their promised pleasures to us.

Because we don't know the state of our children's souls, and because they might simply want to please us by praying to be saved, we must continue to give them the Law and encourage them to ask God for faith to believe that He is as good as He says He is.

God created us to be worshipers because it is right that he be known, loved and worshiped. This isn't because he is needy and wishes someone would tell him how special he is. No, it's because he is perfect and the worship of his perfection is holiness in action.

Even though our children cannot and will not obey God’s law, we need to teach it to them again and again. And when they tell us that they can’t love God or others in this way, we are not to argue with them. We are to agree with them and tell them of their need for a Savior.

When I forget that the only way that God could stand to have me in his family was by crushing the Son he loves-that without the perfect record of someone else I could not stand before his judicious holiness, that on my own I do not have within me either the desire or the power to please God-I am tempted to believe that I'm really pretty good. And although I might need a nip or tuck, if I try hard enough, I can accomplish all he has called me to. It's when we forget the gospel, when we think we're not really all that bad, not so much in need, not so far from Christlikeness, that pride, arrogance, and the inevitable guilt crush hope and faith.

It's essential for us to think about God's love today because it is only his love that can grant us the joy that will strengthen our hearts, the courage that will embolden us in our fight against sin, and the assurance that will enable us to open up our lives to him so that he might deal powerfully with our unbelief and idolatry.

every story of misogyny and abuse should be heard and taken to heart. The #MeToo and #ChurchToo movements have demonstrated in spades what many women already knew: Too many of us are not cherished or valued; too many of us wouldn't even know what that means. Instead, many have been disbelieved, denigrated, and dismissed, simply because we are women, and this has happened both historically and in today's churches as well. But merely understanding that the church has been dismissive, abusive, or even misogynistic will not help us... Instead, we need to affirm the positive stories and contributions of women -- not only as wives, mothers, and daughters, but primarily as God's image-bearers.

Because God has accredited or imputed Jesus' perfect obedience to you, when God looks upon you, he sees you as a person who - always does the things that are pleasing to him; - is so focused on accomplishing his will and work that doing so is your daily food; - doesn't seek your own will but seeks his will instead; - doesn't seek to receive glory (praise, respect, worship) from others; - has always kept all his commandments; - lives in such a way that your life brings holiness to others; - loves others and lays down your life on a consistent basis; - lives in such a way that the people around you know that you love your heavenly Father more than anything else; - seeks to obey every command so that righteousness will

Recently I was having a conversation with a mom who is trying to wrestle through the implications of grace in her parenting methods and responsibilities. She admitted that she had read too many books. She had exhausted herself trying to be a good mom and meet all the needs of all her children, raising them for the Lord....Now, in the middle of all her pain and exhaustion, she's trying to embrace grace but continues to be crippled by fear and guilt. "I wish I had never read those books," she admitted. "I feel guilty and exhausted all the time." I asked her, "How would you raise your children if all you had was the Bible?" "Well, I guess I would love them, discipline them, and tell them about Jesus." I smiled and answered, "Right.

The story of Jonah isn’t about learning to be obedient or facing the consequences. The story of Jonah is about how God is merciful to both the religiously self-righteous, unloving Pharisee (Jonah) and the irreligious, violent pagan. The story is a story about God’s ability to save souls and use us even when we disobey. It’s a story about God’s mercy, not our obedience.

Because he loves and welcomes us as he does, we are transformed in our relationships with others. Because we have been loved as a child or a bride is loved, we are now free to love and welcome others generously, warmly, and joyously. His love for us is to have a powerful effect on our love for others, and it is the only thing that will motivate us to love as we have been called to.

the children who actually end up performing better are those who understand that their relationship with God doesn’t depend on their performance for Jesus but on Jesus’s performance for them. With the right mixture of fear and guilt, I can get my three children to obey in the short term. But my desire is not that they obey for five minutes or even for five days. My desire is that they obey for fifty years!

Faith, then, is simply a believing that there is a God who loves us, in spite of the poison of sin coursing through our soul. It is a believing that he loves us even though, like the Israelites of old, we have nothing to bring to him but malignancy, wretched sickness, and grumbling misery. It is believing that he invites us to look to him, to rely upon him, and to trust in him simply to do what he has said. It is believing that if we turn the gaze of our soul upward toward him, he will give us life. The Lord Jesus characterizes the simplicity and certainty of saving faith, stating that it is his Father's will to grant eternal life to all who look on and believe in him. "For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day" (John 6:40).

C.S. Lewis knew this. He believed that we were too easily satisfied with the "lesser joys" of life instead of pressing on to pure, full joy in Christ. He wrote, "We are halfhearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition [and food] when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased"7 Solomon,

Oh, how different this groom is! So many men look for a woman who is already beautiful—one who will enhance their resume and make other men think that they have value. Jesus did just the opposite. He went and found the most vile creature he could and set about beautifying her by taking her vileness upon himself and fully identifying with her, thereby remaking her into his image. Yes, eventually this does accrue to his glory, but it’s not how most men look to advance themselves.

In other words, the very law that was meant to bring life stirs up a desire for sin and kills us. Again, that doesn’t mean that we don’t teach our children God’s law. We are commanded to do so but not to make them good. We are commanded to give them the law so that they will be crushed by it and see their need for a Savior. The law won’t make them good. It will make them despair of ever being good enough, and in that way it will make them open to the love, sacrifice, and welcome of their Savior, Jesus Christ.

When we soak our soul in the grace of the Gospel, we'll find our desire to spend time with Him in prayer changing. We'll begin to carry on a nonstop conversation with Him in our heart because we know that He loves to hear our voice. Then, when we are faced with a difficult decision, we will be comfortable running to Him. "Lord, I need wisdom." "Lord, I know You're here. Help me to see You. Give me grace!" That'll be our heart's frequent cry. Because the Holy Spirit loves to make Jesus grand in our eyes, He'll nurture, train, and remind us of His gracious condescension.

The Bible, however, teaches that change comes about through confession, repentance, and obedience. There is no need for hours and hours of free association, venting, and dream analysis; no need to structure contrived rewards or punishments; no need to sit in front of the mirror every morning reciting your "Twenty Affirmations." The process of change (what the Bible calls sanctification) is accomplished by following these simple steps: First, you must recognize your action as sinful (not merely ineffective or self-defeating) (Ecclesiastes 7:20; Romans 3:23) and confess it to God, to whom you owe worship and obedience (John 1:9; Revelation 3:19). Second, you need to ask for His forgiveness. Third, you must repent. Repentance involves putting off your former manner of life, seeking to renew your mind, and putting on the new habits that God commands (Ephesians 4:22-24). Finally, you must habitually practice each of these steps in faith (Philippians 4:9). As you seek to do these things, you'll be empowered by the Holy Spirit (2 Thessalonians 2:13) and enlightened by the Word (Psalm 119:130). Remember,

Do you think that criticism is always a bad thing? If you find it difficult to take criticism, it’s because you haven’t believed what the cross says about you. The cross is the most blatant statement of criticism ever displayed. It says that you deserve to die. You deserve to be stripped naked and humiliated and then to receive the righteous wrath of a just God for all eternity. That’s what we all deserve. But we have been given grace, forgiveness, and relationship with him. You would need to defend yourself from criticism only if you didn’t have a Savior who loved sinners.

Calvin wrote, “The Word is the instrument by which the Lord dispenses the illumination of His Spirit to believers.

We see a remarkable change in Eve. Her first recorded words are a conversation with a serpent, ending with her deception in the Garden. Outside the Garden, her first recorded words are a confession of faith. She now recognizes the schemes of the serpent. She perseveres through pain and disappointment with eyes on the Lord and hope in his promise.

Paul’s story is good news for those of us who are tempted to put our trust in ourselves, in our own ability to work hard enough to merit God’s favor. Grace is so surprising! It’s surprising because while it may seem likely that a prostitute would recognize her need for rescue, the homeschooling, bread-baking, devotion-reading mom who attends her local church faithfully (while trusting in her own goodness) will choke on the humiliating message of gospel rescue. Rescue? Why would she need rescuing?

Since the day that our forefather and mother were exiled out of the garden of Eden, we’ve been lost, trying to get back in, trying to find oneness with each other and the Lord, trying to find communion, our way home. We’ve been trying to be found. The truth is that without Christ, we are utterly alone, and our attempts to fill our hours with goodies or texting or work or even ministry are simply futile attempts to assure ourselves that things aren’t so bad after all. But at the end of the day, in the middle of the night, and at the end of our lives, without the love and work of Jesus Christ, the God-man, we are alone and we know it—and it terrifies us. Every one of us is standing on that darkened stage, condemned, lost and wandering, needing to be found.

think it’s very easy for me to focus my attention on myself. I don’t mean that I just sit around thinking about me and how wonderful I am (although I’m not above that!). No, I mean that I tend to focus my thought on my Christianity—how I’m doing, what I’m learning, how my prayer time was today, how I avoided that pesky sin or fell into it again. I think about what I’m supposed to accomplish for Christ, and I interact with others on that same works-oriented ground. But this day isn’t about me at all. It’s about him: his sinless life, death, resurrection, ascension, and reign and the sure promise of his return. It’s the gravity of his life that should attract my thought toward him.

Our beliefs about the sources of joy are frequently experienced as colored imaginations that captivate our hearts.

Our Father doesn't want us to move on, "maturing" past his Son. In point of fact, our Father is intent that we recognize that he has ordered his universe so that it revolves around his beloved One-not around ourselves, our desires, or even our good works done in his name. So, let me ask you: Is he the supremely honored center of your being? Is he the incomparable, unparalleled, unrivaled sun around whom your life orbits?

Long-term, sustained, gospel-motivated obedience can come only from faith in what Jesus has already done, not fear of what we must do. Any obedience not grounded in or motivated by the gospel is unsustainable. No matter how hard you try, how “radical” you get, any engine that you’re depending on for power to obey that is smaller than the gospel will conk out in due time.

We need the gospel of grace and the grace of the gospel. Children can’t use the law any more than we can, because they will respond to it the same way we do. They’ll ignore it or bend it or obey it outwardly for selfish purposes, but this one thing is certain: they won’t obey it from the heart, because they can’t. That’s why Jesus had to die.

God doesn’t smile at us one day and frown when we blow it the next. When our children have been given the gift of Christian righteousness, God is always smiling at them because he sees them in his Son.

Jesus is the Master Gardener. He’s the Second Adam, the true and obedient Son of God, tasked with caring for God’s garden and protecting it from evil, fulfilling the mandates God had given in the beginning, mandates Adam failed to complete (Genesis 1:28).11

There’s not a place in our lives that has more power to shape us, to build us up, or to destroy us than home.

Because we were made for him, any place where he isn’t will never satisfy us. In

We are sinful and flawed but loved and welcomed.

The outward transformation of our feelings and actions is accomplished through the inner transformation of our mind.

The only way that we can change our feelings is by changing our core beliefs and the thoughts that occupy our minds.

The realization that his love is never ending is a balm to our souls, bringing the joy, comfort, and assurance that is our very lifeblood as we fight for holiness