A Quote by Charles Portis

You must pay for everything in this world one way and another. There is nothing free except the Grace of God. You cannot earn that or deserve it. — © Charles Portis
You must pay for everything in this world one way and another. There is nothing free except the Grace of God. You cannot earn that or deserve it.
Grace is something you can never get but can only be given. There's no way to earn it or deserve it or bring it about anymore than you can deserve the taste of raspberries and cream or earn good looks. A good night's sleep is grace and so are good dreams. Most tears are grace. The smell of rain is grace. Somebody loving you is grace.
The gospel costs nothing. We cannot buy it or earn it. It can only be received as a free gift, compliments of God’s grace. So it costs nothing, but it demands everything. And that is where most of us get stuck — spiritual no-man’s-land. We’re too Christian to enjoy sin and too sinful to enjoy Christ. We’ve got just enough Jesus to be informed, but not enough to be transformed.
Perhaps the most difficult task for us to perform is to rely on God’s grace and God’s grace alone for our celebration. It is difficult for our pride to rest on grace. Grace is for other people—for beggars. We don’t want to live by a heavenly welfare system. We want to earn our own way and atone for our own sins. We like to think that we will go to heaven because we deserve to be there.
I think when you look at every other religion all over the world - its works based - you have to earn your way to the Kingdom. With Jesus, it's so different because we, Christians, didn't do anything to deserve Him. He literally died for us and saved us! There's nothing else like that in the world. There is no other God like that! That's why I believe in Him! And I'm thankful its not up to me, because I fail every single day but He's there to give us grace - and that's an amazing thing!
If you are a success in life, there are places you must go and pay to be humiliated. It is an unwritten law that human beings must be tormented throughout their lives in one way or another. If you are fortunate enough to have risen to a social level where no one does it to you for free, then you must pay for the service.
Grace comes free of charge to people who do not deserve it and I am one of those people... Now I am trying in my own small way to pipe the tune of grace. I do so because I know, more surely than I know anything, that any pang of healing or forgiveness or goodness I have ever felt comes solely from the grace of God.
The inner man cannot be forced to do out of his own free will, what he should do, except the grace of God change the heart and make it willing.
Things of heaven cannot be obtained by perseverance; they are the grace of God. To open to this and trust in it is how belief is crystallized into faith. We cannot pay for it in any form, in any way, by our goodness, by our piety, by our great qualities, merits, or virtues; nothing. It is a gift, and all we can do is receive it.
What is 'grace'? It is God's own life, shared by us. God's life is love. Deus caritas est. By grace we are able to share in the infinitely selfless love of Him Who is such pure actuality that He needs nothing and therefore cannot conceivably exploit anything for selfish ends. Indeed, outside of Him there is nothing, and whatever exists exists by His free gift of its being, so that one of the notions that is absolutely contradictory to the perfection of God is selfishness.
I think first and foremost when you look at every other religion all over the world - its works based - you have to earn your way to the Kingdom. With Jesus, it's so different because we didn't do anything to deserve Him. He literally died for us and saved us! There's nothing else like that in the world. There is no other God like that!
The cost of redemption cannot be overstated. The wonders of grace cannot be overemphasized. Christ took the hell He didn't deserve so we could have the heaven we don't deserve.
Salvation is all about the grace of God. There is absolutely nothing that you can do to save yourself or earn God's favor.
Let them no more say, God must do all, we can do nothing, and so encourage themselves to live in a careless neglect of God, and of their own souls, and salvation. Most certainly, altho' we cannot say, That if men improve their natural abilities as they ought to do, that grace will infallibly follow, yet there will not one sinner in all the reprobate world, stand forth at the day of judgment, and say, Lord, thou knowest I did all that possibly I could do, for the obtaining grace, and for all that, thou didst withhold it from me.
We cannot find God without God. We cannot reach God without God. We cannot satisfy God without God - which is another way of saying that all our seeking will fall short unless God starts and finishes the search. The decisive part of our seeking is not our human ascent to God, but His descent to us. Without God's descent there is no human ascent. The secret of the quest lies not in our brilliance but in His grace.
We should pray to be reconciled with God in everything so we can get grace to react in a godly way. Then you will be content with the way God does things for you in your life. If you are satisfied, you are satisfied, regardless of whether you are healthy, free, and active, or are limited in some way.
It is grace at the beginning, and grace at the end. So that when you and I come to lie upon our death beds, the one thing that should comfort and help and strengthen us there is the thing that helped us in the beginning. Not what we have been, not what we have done, but the Grace of God in Jesus Christ our Lord. The Christian life starts with grace, it must continue with grace, it ends with grace. Grace wondrous grace. By the grace of God I am what I am. Yet not I, but the Grace of God which was with me.
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