Lewis B. Smedes Quotes

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Lewis B. Smedes

Profession : Author

Birth : August 20, 1921

To forgive is to set a prisoner free and realize that prisoner was you.

Lewis B. Smedes

Forgiving does not erase the bitter past. A healed memory is not a deleted memory. Instead, forgiving what we cannot forget creates a new way to remember. We change the memory of our past into a hope for our future.

Lewis B. Smedes

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

You will know that forgiveness has begun when you recall those who hurt you and feel the power to wish them well.

Lewis B. Smedes

Nobody sees reality whole; we all need others to show us the parts of it that they see better than we do. Nobody sees reality with total accuracy; we all need others to correct our own vision.

Lewis B. Smedes

The lies we tell ourselves are the most subtle of all lies.

Lewis B. Smedes

Seeing reality for what it is is what we call discernment. The work of discernment is very hard.

Lewis B. Smedes

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

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

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

The Holy Spirit, thank God, often enables people to forgive even though they are not sure how they did it.

Lewis B. Smedes

The blood of Christ covers all of our sins, but each of us must do personal business with God in order to experience his forgiveness.

Lewis B. Smedes

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

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

Forgiving is love's toughest work, and love's biggest risk.

Lewis B. Smedes

Some people have loved ones they will not forsake, even though they are a pain in the neck.

Lewis B. Smedes

The right to personal privacy is precious. Without it, we are all potential victims for a prying secret police.

Lewis B. Smedes

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

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

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