Top 450 Timothy Keller Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “The gospel is this: We are more sinful and flawed in ourselves than we ever dared believe, yet at the very same time we are more loved and accepted in Jesus Christ than we ever dared hope.”

— Timothy Keller

Featured in: Christian Quotes, Scripture Quotes, Sunday Quotes, Faith Quotes, Grace Quotes

2. “How Religion Works: If I obey, then God will love and accept me. The Gospel: I’m loved and accepted, therefore I wish to obey.”

— Timothy Keller

Featured in: Faith Quotes, Salvation Quotes

3. “God sees us as we are, loves us as we are, and accepts us as we are. But by His grace, He does not leave us as we are.”

— Timothy Keller

Featured in: Christian Quotes, Transformation Quotes, Sunday Morning Quotes, Grace Quotes

4. “The Gospel is that Jesus Christ came to earth, lived the life we should have lived and died the death we should have died.”

— Timothy Keller

Featured in: Faith Quotes, Grace Quotes, Salvation Quotes, Sacrifice Quotes

5. “Jesus Christ did not suffer so that you would not suffer. He suffered so that when you suffer, you’ll become more like him. The gospel does not promise you better life circumstances; it promises you a better life.”

— Timothy Keller

Featured in: Life is Hard Quotes, Discipleship Quotes, Suffering Quotes

6. “Love without truth is sentimentality; it supports and affirms us but keeps us in denial about our flaws. Truth without love is harshness; it gives us information but in such a way that we cannot really hear it.”

— Timothy Keller

Featured in: Marriage Quotes

7. “Worry is not believing God will get it right, and bitterness is believing God got it wrong.”

— Timothy Keller

8. “What is an idol? It is anything more important to you than God, anything that absorbs your heart and imagination more than God, anything you seek to give you what only God can give.”

— Timothy Keller

9. “You are more sinful than you could dare imagine and you are more loved and accepted than you could ever dare hope.”

— Timothy Keller

Featured in: Grace Quotes, You Are Loved Quotes

10. “The church is not a museum for pristine saints, but a hospital ward for broken sinners.”

— Timothy Keller

Featured in: Grace Quotes

11. “Religious people find God useful. Gospel people find him beautiful.”

— Timothy Keller

12. “The sin that is most destructive in your life right now is the one you are most defensive about.”

— Timothy Keller

13. “The Christian gospel is that I am so flawed that Jesus had to die for me, yet I am so loved and valued that Jesus was glad to die for me.”

— Timothy Keller

14. “It is not the strength of your faith but the object of your faith that actually saves you.”

— Timothy Keller

15. “God’s reckless grace is our greatest hope.”

— Timothy Keller

Featured in: Grace Quotes

16. “If our identity is in our work, rather than Christ, success will go to our heads, and failure will go to our hearts.”

— Timothy Keller

17. “The church does not simply have a missions department; it should wholly exist to be a mission.”

— Timothy Keller

18. “Idolatry happens when we take good things and make them ultimate things.”

— Timothy Keller

19. “The only person who dares wake up a king at 3:00 AM for a glass of water is a child. We have that kind of access.”

— Timothy Keller

20. “God will only give you what you would have asked for if you knew everything he knows.”

— Timothy Keller

21. “We can only grasp the gospel’s sweetness if we first grapple with its offense- you can’t save yourself.”

— Timothy Keller

Featured in: Firsts Quotes

22. “Job never saw why he suffered, but he saw God, and that was enough.”

— Timothy Keller

23. “Everyone worships something. The only choice you get is what to worship.”

— Timothy Keller

24. “Putting our faith in Christ is not about trying harder; it means transferring our trust away from ourselves and resting in him.”

— Timothy Keller

25. “A lack of generosity refuses to acknowledge that your assets are not really yours, but God’s.”

— Timothy Keller

26. “Freedom is not the absence of limitations and constraints but it is finding the right ones, those that fit our nature and liberate us.”

— Timothy Keller

27. “If your god never disagrees with you, you might just be worshipping an idealized version of yourself.”

— Timothy Keller

28. “Friendship is a deep oneness that develops when two people, speaking the truth in love to one another, journey together to the same horizon.”

— Timothy Keller

29. “We were designed to know, serve, and love God supremely – and when we are faithful to that design, we flourish.”

— Timothy Keller

30. “When pain and suffering come upon us, we finally see not only that we are not in control of our lives but that we never were.”

— Timothy Keller

31. “Prayer is the way to experience a powerful confidence that God is handling our lives well, that our bad things will turn out for good, our good things cannot be taken from us, and the best things are yet to come.”

— Timothy Keller

32. “The peace of God is not the absence of fear. It, in fact, is His presence.”

— Timothy Keller

33. “God is so committed to your ultimate joy that he was willing to plunge into the greatest depths of suffering himself for you.”

— Timothy Keller

Featured in: Suffering Quotes

34. “Prayer-though it is often draining, even an agony-is in the long term the greatest source of power that is possible.”

— Timothy Keller

35. “Suffering can refine us rather than destroy us because God himself walks with us in the fire.”

— Timothy Keller

36. “If God is not at the center of your life, something else is.”

— Timothy Keller

37. “The resurrection makes Christianity the most irritating religion on the face of the earth.”

— Timothy Keller

38. “Tolerance isn’t about not having beliefs. It’s about how your beliefs lead you to treat people who disagree with you.”

— Timothy Keller

39. “In the original language, ‘Fear the Lord’ doesn’t mean be afraid. It means sustaining a joyful, astonished awe, and wonder before Him.”

— Timothy Keller

40. “Discipleship is not an option. Jesus says that if anyone would come after me, he must follow me.”

— Timothy Keller

41. “Pride is the carbon-monoxide of Sin. It silently and slowly kills you without you even knowing.”

— Timothy Keller

42. “The doctrine of grace and redemption keeps us from seeing any person or situation as hopeless.”

— Timothy Keller

43. “If Jesus rose from the dead, then you have to accept all that he said; if he didn’t rise from the dead, then why worry about any of what he said? The issue on which everything hangs is not whether or not you like his teaching but whether or not he rose from the dead.”

— Timothy Keller

44. “The gospel is an exclusive truth but it’s the most inclusive exclusive truth in the world.”

— Timothy Keller

45. “If God exists then every good endeavor, even the simplest ones, pursued in response to God’s calling can matter forever.”

— Timothy Keller

46. “Christmas means Jesus came down and got involved in suffering. He hears your cries.”

— Timothy Keller

47. “Religion makes us proud of what we have done. The Gospel makes us proud of what Jesus has done.”

— Timothy Keller

48. “Think like a prophet, serve like a priest, and plan like a king.”

— Timothy Keller

49. “Prayer turns theology into experience.”

— Timothy Keller

50. “Without the gospel we hate ourselves instead of our sin.”

— Timothy Keller