Becoming a Face of Grace Quotes

“Grace means that you and I are special and favorite to God without having to earn it. In other words, we are God’s favorites – and so is everyone else.”
― Ed Khouri, Becoming a Face of Grace: Navigating Lasting Relationship with God and Others

“Jesus: “If you should be loving me, you will be keeping my precepts.” (John 14:15, Concordant Literal New Testament.”
― Ed Khouri, Becoming a Face of Grace: Navigating Lasting Relationship with God and Others

“Attachment is the central organizing principle of the brain. We’re born with billions of neurons in our developing brain – and connections with other people guide the trillions of connections of interactions between those neurons. Grace-based, joyful attachments with others optimize these connections.”
― Ed Khouri, Becoming a Face of Grace: Navigating Lasting Relationship with God and Others

“Ever wonder where addictions are in the Bible? Check out Genesis 3! The first couple exploited the things God intended to be used for pleasure (trees, leaves, the garden and each other) and used them to hide, cover shame, and then blamed others for the problem. Things haven’t changed much in many thousands of years!”
― Ed Khouri, Becoming a Face of Grace: Navigating Lasting Relationship with God and Others

“The story of The Fall in Genesis 3 is a story of the kind of betrayal that happens when grace-filled attachment ceases to be our primary guidance system for life.”
― Ed Khouri, Becoming a Face of Grace: Navigating Lasting Relationship with God and Others

“Trinitarian relationships are particularly important to the brain. Grace-filled interactions with two people are necessary for our brain and identity to become stable and complete. Neuroscientists call these “three-way bonds” or “family bonds.”
― Ed Khouri, Becoming a Face of Grace: Navigating Lasting Relationship with God and Others

“It is outrageously foolish to dismiss relationships as “fluff” or “nice things to have.” God designed relationships to provide the central organizing experiences and the primary vehicle by which we learn to experience and respond to all of life.”
― Ed Khouri, Becoming a Face of Grace: Navigating Lasting Relationship with God and Others

“Abiding apprenticeship to Jesus protects us from religion’s common dysfunctions.”
― Ed Khouri, Becoming a Face of Grace: Navigating Lasting Relationship with God and Others

“When we function out of fear, we end up “doing the God thing” without God. Driven by fear, we opt for control and control numbs us to the value of relationships – especially our relationship with God.”
― Ed Khouri, Becoming a Face of Grace: Navigating Lasting Relationship with God and Others

“The alternative to apprenticeship is life under self-imposed religious legalism. It sounds like, “I don’t really want to know the Master, just tell me what to do.” That was sad story of the Pharisees who thought it would be better to crucify Jesus than allow challenge to their legalism.”
― Ed Khouri, Becoming a Face of Grace: Navigating Lasting Relationship with God and Others

“Ongoing apprenticeship is crucial because it forms a relational connection between Jesus and us, His followers. Whatever language you choose, apprenticeship/discipleship is picture of the same process. It’s less “knowing about,” and more “knowing for yourself.” The experience engages our whole hearts the process of relating and refining in love.”
― Ed Khouri, Becoming a Face of Grace: Navigating Lasting Relationship with God and Others

“Isn’t our goal to become increasingly like Jesus? We get to know the Master because we live with him. As apprentices you and I can’t have a relationship with Him just because we have read a book about his way of life. While I may admire the man, that is like saying I am like Winston Churchill just because I read one of his memoirs.”
― Ed Khouri, Becoming a Face of Grace: Navigating Lasting Relationship with God and Others

“Life played God’s way is a relational sport. Played well, it volleys back and for the between the Trinity and us, between us and others. Discipleship has been given to the grace training we undergo; this implies that we are intentional about processes of learning, self-discipline, and life application as is led by God.”
― Ed Khouri, Becoming a Face of Grace: Navigating Lasting Relationship with God and Others

“We are Trinity-designed for Trinity life because we have the same relational design.”
― Ed Khouri, Becoming a Face of Grace: Navigating Lasting Relationship with God and Others

“Grace means that you and I are special and favorite to God without having to earn it. In other words, we are God’s favorites – and so is everyone else.”
― Ed Khouri, Becoming a Face of Grace: Navigating Lasting Relationship with God and Others

“When grace-filled relationships are the greatest joy in life, the artificial high that addictions bring lose their pull. Grace is not just something “nice.” It is essential for a healthy brain and life-giving relationships.”
― Ed Khouri, Becoming a Face of Grace: Navigating Lasting Relationship with God and Others

“Grace is not just something that is good for us spiritually; grace actually changes the way our brain works.”
― Ed Khouri, Becoming a Face of Grace: Navigating Lasting Relationship with God and Others

“Grace is the God-given gift of intended, unearned relationship with Him as His special and favorite daughter or son.”
― Ed Khouri, Becoming a Face of Grace: Navigating Lasting Relationship with God and Others

“The amazing thing about God’s relational grace is that His love and care are never diminished. Because of His infinite, unlimited capacity, we are each God’s favorite at the same time. In actuality, our status as His favorite multiplies, allowing amazing things to happen when two or three are gathered." (Matthew 18:20).”
― Ed Khouri, Becoming a Face of Grace: Navigating Lasting Relationship with God and Others

“For people who follow Jesus—actually, even for those who don’t— grace is foundational for everything. Specifically, for those who call themselves Christian, grace is the launch point for each and every faith journey. It is how God loves, gives to, and guides us.”
― Ed Khouri, Becoming a Face of Grace: Navigating Lasting Relationship with God and Others

“For people who follow Jesus—actually, even for those who don’t— grace is foundational for everything. Specifically, for those who call themselves Christian, grace is the launch point for each
and every faith journey. It is how God loves, gives to, and guides us.”
― Ed Khouri, Becoming a Face of Grace: Navigating Lasting Relationship with God and Others

“Grace is not an abstract theological concept—it is a relational reality that can be shared when people interact, face-to- face, in an ongoing relationship.”
― Ed Khouri, Becoming a Face of Grace: Navigating Lasting Relationship with God and Others

“When we operate out of fear, our identity and behavior get “stuck”—miring us in compromise and false religion.”
― Ed Khouri, Becoming a Face of Grace: Navigating Lasting Relationship with God and Others

“To become a disciple isn’t something you and I drift into. It is Someone we attach to.”
― Ed Khouri, Becoming a Face of Grace: Navigating Lasting Relationship with God and Others

“Grace is the glue of healthy, life-giving connections with God and with others. It is foundational to the creation of deep and enduring attachments that help us grow increasingly secure in love.”
― Ed Khouri, Becoming a Face of Grace: Navigating Lasting Relationship with God and Others

“Grace, understood for all its fullness, is nothing if not relational. It’s rarely experienced when combing the dusty shelves of theological libraries compiled over centuries by post-Reformation scholars. In its most profound form, grace is a relational truth you and I experience (or don’t) in the context of our face-to-face interactions with others.”
― Ed Khouri, Becoming a Face of Grace: Navigating Lasting Relationship with God and Others

“Before we ever exhibit any change or do anything, grace is an ongoing invitation to live in response to the Lord’s divined delight in you and me.”
― Ed Khouri, Becoming a Face of Grace: Navigating Lasting Relationship with God and Others

“Who – or what – we’re attached to has more to do with changing our behavior than what we know.”
― Ed Khouri, Becoming a Face of Grace: Navigating Lasting Relationship with God and Others