We live in an age where outsiders continually attack our religious freedom and desire to worship the one true God.
But we weren’t the first to experience such persecution, and we won’t be the last. During the civil rights movement, faith propelled Martin Luther King Jr. to seek justice. As we celebrate Martin Luther King today, here are seven quotes to encourage you through your storm.
1. “The God whom we worship is not a weak and incompetent God. He is able to beat back gigantic waves of opposition and to bring low prodigious mountains of evil. The ringing testimony of the Christian faith is that God is able.” —A Gift of Love: Sermons From Strength to Love and Other Preachings
2. “Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.” —The King Center
3. “Now there is a final reason I think that Jesus says, ‘Love your enemies.’ It is this: that love has within it a redemptive power. And there is a power there that eventually transforms individuals. Just keep being friendly to that person. Just keep loving them, and they can’t stand it too long. Oh, they react in many ways in the beginning. They react with guilt feelings, and sometimes they’ll hate you a little more at that transition period, but just keep loving them. And by the power of your love they will break down under the load. That’s love, you see. It is redemptive, and this is why Jesus says love. There’s something about love that builds up and is creative. There is something about hate that tears down and is destructive. So love your enemies.” —A Knock at Midnight: Inspiration from the Great Sermons of Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.
4. “By opening our lives to God in Christ, we become new creatures. This experience, which Jesus spoke of as the new birth, is essential if we are to be transformed nonconformists … Only through an inner spiritual transformation do we gain the strength to fight vigorously the evils of the world in a humble and loving spirit.” —Martin Luther King Jr.
5. “Courage is an inner resolution to go forward despite obstacles; Cowardice is submissive surrender to circumstances. Courage breeds creativity; Cowardice represses fear and is mastered by it. Cowardice asks the question, is it safe? Expediency asks the question, is it politic? Vanity asks the question, is it popular? But conscience ask the question, is it right? And there comes a time when we must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but one must take it because it is right.” —Martin Luther King Jr.
6. “If any earthly institution or custom conflicts with God’s will, it is your Christian duty to oppose it. You must never allow the transitory, evanescent demands of man-made institutions to take precedence over the eternal demands of the Almighty God.” —Martin Luther King Jr.
7. “Use me, God. Show me how to take who I am, who I want to be, and what I can do, and use it for a purpose greater than myself.” —Martin Luther King Jr.
