The greatest moment of your life is now. This moment is God's irreplaceable gift to you.
Over and over in the Bible, it is fear that threatens to keep people from trusting and obeying God.
In reality, each thought we have carries with it a little spiritual power, a tug toward or away from God. No thought is purely neutral.
We must assess our thoughts and beliefs and reckon whether they are moving us closer to conformity to Christ or farther away from it.
Over time, grit is what separates fruitful lives from aimlessness.
Skepticism can keep us from blessing, can keep us trapped in two minds.
Scratch the surface of any cynic, and you will find a wounded idealist underneath. Because of previous pain or disappointment, cynics make their conclusions about life before the questions have even been asked. This means that beyond just seeing what is wrong with the world, cynics lack the courage to do something about it. The dynamic beneath cynicism is a fear of accepting responsibility.
I need to learn. Joy is at the heart of God's plan for human beings. The reason for this is worth pondering awhile: Joy is at the heart of God himself. We will never understand the significance of joy in human life until we understand its importance to God. I suspect that most of us seriously underestimate God's capacity for joy.
Disciplined people can do the right thing at the right time in the right way for the right reason.
Jesus ... associated with the outcasts; he spoke with them, touched them, ate with them, loved them.
Sheldon Vanauken wrote that the strongest argument for Christianity is Christians, when they are drawing life from God. The strongest argument against Christianity? Also Christians, when they become exclusive, self-righteous, and complacent.
Waiting on the Lord is a confident, disciplined, expectant, active, sometimes painful clinging to God.
There is something you can't fix, can't heal, or can't escape, and all you can do it trust God. Finding ultimate refuge in God means you become so immersed in his presence, so convinced of his goodness, so devoted to his lordship that you find even the cave is a perfectly safe place to be because he is there with you.
Self-improveme nt is no more God's plan than self-salvation.
The greatest bloodbaths in the history of the human race were recorded in the twentieth century in countries that sought to eliminate God, worship, and faith.
If I have the courage to acknowledge my limits and embrace them, I can experience enormous freedom. If I lack this courage, I will be imprisoned by them.
Will you keep going when you don't know why? When you can't get any answers that would make the pain go away, will you still say, 'My Lord,' even though his ways are not clear to you? Will you keep going-with all the grace and grit and faith you can muster-and live in hope that one day God will set everything right. Will you trust that God is good? ... Ultimately, the choice everyone faces is the choice between hope and despair. Jesus says, 'Choose hope.'
If you want to do the work of God, pay attention to people. Notice them. Especially the people nobody else notices.
One of the hardest things in the world is to stop being the prodigal son without turning into the elder brother.
Failure does not shape you; the way you respond to failure shapes you.
True repentance never leads to despair. Its leads home. It leads to grace.
We are tempted to live under the illusion that somewhere out there are people who are normal.
How hard is it for God to get your attention? Do you regularly practice turning aside in your day? That is, taking a moment to listen to God- because God, through the Holy Spirit, really is speaking, because we know, every place is filled with the presence of God. There is not an inch of space, not a moment of time, that God does not inhabit.
Peace doesn't come from finding a lake with no storms. It comes from having Jesus in the boat.
Sloth is the failure to do what needs to be done when it needs to be done - like the kamikaze pilot who flew seventeen missions.
People who are servants-humbly, honestly, and joyfully-keep getting revealed as the biggest winners. People who recognize and embrace their smallness keep getting bigger and bigger in God's eyes. It's the oddest scoring system.
Acceptance is an act of the heart. To accept someone is to affirm to them that you think it's a very good thing they are alive.
At the deepest level, pride is the choice to exclude both God and other people from their rightful place in our hearts. Jesus said the essence of the spiritual life is to love God and to love people. Pride destroys our capacity to love.
Every human being who has ever lived has suffered from a messiah complex-except one.
Love and hurry are fundamentally incompatible. Love always takes time, and time is the one thing hurried people don't have.
Ironically, often the thing that keeps me from experiencing joy is my preoccupation with self. The very selfishness that keeps me from pouring myself out for the joy of others also keeps me from noticing and delighting in the myriad small gifts God offers each day. This is why Walker Percy describes boredom as "the self stuffed with the self."
To love someone is to desire and work toward their becoming the best version of themselves. The one person in all the universe who can do this perfectly for you is God.
The most frequent promise in the Bible is ‘I will be with you.’
If ever there were a true "just as I am" church, if ever there were a community where everybody could bring all their baggage and brokenness with them without neat and tidy happy endings quite yet, if ever there was a group where everyone was loved and no one pretended - we could not make enough room inside the building.
There is such a love, a love that creates value in what is loved. There is a love that turns rag dolls into priceless treasures. There is a love that fastens itself onto ragged little creatures, for reasons that no one could ever quite figure out, and makes them precious and valued beyond calculation. This is love beyond reason. This is the love of God.
To become truly free, you must surrender.
A bad sermon is like a car wreck - everyone slows down to see what happened.
The good news as Jesus preached it is not just about the minimal entrance requirements for getting into heaven when you die. It is about the glorious redemption of human life-your life.
Low self-esteem causes me to believe that I have so little worth that my response does not matter. With repentance, however, I understand that being worth so much to God is why my response is so important. Repentance is remedial work to mend our minds and hearts, which get bent by sin.
The most important task of your life is not what you do, but who you become.
For many of us the great danger is not that we will renounce our faith. It is that we will become so distracted and rushed and preoccupied that we will settle for a mediocre version of it.
The Holy Spirit will lead you to be with people as Jesus would be with them if He were in your place.
The entire life of Jesus isn't the story of somebody climbing up a ladder; it's a picture of someone coming down-a series of demotions. The problem with spending our lives climbing up the ladder is that we will go right past Jesus, for He's coming down.
Today, see each problem as an invitation to prayer.
True love is willing to warn, reprove, confront or admonish when necessary.
God is never a God of discouragement. When you have a discouraging spirit or train of thought in your mind, you can be sure it is not from God. He sometimes brings pain to his children-conviction over sin, or repentance over fallenness, or challenges that scare us, or visions of his holiness that overwhelm us. But God never brings discouragement.
Genuine brokenness pleases God more than pretend spirituality.
Gratitude is the ability to experience life as a gift. It liberates us from the prison of self-preoccupation.
Leadership is the art of disappointing people at a rate they can stand.
We'd like to be humble...but what if no one notices?
To become grateful, I must learn that I can handle disappointment and delayed gratification with grace and perseverance. This is why practices such as fasting and simplicity are such powerful tools for transformation. The experience of frustration and disappointment is irreplaceable in the development of a grateful heart.
Skeptics would rather, even at their own expense, appear to be right than take the risk of trusting.
Habits eat good intentions for breakfast.
It's better to have the faith to embrace reality with all its pain than to cling to the false comfort of a painless fantasy.
Both hope and pessimism are deeply contagious. And no one is more infectious than a leader.
The goal of prayer is to live all of my life and speak all of my words in the joyful awareness of the presence of God. Prayer becomes real when we grasp the reality and goodness of God's constant presence with 'the real me.' Jesus lived his everyday life in conscious awareness of his Father.
The soul seeks God with its whole being. Because it is desperate to be whole, the soul is God-smitten and God-crazy and God-obsessed. My mind may be obsessed with idols; my will may be enslaved to habits; my body may be consumed with appetites. But my soul will never find rest until it rests in God.
Prayer allows us to wait without worry.
Solitude is the one place where we can gain freedom from the forces of society that will otherwise relentlessly mold us. Solitude requires relentless perseverance.
Imagine watching all that God might have done with your life if you had let him.
The Bible does not say you are God’s appliance; it says you are his masterpiece. Appliances get mass-produced.
It may be a very bad thing that I needed God to die for me, but it is a wonderful thing that God thinks I am worth dying for.
What matters is not the accomplishments you achieve; what matters is the person you become.
I hate how hard spiritual transformation is and how long it takes. I hate thinking about how many people have gone to church for decades and remain joyless or judgmental or bitter or superior.
True joy, as it turns out, comes only to those who have devoted their lives to something greater than personal happiness. This is most visible in extraordinary lives, in saints and martyrs. But it is no less true for ordinary people like us.
One of the great illusions of our time is that hurrying will buy us more time.
God is a God of endless opportunities to do good; the God of the open door.
The test of love is that it gives even when there is no expectation of a return.
If we do not become changed from the inside-out - if we don't morph - we will be tempted to find external methods to satisfy our need to feel that we're different from those outside the faith. If we cannot be transformed, we will settle for being informed or conformed.
Jesus changed how the world thinks about science, medicine, human rights, education & more.
Your world could grow infinitely bigger if you were only willing to become...appropri ately small.
Everybody wears an unseen sign that reads: Inspire me. Remind me that my life matters; call me to be my best self; appeal to whatever in me is most noble and honorable. Don't let me go down the path of least resistance. Challenge me to make my life about something more than the acquisition of money or success
The possibility of transformation is the essence of hope.
Grace is the offer of God's ceaseless presence and irrational love that cannot be stopped.
Biblically, waiting is not just something we have to do until we get what we want. Waiting is part of the process of becoming what God wants us to be.
Willpower is trying very hard not to do something you want to do very much.
Too often we argue about Christianity instead of marveling at Jesus.
Joylessness may be the sin most readily tolerated by the church.
Never worry alone. When anxiety grabs my mind, it is self-perpetuating. Worrisome thoughts reproduce faster than rabbits, so one of the most powerful ways to stop the spiral of worry is simply to disclose my worry to a friend... The simple act of reassurance from another human being [becomes] a tool of the Spirit to cast out fear -- because peace and fear are both contagious.
There is no way for a human being to come to God that does not involve surrender.
God sees with utter clarity who we are. He is undeceived as to our warts and wickedness. But when God looks at us that is not all He sees. He also sees who we are intended to be, who we will one day become.
The goal is not for us to get through the Scriptures. The goal is to get the Scriptures through us.
In a contagious world,we learn to keep our distance. If we get too close to those who are suffering, we might get infected by their pain. It may not be convenient or comfortable. But only when you get close enough to catch their hurt will they be close enough to catch your love.
We must learn to cast off our anxieties because we have so many of them. The world destroys spiritual life by generating constant anxiety. Jesus said that the life of the gospel is choked out by the cares of this world. We know this to be true yet we are more chained and tethered to the world than ever before in the human race.
Every day you and I walk through God's shop. Every day we brush up against objects of incalculable worth to Him. People. Every one of them carries a price tag, if only we could see it.
I need to worship because without it I can forget that I have a Big God beside me and live in fear. I need to worship because without it I can forget his calling and begin to live in a spirit of self-preoccupation. I need to worship because without it I lose a sense of wonder and gratitude and plod through life with blinders on. I need worship because my natural tendency is toward self-reliance and stubborn independence.
The ministry of bearing with one another is learning to hear God speak through difficult people.
I'm more concerned about who you're becoming than what you're doing.
Hurry is not just a disordered schedule. Hurry is a disordered heart.
Normally, if someone's legacy will outlast their life, it's apparent when they die. On the day when Alexander the Great, or Caesar Augustus, or Napoleon, or Socrates, or Muhammad died, their reputations were immense. When Jesus died, his tiny, failed movement appeared clearly at an end.
For the soul to be well, it needs to be with God.
You must arrange your days so that you are experiencing deep contentment, joy and confidence in your everyday life with God.
There is a world of difference between being friendly to someone because they're useful to you and being someone's friend.
One of the great misconceptions about spiritual growth that develops in a lot of churches is that information alone is adequate to produce transformed human beings. So if we want to have a church of spiritually mature people, let's just keep cramming more and more information into them... Information alone is not adequate for the transformation of the human personality.
Having faith does not mean never having doubts or questions. It does mean remaining obedient.
God has entrusted us with his most precious treasure - people. He asks us to shepherd and mold them into strong disciples, with brave faith and good character.
When I repent, here is where it starts. I try to name my sin as honestly and as specifically as possible. Here is what repenting is not. It is not excusing my sin, minimizing my sin, it's not rationalizing my sin ... Repentance is getting painfully honest with God.
It only makes sense to ask God for guidance in the context of a life committed to "seeking first the kingdom."
Many Christians expend so much energy and worry trying not to sin. The goal is not to try to sin less. In all your efforts to keep from sinning, what are you focusing on? Sin. God wants you to focus on him. To be with him. “Abide in me.” Just relax and learn to enjoy his presence. Every day is a collection of moments, 86,400 seconds in a day. How many of them can you live with God? Start where you are and grow from there. God wants to be with you every moment.
The decision to grow always involves a choice between risk and comfort. This means that to be a follower of Jesus, you must renounce comfort as the ultimate value of your life.
As long as we have unsolved problems, unfulfilled desires, and a mustard seed of faith, we have all we need for a vibrant prayer life.
Greatness is never achieved through indecision.
Peace does not lie in getting God to give me other circumstances. Peace lies in finding God in these circumstances.
Make your life about something bigger than your life.
Your Mission starts where you are,Not where you think you should be.Sometimes we're tempted to think that our current position/job/situation is a barrier to our mission, but, in fact, it is where it starts.
What repeatedly enters your mind and occupies your mind, eventually shapes your mind, and will ultimately express itself in what you do and who you become.
God wishes to be seen, wishes to be sought, wishes to be expected, and wishes to be trusted.
There is a immense difference between training to do something and trying to do something....Sp iritual transformation is not a matter of trying harder, but of training wisely.... Following Jesus simply means learning from him how to arrange my life around activities that enable me to live in the fruit of the Spirit
Jesus is mysterious not just because of what we don't know about him, but because of what we do know about him.
If you want to walk on water, you have to get out of the boat.
The problem with spending your life climbing up the ladder is that you will go right past Jesus, for he's coming down.
God is still in the business of coming down to earth: to this cubicle, this email, this room, this house, this job, this hospital room, this car, this bed, this vacation. Any place can become Bethel, the house of God. Cleveland, maybe. Or the chair you're sitting in as you read these words.
The church is in the hope business.
If you can't do great things, Mother Teresa used to say, do little things with great love. If you can't do them with great love, do them with a little love. If you can't do them with a little love, do them anyway. Love grows when people serve.
We tend to be preoccupied by our problems when we have a heightened sense of vulnerability and a diminished sense of power. Today, see each problem as an invitation to prayer.
When we live in the love of God, we begin to pay attention to people the way God pays attention to us.
Never try to have more faith - just get to know God better. And because God is faithful, the better you know Him, the more you'll trust Him.
A boss who interrupts an employee a lot is called an extrovert, whereas an employee who interrupts a boss too often is called an ex-employee.
If we are serious about loving God, we must begin with people, all people. And especially we must learn to love those that the world generally discards.
God is not interested in our spiritual life. He's interested in our life.
The main measure of your devotion to God is not your devotional life. It is simply your life.
Wise people build their lives around what is eternal and squeeze in what is temporary. Not the other way around.
Prudence is not hesitation, procrastination, or moderation. It is not driving in the middle of the road. It is not the way of ambivalence, indecision, or safety.
We may be unlovely yet we are not unloved.
Who you become while you're waiting is as important as what you're waiting for.
