Mark Batterson Quotes

...we are overwhelmed with information and dying for wisdom.
Mark Batterson
If you aren't hungry for God, you are full of yourself. That's why God cannot fill you with His Spirit. But if you will empty yourself, if you will die to self, you'll be a different person by the time you reach the last page of this book.
Mark Batterson
...if you give all of yourself to God, you can ask and expect that God will give all of Himself to you because that's precisely what He wants to do. We have not because we ask not, and we ask not because we're not all in!
Mark Batterson
The blessings of God will complicate your life, but unlike sin, they will complicate your life in the way it should be complicated.
Mark Batterson
The goal of marriage is not happiness, it is holiness...There is no mechanism whereby God can sanctify a person more than having them live in close proximity to another imperfect person....Our fundamental problem is that we are selfish. Marriage is the means whereby God eradicates our selfishness because it is not about "me" anymore, i t is about "we.
Mark Batterson
At its core, sinfulness is selfishness. It's enthroning yourself - your desires, your needs, your plans - above all else. You may still seek God, but you don't seek Him first. You seek Him second or third or seventh. You may sing "Jesus at the center of it all," but what you really want is for people to bow down to you as you bow down to Christ. It's a subtle form of selfishness that masquerades as spirituality, but it's not Christ-centric. It's me-centric. It's less about us serving His purposes and more about Him serving our purposes.
Mark Batterson
Ryan-chasers have a life wish. They live life to the fullest because they are willing to look foolish.
Mark Batterson
Most God-ordained dreams die because we are not willing to do something that seems illogical
Mark Batterson
Potential is God's gift to you. What you do with it is your gift back to God.
Mark Batterson
If you really want to get good at anything, you've got to work at it for ten thousand hours.
Mark Batterson
It's not about success and failure. It's not about good days and bad days. It's not about wealth or poverty. It's not about health or sickness. It's not even about life or death. It's about glorifying God in whatever circumstance you find yourself in.
Mark Batterson
Nine times out of 10, criticism is a defense mechanism. We criticize in others what we don't like in ourselves.
Mark Batterson
That is the heavenly Father's deepest impulse toward us. You are the apple of His eye. And anyone who messes with you messes with Him. His protective instincts are most poignantly seen at the cross - the place where unconditional love and omnipotent power for the amalgam called amazing grace. That's where the Creator stepped between every fallen sinner and the fallen angel, Satan. That's where the Advocate took His stand against the Accuser of the brethren. The Sinless Son of God took the fall for us.The cross is God's way of saying, "You are worth dying for.
Mark Batterson
Dr. Neal Roese makes a fascinating distinction between two types of regret: regrets of action and regrets of inaction.
Mark Batterson
God is in the résumé-building business. He is always using past experiences to prepare us for future opportunities.
Mark Batterson
God is in the business of strategically positioning us in the right place at the right time. A sense of destiny is our birthright as followers of Christ. God is awfully good at getting us where He wants us to go. But here’s the catch: The right place often seems like the wrong place, and the right time often seems like the wrong time.
Mark Batterson
What sets lion chasers apart isn’t the outcome. It’s the courage to chase God-sized dreams.
Mark Batterson
...your life is your sermon...Are you a good translation?
Mark Batterson
The genealogy of blessing always traces back to God-ordained risk.
Mark Batterson
...there is nothing you possess that wasn't given to you by God. It's His prerogative to give. And it's His prerogative to take away. But there is one thing that can never be taken from you, and that is Jesus Christ. And if you have Jesus, then you have everything you will ever need for all of eternity.Everything - Jesus = NothingJesus + Nothing = EverythingIt's that simple.
Mark Batterson
Jesus proclaimed the favor of God in His very first sermon. Then He sealed the deal with His death and resurrection. Favor is a function of surrender. If we don't hold out on God, God will not hold out on us.
Mark Batterson
...the true value of an offering isn't measured by how much we give. It's measured by how much we keep...By definition, a sacrifice must involve sacrifice...
Mark Batterson
Put your Isaac on the altar! Then, and only then, will you see what God can do. He cannot give back what you do not give up. But if you surrender yourself to Him, He will provide the ram in the thicket.
Mark Batterson
Faith is unlearning this senseless worries and misguided beliefs that keep us captive. It is far more complex than simply modifying behavior. Faith is rewiring the human brain. We are literally upgrading our minds by downloading the mind of Christ.
Mark Batterson
The only God-ordained fear is the fear of God, and if we fear Him, we don't have to fear anyone or anything else.
Mark Batterson
How we spend our money, however little we have, still reveals what we value.
Mark Batterson
Worship is forgetting about what's wrong with you and remembering what's right with God.
Mark Batterson
The author gives an interesting naval etymology of the word "opportunity". It referred to days in which sailing ships had to wait outside a port for the appropriate tide, which then was their chance until the next tide.
Mark Batterson
As Edison is credited with saying, "Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work." We all want to be successful, but most of us aren't willing to do what those who are successful did to attain it. We want success without sacrifice, but you can't have one without the other!
Mark Batterson
Whatever you don't turn into praise turns into pride.
Mark Batterson
Pride is a by-product of insecurity. And the more insecure a person is, the more monuments they need to build.There is a fine line between 'Thy kingdom come' and 'my kingdom come.' If you cross the line, your relationship with God is self-serving.You aren't serving God. You are using God.You aren't building altars to God. You are building monuments to yourself.
Mark Batterson
...success is when those who know you best respect you most.
Mark Batterson
...we think so much about the present and so little about eternity that we turn eternity into nothing and nothing into eternity.
Mark Batterson
Death is a mirror that gives us a glimpse of who we really are.Death is a rearview mirror that puts the past into perspective.
Mark Batterson
we take some big miracles for granted. We're on a planet that's spinning at a thousand miles per hour, traveling through space and we don't worry about God keeping our planet in orbit. We already trust God for the big miracles like our heart beating and today alone, we'll take a thousand breaths, but can we trust Him in the smaller things?
Mark Batterson
We don't see the world as it is; we see the world as we are...if someone has a critical eye, they will always find something to be critical about. And if they have a grateful eye, they will find something to celebrate even in the worst of circumstances...Having a "good eye" in life changes how you see yourself and everything around you... your focus determines your reality.
Mark Batterson
Self-consciousness isn't just A curse. It is part of THE curse.
Mark Batterson
True knowledge should not produce pride; it should produce humility...Because the more you know, the more you know how much you don't know.
Mark Batterson
Why do we act as though our sin disqualifies us from the grace of God? That is the only thing that qualifies us! Anything else is a self-righteous attempt to earn God's grace. You cannot trust God's grace 99 percent. It's all or nothing. The problem, as I pointed out earlier, is that we want partial credit for our salvation. We want to be 1 percent of the equation. But if we try to save ourselves, we forfeit the salvation that comes from Jesus Christ alone, by grace through faith.
Mark Batterson
We live in a culture that celebrates talent more than integrity, but we've got it backward. Talent depreciates over time. So do intellect and appearance. You will eventually lose your strength and lose your looks. You may even lose your mind. But you don't have to lose your integrity. Integrity is the only thing that doesn't depreciate over time. Nothing takes longer to build than a godly reputation. And nothing is destroyed more quickly by one stroke of sin. That's why it must be celebrated and protected above all else.
Mark Batterson
Sin always overpromises and underdelivers, while righteousness pays dividends for eternity...Nothing is more illogical than sin. It's the epitome of poor judgment. It's temporary insanity with eternal consequences. And we have no alibi, save the cross of Jesus Christ.
Mark Batterson
Confession breaks the power of canceled sin. It also heals the broken heart.
Mark Batterson
If your deepest feelings are reserved for something other than Almighty God, then that something other is an emotional idol... if you get more excited about material things than the simple yet profound fact that your sin was nailed to the cross by the sinless Son of God, then you're bowing down to Tammuz.
Mark Batterson
The distance between your head and your heart is only twelve inches, but it's the difference between information and transformation. It's not enough to invite Jesus into your mind. You have to open the door to your heart of hearts. No door can remain locked. Even the door to your hidden room.Nothing entangles the emotions like sin. And if you sin long enough, it feels like a Gordian knot that seems impossible to untangle. But Jesus Christ went to the cross to undo what you have done. He broke the curse of sin so you can break the cycle of sin.
Mark Batterson
Even choosing to do nothing is still making a choice.
Mark Batterson
When we do what's right, regardless of circumstances or consequences, we set the table for God to turn the tables. All we need to do is stand up, step in, or step out.
Mark Batterson
God is great not just because nothing is too big for Him. God is great but because nothing is too small for Him either.
Mark Batterson
...each of us has an explanatory style... And our explanation is more important than the experience itself. In the words of Aldous Huxley, "Experience is not what happens to a man; it is what a man does with what happens to him.
Mark Batterson
Grace is loving people for who they are, where they are. It's loving people *before* they change, not just *after* they change. And that grace is the difference between holy and holier-than-thou. Holiness, in its purest form, is irresistible. That's why sinners couldn't be kept away from Jesus. Hypocrisy has the opposite effect. It's as repulsive to the irreligious as the Pharisees' religiosity was to Jesus.
Mark Batterson
The very nature of the gospel is Jesus inviting the disciples on an adventure. To do what they'd never done and go where they'd never gone. Never a dull moment! You cannot follow Jesus and be bored at the same time.
Mark Batterson
Part of discovering the adventure God has designed you for is learning how to frame it or reframe it.
Mark Batterson
You don't have to go looking for adventure. If you follow Jesus, adventure comes looking for you. Jesus didn't carry a cross to Calvary so that we could live a halfway life. He died so that we could come alive in the truest and fullest sense of the word.
Mark Batterson
Your ability to see failure as a necessary stepping stone directly correlates with your ability to dream bigger and dream better.
Mark Batterson
I want to go after dreams that are destined to fail without diving intervention.
Mark Batterson
You can be saved without suffering, but you cannot be sanctified without suffering. That doesn't mean you seek it out, but it does mean you see it for what it is. It's an opportunity to glorify God.
Mark Batterson
In God's kingdom, calling trumps credentials every time! God does not call the qualified. He qualifies the called. And the litmus test isn't experience or expertise. It's availability and teachability. If you are willing to go when God gives you a green light, He will take you to inaccessible places to do impossible things.
Mark Batterson
Going all in and all out for the All in All is both a death sentence and a life sentence. Your sinful nature, along with its selfish desires, is nailed to the cross. Then, and only then, does your true personality, your true potential, and your true purpose come alive. After all, God cannot resurrect what has not died. And that's why so many people are half alive. They haven't died to self yet.
Mark Batterson
Goal setting is good stewardship. Instead of letting things happen, goals help us make things happen. Instead of living by default, goals help us live by design. Instead of living out of memory, goals help us live out of imagination.
Mark Batterson
We are living in a time where the hearing from God is bombarded by many frequencies and voices. This noise, corrosive in nature, makes it difficult to hear God’s voice...living with more noise means we live less like a disciple. We need a prism. Eric Samuel Timm is a prism.
Mark Batterson
...love people when they least expect it and least deserve it. That is the kind of love Jesus shows to us.
Mark Batterson