Quotes by Pastors - Page 149

We need to abandon our scale and adopt God's because our misguided labels keep us from the right kind of interaction with people.
Judah Smith
Once you have seen his face you will forever long to see it again.
Max Lucado
But God does give us responsibility, and it takes biblical faith to do those things in dependence on God.
Craig Groeschel
Even in hardship, God’s goodness prevails.
Todd Stocker
God chose to save you for a purpose
Sunday Adelaja
We imagine that our theological/conceptual systems are the means by which we know God as God is. I truly believe that such postures and perspectives put us in danger of conceptual idolatry, worshiping our ideas of and frameworks for God.
Tim Keel
There is an old joke that went around- it goes, in the beginning God made man in His own image, and since the fall, man has been seeking to return the compliment.
Alistair Begg
An entire nation shook under the power of one man’s [MLK’s] dream! Now if one dream can do that for our nation, imagine what a dream can do for the Church.
Wayne Cordeiro
If anybody didn't have a messiah complex, it was Jesus
Rob Bell
Let every man abide in the calling wherein he is called and his work will be as sacred as the work of the ministry. It is not what a man does that determines whether his work is sacred or secular, it is why he does it.
A.W. Tozer
Let us practice the fine art of making every work a priestly ministration. Let us believe that God is in all our simple deeds and learn to find Him there.
A.W. Tozer
If you want to do the work of God, pay attention to people. Notice them. Especially the people nobody else notices.
John Ortberg
If it is true, if it is beautiful, if it is honorable, if it is right, then claim it. Because it is from God. And you belong to God.
Rob Bell
The primary purpose of reading the Bible is not to know the Bible but to know God.
James Merritt
Your call will become clear as as your mind is transformed by the reading of Scripture and the internal work of God's Spirit. The Lord never hides His will from us. In time, as you obey the call first to follow, your destiny will unfold before you. The difficulty will lie in keeping other concerns from diverting your attention.
Charles R. Swindoll
Behavior is the substance of religion. Belief is the substance of relationship.
Charles F. Stanley
Fortunately Jesus didn't leave [the disciples]-or any of us-without hope or direction. Where we fail, Jesus succeeded. The only One who as able to recognize and follow His purpose from the beginning was Jesus. He alone was able to obey consistently and please God completely. And His divine mission was to make a way for each of us to do the same.
Charles R. Swindoll
It takes faith to find personal significance in your relationship with God rather than how much money you earn, how beautiful you look, how many toys you own, how many trophies you collect, or how much territory you conquer and control.
Charles R. Swindoll
God gave laws to His people to bless them, not to burden them. Every rule either elevates the quality of human life or restores one's relationship with God after a breach. He makes no extraneous demands and He is never capricious.
Charles R. Swindoll
God transforms us one area at a time.
Judah Smith
Jesus is God's way of refusing to give up his dream for the world.
Rob Bell
We are often harsher judges than God himself.
Judah Smith
Grace is God-given power to live differently.
Judah Smith
The character of Jesus is the character of God. God would never do something Jesus would find morally reprehensible, so if you can’t find it in Jesus, then you really ought to think twice before you claim you’ve found it in God.
Austin Fischer
Past boldness is no assurance of future boldness. Boldness demands continual reliance on God's spirit.
Andy Stanley
[God] deposits a dream of what we can be for Him, a dream that acts as our internal honing device.
Wayne Cordeiro
The promise of a dreamer’s future will always remain greater than their present ability. God will always give them dreams that are further along than their current level of maturity.
Wayne Cordeiro
You can see God from anywhere if your mind is set to love and obey Him.
A.W. Tozer
Grace has to be the loveliest word in the English language. It embodies almost every attractive quality we hope to find in others. Grace is a gift of the humble to the humiliated. Grace acknowledges the ugliness of sin by choosing to see beyond it. Grace accepts a person as someone worthy of kindness despite whatever grime or hard-shell casing keeps him or her separated from the rest of the world. Grace is a gift of tender mercy when it makes the least sense.
Charles R. Swindoll
When the Lord makes it clear you're to follow Him in this new direction, focus fully on Him and refuse to be distracted by comparisons with others.
Charles R. Swindoll
We need a bigger estimation of God and a smaller estimation of sin.
Judah Smith
No matter what I feel, I hold the assurance that God never leaves me.
Craig Groeschel
[Your] dream will challenge, prod and haunt you until you surrender to its call.
Wayne Cordeiro
God has always been about the business of shattering expectations, and in our culture, the standards of leadership are extroverted. It perfectly follows the biblical trend that God would choose the unexpected and the culturally "unfit" - like introverts - to lead his church for the sake of greater glory.
Adam S. McHugh
Prayer is an acknowledgment that our need of God's help is not partial but total.
Alistair Begg
Nowhere in the Bible, however, do we find God distinguishing between levels of sin. God doesn't share our rating system. To him, all sin is equally evil, and all sinners are equally lovable.
Judah Smith
What the new mate, sports car, or unexpected check could never do, Christ says, "I Can." You'll love how he achieves it. He reconnects your soul with God.
Max Lucado
The world is perishing for lack of the knowledge of God and the Church is famishing for want of His Presence.
A.W. Tozer
Without God, life has no purpose, and without purpose, life has no meaning. Without meaning, life has no significance or hope.
Rick Warren
‎Mark it down: God loves you with an unearthly love. You can't win it by being winsome. You can't lose it by being a loser. But you can be blind enough to resist it
Max Lucado
Don't allow the opinions of other people to shape your concept of him. Get to know him yourself, and let the goodness of God change you from the inside out.
Judah Smith
There is no sin too great for God's grace. There is no habit too big for his healing. There is no label too strong for his love.
Craig Groeschel
Don’t worry when you meet opposition for obeying God. Worry when you don’t have opposition, because you’re probably not obeying God.
Craig Groeschel
As we experience this love, there is a temptation at times to become hostile to our earlier understandings, feeling embarrassed that we were so "simple" or "naive," or "brainwashed" or whatever terms arise when we haven't come to terms with our own story. These past understandings aren't to be denied or dismissed; they're to be embraced. Those experiences belong. Love demands that they belong. That's where we were at that point in our life and God met us there. Those moments were necessary for us to arrive here, at this place at this time, as we are. Love frees us to embrace all of our history, the history in which all things are being made new.
Rob Bell
You will be at your best forever, Even now you have good moments. Occasional glimpses of your heavenly self. When you change your baby's diaper, forgive your boss's temper, tolerate your spouse's moodiness, you display traces of saintliness.
Max Lucado
Embedded in the larger story of redemption is a principle we must not miss: God uses ordinary people to do extraordinary things in the lives of others.
Paul David Tripp
Sometimes doubting is not a lack of faith, but an expression of it. Sometimes to doubt is to merely insist that God be taken seriously not frivolously, to insist that our faith is placed in and upheld by something other than seeming conjuring tricks.
Mark Buchanan
What you cant forget... God cant remember!
John F. MacArthur Jr.
God is so immense that if he were 'too visible,' people would give forced compliance without expressing their heart. So God made it possible, in enormous love, for us to live as if he were not there.
John Ortberg Jr.
Once I was free in the shackles of sin:Free to be tempted, just bound to give in;Free to be captive to any desire;Free to eternally burn in hell’s fire.‘Til Someone bought me and called me His slave:Bound by commands I am free to obey;Captive by beauty I’m free to adore--Sentenced to sit at His feet evermore.
John F. MacArthur Jr.
God leads us. God will do the right thing at the right time. And what a difference that makes.
Max Lucado
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.
John Ortberg Jr.
When we try to focus our thought upon One who is pure uncreated being we may see nothing at all, for He dwelleth in light that no man can approach unto. Only by faith and love are we able to glimpse Him as He passes by our shelter in the cleft of the rock.
A.W. Tozer
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.
John Ortberg Jr.
It is not easy to convey a sense of wonder, let alone resurrection wonder, to another. It’s the very nature of wonder to catch us off guard, to circumvent expectations and assumptions. Wonder can’t be packaged, and it can’t be worked up. It requires some sense of being there and some sense of engagement.
Eugene H. Peterson
Many Spirit-filled authors have exhausted the thesaurus in order to describe God with the glory He deserves. His perfect holiness, by definition, assures us that our words can't contain Him. Isn't it a comfort to worship a God we cannot exaggerate?
Francis Chan
Fortunately, God made all varieties of people with a wide variety of interests and abilities. He has called people of every race and color who have been hurt by life in every manner imaginable. Even the scars of past abuse and injury can be the means of bringing healing to another. What wonderful opportunities to make disciples!
Charles R. Swindoll
The fact of God is necessary for the fact of man. Think God away and man has no ground of existence.
A.W. Tozer
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.
John Ortberg Jr.
The irony is that while God doesn't need us but still wants us, we desperately need God but don't really want Him most of the time. He treasures us and anticipates our departure from this earth to be with Him-and we wonder, indifferently, how much we have to do for Him to get by.
Francis Chan