Quotes by Pastors - Page 98

Fear of failure is one of the principal fears creating obstacles in the way of successful self-actualization and achieving goals
Sunday Adelaja
The feelings of guilt takes away self-confidence, reduces self-esteem welcomes fear, confusion, disappointment, depression etc.
Sunday Adelaja
Don’t be too scared to calculate risks
Sunday Adelaja
Courage is the power to let go of the familiar.
Raymond Lindquist
Traveling light gives me a way to set down what would otherwise be the baggage of someone else' decision to cling to a well-worn path.
Brandan Robertson
What are we to do when we seem to grow out of God? Or at least the understanding of God that we grew up with?
Brandan Roberston
Allowing myself to wander off into the vast jungles of religion and spirituality has often led to me stumbling upon life altering new ways of thinking, living, and being.
Brandan Roberston
But it's only when we allow ourselves to get lost that we can have the opportunity to find and be found.
Brandan Roberston
…those who are the most confident are often those who don't have any fun.
Brandan Roberston
If they're not willing to explore beyond the realm of their safety, certainty, and comfort, they will never know if their fantasies are true.
Brandan Roberston
What if one's tendency to go wandering off is truly a gift? What if the driving force beneath the curiosity that leads a person to wander off the beaten path is not immaturity, but the wild, untamable Spirit of God, drawing them into the foliage to be refined, to discover fresh insights, and pioneer a new way forward for a new group of people?
Brandan Roberston
…for exploring beyond the boundaries that I had been taught to stay within.
Brandan Roberston
I have come to see that exploration is not a practice of the unfaithful, but rather is exactly what being a follower of Christ is actually all about.
Brandan Roberston
…because he was far more interested in allowing his disciples to cultivate a relationship and trust with and in him than leading them to a place of "arrival".
Brandan Roberston
We no longer find out identity or value in having the right theology or being a part of the right denomination.
Brandan Roberston
We no longer find our identity or value in having the right theology or being a part of the right denomination.
Brandan Roberston
Traveling light gives me a way to set down what would otherwise be the baggage of someone else' decision to cling to well-worn path.
Brandan Roberston
…even if I discover that I don't particularly like or agree with them, I still can see that they are human beings, just like me. They are not an idea. They are not a concept. They are a real, living and breathing human being who is just trying to figure everything out, just like I am.
Brandan Roberston
So eventually, our mutual ignorance of each other's faith cancelled each other out and we found ourselves at a stalemate, a common ground beyond our misunderstandings, where we could begin a healthy and open dialogue about the similarities and differences between Christianity and Islam… but our face to face dialogues helped us begin to comprehend with some degree of clarity what the other group actually believed.
Brandan Roberston
How easy it is for us to demonise from a distance. But when we stand face to face with our supposed enemy, it is hard to hate.
Brandan Roberston
…Jesus spent more time eating, drinking and lounging with 'tax collectors and sinners' than explaining the Roman Roadmap to Heaven or undermining their belief system.
Brandan Roberston
…the weapon he used to transform the world was love.
Brandan Roberston
The moment we begin to believe we have got something about God figured out with certainty is the moment we can be sure we are no longer speaking about God.
Brandan Roberston
When we are able to systematise and theologise God down to a set of absolute theological principles, I believe that we lose something essential. When our faith becomes nothing more than a stagnant creed or unchanging statement of belief, we lose sight of the majesty and glory of God, the mystery and diversity that gives vibrancy to our faith.
Brandan Roberston
Wonder is the antidote to religion.
Brandan Roberston
But when we are willing to walk in the way of Love, to embody the light of Christ to everyone we encounter, we open ourselves to see and understand the journeys of so many other people…we not only honour the perspective and experience of our brother or sister, but we…learn and have our eyes opened to a new way of being. Because our big, wild and diverse God is at work in millions of systems, philosophies, cultures, religions and people beyond our own.
Brandan Roberston
But part of loving is sacrificing our ego's need to be right. Part of loving is realising that all of us are on the same journey, seeking the same things, but find ourselves at different places. When we are able to acknowledge and accept this reality; we are freed from the desire to force others into our systems, our beliefs and our points of view.
Brandan Roberston
The reformation of society and restoration of spirituality should be our goal as Christians
Sunday Adelaja
True spirituality is "the place where desperation meets Jesus.
Mark Batterson
The only power God recognizes in His church is the power of His Spirit whereas the only power actually recognized today by the majority of evangelicals is the power of man.
A.W. Tozer
It is easy to become disillusioned with the circumstances of our lives compared to others'. But in the presence of God, He gives us a deeper peace and joy that transcends it all.
Francis Chan
It is even possible to be a martyr for the Faith and yet not love Jesus Christ.
Oswald J. Smith
Does God get what God wants?That’s a good question. An interesting question. And it’s an important question that has given us much to discuss. But there’s a better question. One that we actually can answer. One that takes all of the speculation about the future, which no one has been to and returned with hard empirical evidence, and brings it back to one absolute we can depend on in the midst of all of this which turns out to be another question. It’s not, “Does God get what God wants?” but “Do we get what we want?” and the answer to that is a resounding, affirming, sure and certain yes. Yes, we get what we want, God is that loving. If we want isolation, despair, and the right to be our own god, God graciously grants us that option. If we insist on using our God-given power and strength to make the world in our own image, God allows us that freedom and we have that kind of license to do that. If we want nothing to do with light, love, hope, grace, and peace God respects that desire on our part and we are given a life free from any of those realities. The more we want nothing to do with what God is, the more distance and space is created. If we want nothing to do with love, we are given a reality free from love. If, however, we crave light, we’re drawn to truth, we’re desperate for grace, we’ve come to the end of our plots and schemes and we want someone else’s path, God gives us what we want. If we have this sense that we have wandered far from home and we want to return, God is there standing in the driveway arms open, ready to invite us in. If we thirst for Shalom and we long for the peace that transcends all understanding, God doesn’t just give, they are poured out on us lavishly, heaped until we are overwhelmed. It’s like a feast where the food and wine do not run out.These desires can start with the planting of an infinitesimally small seed in our heart, or a yearning for life to be better, or a gnawing sense that we are missing out, or an awareness that beyond the routine and grind of life there is something more, or the quiet hunch that this isn’t all there is. It often has it’s birth in the most unexpected ways, arising out of our need for something we know we do not have, for someone we know we are not. And to that, that impulse, craving, yearning, longing, desire God says, “Yes!”.Yes there is water for that thirst, food for that hunger, light for that darkness, relief for that burden. If we want hell, if we want heaven then they are ours. that’s how love works, it can’t be forced, manipulated, or coerced. It always leaves room for the other to decide. God says, “yes”, we can have what we want because love wins.
Rob Bell
Liturgy gathers the holy community as it reads the Holy Scriptures into the sweeping tidal rhythms of the church year in which the story of Jesus and the Christian makes its rounds century after century, the large and easy interior rhythms of a year that moves from birth, life, death, resurrection, on to spirit, obedience, faith, and blessing. Without liturgy we lose the rhythms and end up tangled in the jerky, ill-timed, and insensitive interruptions of public-relations campaigns, school openings and closings, sales days, tax deadlines, inventory and elections. Advent is buried under 'shopping days before Christmas.' The joyful disciplines of Lent are exchanged for the anxious penitentials of filling out income tax forms. Liturgy keeps us in touch with the story as it defines and shapes our beginnings and ends our living and dying, our rebirths and blessing in this Holy Spirit, text-formed community visible and invisible.When Holy Scripture is embraced liturgically, we become aware that a lot is going on all at once, a lot of different people are doing a lot of different things. The community is on its feet, at work for God, listening and responding to the Holy Scriptures. The holy community, in the process of being formed by the Holy Scriptures, is watching, listening to God's revelation taking shape before an din them as they follow Jesus, each person playing his or her part in the Spirit.
Eugene H. Peterson
Time and again I hear how important the darker environment is to those at our vintage-faith worship gathering. Attenders feel they can freely pray in a corner by themselves without feeling that everyone is staring at them.
Dan Kimball
The verbal tool of exploring mystery together is not confrontation or preaching but dialogue. We subject ourselves to the same questions we pose to others, and as we traverse them together, we may arrive at surprising conclusions we could never have reached when simply trying to defeat one another's logic. Our questions are open ended, granting the other person the freedom to respond or not to respond. The questions stick with us, even haunt us, long after we ask them, and we await insight together. The process is more important than an immediate decision.
Adam S. McHugh
[Spiritual friendship] is eagerly helping one another know, serve, love, and resemble God in deeper and deeper ways.
Timothy J. Keller
There is no life without death.
Kyle Idleman
Love demands freedom. It always has, and it always will. We are free to resist, reject, and rebel against God's ways for us. We can have all the hell we want.
Rob Bell
Introverted seekers need introverted evangelists. It's not that extroverts can't communicate the gospel, either verbally or nonverbally, in ways that introverts find appealing, it's that introverted seekers need to know and see that it's possible to lead the Christian life as themselves. It's imperative for them to understand that becoming a Christian is not tantamount with becoming an extrovert.
Adam S. McHugh
I can almost picture the disciples faces. "No, not the drink-my-blood speech! We'll never get on the list of fastest-growing movements if you keep asking them to eat you!
David Platt
My biggest fear, even now, is that I will hear Jesus' words and walk away, content to settle for less than radical obedience to Him. 
David Platt
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.
John Ortberg Jr.
Medical Science Has Determined Envy, Anger Are Responsible For Plethora Of Medical Conditions
Sunday Adelaja
Further, in the modern story, reality is that which is observable, measurable, and repeatable - the kinds of phenomena available, accessible, and verifiable to the five senses. Thus, reality comes to equal the scientific method. It should come as no surprise that in such a world the life of the spirit is ignored or marginalized (as well as a great many other nonmaterial things.) This view of life subsequently birthed in human beings a ravenous materialism as matters of the soul were ignored or reinterpreted within this tightly controlled version of reality. When the life of the spirit is ignored, people will seek to feed the hunger of a neglected soul with the only nourishment available: in our context, the consumptive acquisition of material goods.
Tim Keel
Before you eat the elephant, make sure you know what parts you want to eat.
Todd Stocker
Time management is the major difference between the rich and poor
Sunday Adelaja
Losing your job shows you the worth of your time rather the worth of money
Sunday Adelaja
All money comes from the worth of time
Sunday Adelaja
Time is the essence of life
Sunday Adelaja
Losing your job gives you the material from which life is made
Sunday Adelaja
Do not get a job for a living. Rather, get work
Sunday Adelaja
Those who waste time eventually become wasted
Sunday Adelaja
Your calling multiplies you
Sunday Adelaja
Joblessness gives you time to grow
Sunday Adelaja
To work (at a job) is to sacrifice the life you have at the moment
Sunday Adelaja
Want to keep your life? Look for work, not a job
Sunday Adelaja
Losing your job gives you access to time
Sunday Adelaja
Joblessness sets you free
Sunday Adelaja
Time is the greatest wealth
Sunday Adelaja