Favorite Worldly Quotes
Favorite Worldly Quotes
Page: Random People • Erwin McManus • Craig Groeschel • Famous People
| “ You can choose your actions, but you can not choose the consequences. ” |
Dr. Dan Fountain (Regarding our ability to choose to sin.) |
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| “ Be certain your feet are planted in the right place before you decide to stand firm. ” | Mildred Keating |
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| “ No amount of success anywhere makes up for failure at the home. ” |
Wife of Dr. Richard Swinson |
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| “ Just because someone is not in a hospital does not make them healthy. Perhaps they disguise or simply ignore their sickness while they are on the outside. While in a hospital the sickness is brought into the light so that it may be healed. So it is with the church and sin. ” |
Chuck Swindoll (paraphrased) Insight for Living |
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| “ No business can survive using failed methods, yet the church still tries. Any business that had lost as many customers as the church has would have changed their ways years ago. But the church tends to resent all that is new. ” |
William Barclay (paraphrased) |
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| “ God may have given [women] 50,000 words per day and her husband only 25,000. He comes home from work with 24,795 used up and merely grunts his way through the evening. He may descend into Monday night football while his wife is dying to expend her remaining 25,000 words. ” |
Dr. James Dobson Love for a Lifetime (page 58) Focus on the Family |
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| “ I... heard James Dobson compare life to a Monopoly game. We work hard to accumulate things so we can impress people who will probably resent us anyway. Then one day it's all over, we give it all back, and someone puts us in a box and closes the lid. Suddenly the dollar bills, deeds, and hotels don't matter. What matters is whether or not we pursued righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, and gentleness. What matters is whether or not we are ready to face God. ” |
Bob Russell Money: A User's Manual (page 89) Bob Russell Ministries |
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| “ Are you on Satan's hit list? Does he even care that you woke up today? ” |
Mark Cahill (Regarding the complacency of Christians.) Mark Cahill Ministries |
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| “ This is an opportunity for Christians to make an apologetic case that a free society can not survive without standards of virtue. And those standards have always been informed by Christian truth. The secular elites and a lot of our neighbors tell us we should not be imposing our views on others - okay. But until we recover a sense of absolute moral truth, we are going to continue to see scandals, and we will also see our portfolios decline. I wonder if people will be so eager to dismiss us as "religious bigots" when they realize that it is the lack of ethics in our society caused by the abandonment of a Judeo-Christian consensus that is causing them to lose their retirement plans? ” |
Talk radio person (Regarding the MCI WorldCom and Enron disgraces.) |
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| “ I had not thought about my occult involvement for years and considered it experiences of a child. Now I know that both God and Satan took my involvement seriously. It really made no difference if I took it seriously or not. ” |
Virginia Miller-Witmer |
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| “ It's designed to do what it does do. What it does do it does do well. Doesn't it? Yes it does. I think it does. Do you? I hope you do too. Do you? ” |
Ken Ham (Regarding the evidence of intelligent design in all animals) Answers in Genesis |
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| “ You reap what you sow. You reap more than you sow. You reap in a different season than you sow. ” |
Mary Whelchel Christian Working Woman |
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| “ [What are] the marks of [Christian] maturity? Self-sustaining in spiritual devotions. Wise in human relationships. Humble and serving. Comfortable and functional in the everyday world where people of faith can be in short supply. Substantial in conversation; prudent in acquisition; respectful in conflict; faithful in commitments. ” |
Gordon MacDonald Christianity Today |
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| “ I never get enough sleep. I stay up late at night, cause I'm Night Guy. Night Guy wants to stay up late. 'What about getting up after five hours sleep?', oh that's Morning Guy's problem. That's not my problem, I'm Night Guy. I stay up as late as I want. So you get up in the morning, you're ... (?), you're exhausted, groggy, oooh I hate that Night Guy! See, Night Guy always screws Morning Guy. There's nothing Morning Guy can do. The only Morning Guy can do is try and oversleep often enough so that Day Guy looses his job and Night Guy has no money to go out anymore. ” |
Jerry Seinfeld Ep 67: The Glasses |
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| “ We do not just say what we believe, we end up believing what we say. That's why I propose that we should consciously correct our vocabulary so it conforms to revealed biblical truth. [This is also good reason to think before we speak!] ” |
Randy Alcorn Heaven (pg 130-131) |
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| “ Imaginary evil is romantic and varied; real evil is gloomy, monotous, barren boring. Imaginary good is boring; real good is always new, marvellous, intoxicating. ” |
Simone Weil Gravity and Grace |
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| “ The fact that something is a 'once-in-a-lifetime opportunity' is irrelevant... A great company will have many once-in-a-lifetime opportunities. ” |
Jim Collins Good to Great (pg 143) |
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| “ All sun and no rain makes a desert ” |
Old Arab proverb |
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| “ Well me and B, we hate supermodels, it's not that we know anyone personally, it's just that I'm tired of being compared. ” |
Kendall Payne Supermodels (song) |
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| “ You can not look me in the eye and tell me that one day you came before God and said show me the truth and read this book for yourself. And when you were done reading it before the presence of the Lord you thought to yourself I got it, Jesus is Michael the Archangel! There is no way you can tell me you came up with that, that was fed to you by someone else. And I don't want to sit here and feed you a different theology. I'm asking you would you just please come before God and read this book [the Bible]. Come before Him and say Lord, Holy Spirit, show me truth. And then see what you come up with. Be in search of truth and don't let other people tell you what the truth is. ” |
Francis Chan Cornerstone Community Church |
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| “ [One of the great disappointments of Modernity (which touted myths of progress, enlightenment and objectivity) was] everybody's liberation turns out to be somebody else's slavery. Everybody's economic boom turns out to be at somebody else's expense. So all our great stories, all our controlling meta-naratives are broken down into little stories. We've just got to get on and do our own thing. If that's how we feel, well that's how we've got to be. That's the moral imperative, almost the only moral imperative within much Post Modernity: if it feels good, do it. Now that's fine if you live in cyberspace where you can create your own virtual realities accessed from your own suburban sitting room. It makes no sense at all where there are real lines drawn on real pieces of ground and where human beings get shot if they cross them or happen to be born on the wrong side... [But] we shouldn't ultimately be frightened of the Post Modern critique. It had to come. I believe it is a necessary judgement on the arogance of Modernity. A judgement from within. Our task is to reflect Biblically and Christianly on this moment of despare, to see our way through the despare and out the other side. ” |
N.T. Wright Christian Hope in a Postmodern World |
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| “ Many Christians want to win the war without fighting a battle ” |
Worker for Billy Graham |
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| “ The central conservative truth is that it is culture not politics that determines the success of a society. The central liberal truth is that politics can change a culture and save it from itself. ” |
Daniel Patrick Moynihan Senator (D) New York |
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| “ We are weary of the superficial and eager for the supernatural ” |
A local pastor |
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| “ If you take (give yourself) the name [then] play the game. [Deuteronomy 29:29] ” |
John Rogers |
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| “ Love is a magnet ” |
David Nasser A Call To Grace (book) |
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| “ People say all the time 'It must be tough for you and your Muslim family to have come to Jesus...' And I always say 'Not half as tough as it is for the American church that are lost, who close their eyes and pray more to a black void than a Christ that they know intimately, and yet agree with everything that I say from the puplit.' Honestly for me and my family it was very black and white. But so many of the people that I preach to in church, for them it is not black and white, it is shades of gray right in between. My wife was that way, my wife grew up in the church. Her story couldn't be more different than mine... For her, it wasn't about repenting from unrighteousness as much as it was about repenting from self-righteousness. ” |
David Nasser A Call To Grace (book) |
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| “ The Bible is a true account of things that really happened to explain a God that is really there. ” |
Pastor Scott |
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| “ People say 'I don't believe in the prosperity gospel, God is not like that.' Yes he is, he blesses everything. But if all you preach is prosperity you're not preaching the whole entire council of God because God also breaks things too... See blessing and brokenness always go together... so that other people see in our brokenness who it is that we are trusting [Mark 6:41-44] ” |
Jeff Schwarzentraub One Heartbeat Ministries |
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| “ What's liberating about Islam is that one is spared from having to think... There are rules for everything. I'm spared from having to think. I just have to learn the rules, and then act. So I know that I'm doing the right thing. It's liberating. ” |
What's Liberating about Islam,
quoted Out of Egypt |
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| “ You may not believe the Bible but I do... I don't use evidence to prove the Bible, I'm going to use the Bible as a starting point and show the evidence fits. ” |
Ken Ham Live at the Vancouver olympics outreach |
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| “ There are 3 parts of obedience: do it all, do it now, do it wholeheartedly. ” |
Pastor Scott |
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| “ Don't worry about how things look, think about how things are. ” |
Pastor Scott |
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| “ It's easier to build strong children than to repair broken men. ” |
Frederick Douglass (publication unclear) |
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| “ You can't slander human nature, it is worse than words can paint it. ” |
Charles Spurgeon (publication unclear) |
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| “ When it comes to rearing children, every society is only 20 years away from barbarism. Twenty years is all we have to accomplish the task of civilizing the infants who are born into our midst each year. These savages know nothing of our language, our culture, our religion, our values, or our customs of interpersonal relations. The infant is totally ignorant about communism, fascism, democracy, civil liberties... respect, decency, honesty, customs, conventions, and manners. The barbarian must be tamed if civilization is to survive. ” |
Dr. Albert Siegel The Stanford Observer (newspaper) October 1973, p.4 (quoted) |
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| “ Don't eat from the tree that's in the middle of the garden. That was the second thing God said. The first thing God said was, listen to this: "eat from any tree in the garden." That's the first thing. See God's good! He's a good God. Out of all, eat, enjoy. But from the tree that's in the middle (Genesis 2:9) God says, don't eat from that, because the day you eat that you will surely die. (Genesis 2:15-17) You see the serpant is wanting to distort the thinking of Eve before he starts sharing the lies, and the distortion is first to question the word of God and the second is to question the goodness of God. When we question the word of God and when we question the goodness of God and we make it ourselves to sit down as judge of God we are in trouble. Then the next thing that happens is we start to believe lies. ” |
Pastor Scott |
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| “ What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight. Build anyway. ” |
Kent M. Keith paradoxicalcommandments.com |
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| “ The abortion debate in the United States and around the world has virtually nothing to do with life. It has to do with feminism. Here's what I want you to get. As the feminist movement grows and we move toward egalitarianism we're erasing the distinctions between men and women. Remember that's what we're talking about here. The reason we're having a problem with biblical manhood [Ephesians 5:23, 1 Peter 3:7] is we don't understand the lines of distinction between men and women. But as you erase the lines of distinction between men and women there's one little pesky issue that's always there. That's this little thing called pregnancy. So on the one hand we keep saying "There's no difference between men and women. There's just not a difference. We're the same, we can have the same pursuits, the same goals, the same everything. And that one little pesky thing keeps popping up. It's pregnancy. So if you want complete egalitarianism and for a woman to be able to define herself in a way that is completely the same as that of a man there's one thing you have to be able to do. And that is control and eliminate pregnancy and child bearing. That's what abortion is about, it's about feminism. By the way, the abortion debate, not a hard debate. It's really not. But have you noticed this? Even when so called conservatives are debating on abortion here's what they don't do. It's platitudes. One person has this statement over here, here's his platitude: "Well I believe in a woman's right to choose." And then there's another person on the other side. What's the other person on the other side say? "Well I believe in the sanctity of human life." That's it, debate over. That's what we call the debate. I'm going wait a minute, hold on, no, debate the issue. Cause the guy over here is supposed to look at that guy and say "Wait a minute, you believe in a woman's right to choose please finish the sentence. Cause I believe in a womans right to choose also... so you need to finish your sentence. You believe in a woman's right to choose to hire someone to murder her unborn child while still in the womb." Finish the sentence. And then as you finish the sentence here's a question I want you to answer. Do you know when life begins? If the answer to that question is yes and you know when life begins then you knowingly condone murder. If the answer to that question is no, and you don't know when life begins, then you knowingly condone a process that is likely to be murder. So in either instance you're condoning murder. How come nobody does that in these debates?... Nobody's going to origin of life. Why? Because the debate is not about life. Abortion is about feminism. Pure and simple, that's what it is. And even those people who call themselves "pro-life" are [die hard] feminists and that's why they will not debate this issue aggressively. Cause they know that even if they win the debate on it's merrits they've lost because they did not bow to feminism. ” |
Voodie Baucham Biblical Manhood |
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| “ [Our Founders clearly believed that] government's limited purpose is to protect the exercise of natural rights that pre-exist government, rights that human reason can ascertain in unchanging principles of conduct and that are essential to the pursuit of happiness. [Woodrow] Wilsonian progressives believe that History is a proper noun, an autonomous thing. It, rather than nature, defines government's ever-evolving and unlimited purposes. Government exists to dispense an ever-expanding menu of rights -- entitlements that serve an open-ended understanding of material and even spiritual well-being. The name "progressivism" implies criticism of the Founding, which we leave behind as we make progress. And the name is tautological: History is progressive because progress is defined as whatever History produces. History guarantees what the Supreme Court has called "evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society." The cheerful assumption is that "evolving" must mean "improving." Progressivism's promise is a program for every problem, and progressivism's premise is that every unfulfilled desire is a problem. ” |
George F. Will The danger of a government with unlimited power |
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| “ We don't serve victory. We don't serve results. We serve God. And if, years from now, that means we're the last people left on earth standing for Truth--so be it. ” |
Rev. Ren Broekhuizen |
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| “ If sinners be damned, at least let them leap to Hell over our dead bodies. And if they perish, let them perish with our arms wrapped about their knees, imploring them to stay. If Hell must be filled, let it be filled in the teeth of our exertions, and let not one go unwarned and unprayed for. ” |
Charles H. Spurgeon |
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| “ I think the most interesting result that we found in the Gallup survey is a number, which we absolutely did not expect to find. We found that with respect to the happiness of the experiencing self. When we looked at how feelings vary with income. And it turns out that, below an income of 60,000 dollars a year, for Americans... people are unhappy, and they get progressively unhappier the poorer they get. Above that, we get an absolutely flat line. I mean I've rarely seen lines so flat. Clearly, what is happening is money does not buy you experiential happiness, but lack of money certainly buys you misery, and we can measure that misery very, very clearly. In terms of the other self, the remembering self, you get a different story. The more money you earn the more satisfied you are. That does not hold for emotions. ” |
Daniel Kahneman The riddle of experience vs. memory |
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| “ The goal of parenting is to train our kids to be independently dependent on God. That their relationsip with God isn't all about us. But somehow we release them and go 'you know you need to depend on God, you understand [and] don't need me anymore; you've got His word, you've got Him, you've got His spirit. Now go.' That's the same thing Peter was saying to this church. [2 Peter 1:15] ” |
Francis Chan Cornerstone Community Church The most important lesson I could ever teach |
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| “ Do you do this: pray and tell God 'I want to know the truth of this book, I want to know what it says. God I know I have all these desires and all these things I want to be true but I got to get rid of that. Show me the truth, even if I don't like it. Even if it goes against everything I've ever been taught just please tell me the truth. I just want your truth even if it makes it harder for me I gotta know what's true.' Pray that then open up this book and try to interpret. And say 'God put asside all what I want.' Because there are a lot of things I wish were true that aren't in here. There's things I wish weren't true and they are in there... I want to stand with those who hold up the truth. Because if you do that then God will give you the interpretation of His word, He'll give you the truth of His word... This is not a matter of interpretation, the problem we have is it's an issue of respect. Respecting this as true and knowing those prophets couldn't have known this unless they were really carried by the Holy Spirit of God therefore I should respect this book. [2 Peter 1:20] ” |
Francis Chan Cornerstone Community Church The most important lesson I could ever teach |
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| “ There is something inside of this humanity that says 'God is holding out on us, he is keeping something from us. There must be an adventure or life, there must be something so extrodinary that can be found if I just eat of the other tree because God is just trying to limit my experience. God is trying to limit my pleasure. God is trying to limit my life.' [Genesis 2:15-17, 3:1-8] They didn't really believe that the prison was in the choice of moving away from the presence of God, and that freedom and liberty and adventure in life is in the presence of God. ” |
Character Matrix August 8, 2003 |
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| “ When I worked among the urban poor I had a definition of wholeness, it was 51%. I thought 'Hey if I could get people to give 51 percent and take 49 we will be doing really well.' Because I thought to myself that's a huge goal for me. If I could just give 2% more than I take, I have made a huge adjustment in my life. Because let's be really honest, without Jesus Christ most of us are just consumers. We see human relationships for what we can get... We find nice spiritual relational language to justify our own consumer mentatlity. ” |
Character Matrix August 8, 2003 |
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| “ I began discovering that foolishness was fundamentally an improper connection between cause and effect (which is also superstision) and that a lot of wisdom is just connecting the dots. ” |
Character Matrix August 8, 2003 |
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| “ The bottom line is it far more important to change what people care about than it is to change what they believe. Now I know that may seem like heresy but the reality is that there are things you can believe without caring about them. But you cannot care about something without believing in it... What happens is when you live in the Christian context you just assume that people care about the same things you care about. ” |
Get Real With Leadership June 11, 2004... Speaking to MP3 Culture October 18, 2004 |
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| “ If you do not do what he says your heart will become hard and your ears will become dull and his voice will become silent to you. And there will be a day if you choose not to treasure his voice that you will not even remember hearing the voice of God, and you will deny that God even speaks. But if you treasure his voice and respond to his spirit you will have an intimate converstation with God all of your life. ” |
Get Real With Leadership June 11, 2004 |
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| “ We need to make sure that we stop travelling down the paved roads. Have you noticed how we all have all the same exact answers to all the same questions? I don't know where people without Christ get it but they have a manual, and they all ask the same questions. But you know why they do that? It's also because they know our stupid thoughtless shallow narrow minded answers... You know what it is, a lot of us have this huge target on our foreheads that says ask me I'm stupid. I will give you the same exact answer that every other Christian will give you without thinking it through... You need to stay off the paved road. If you've heard the answer a thousand times think through it again. ” |
Speaking to MP3 Culture October 18, 2004 |
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| “ [Matthew 14:22-33] There are things you can see that exist in the invisible when you step out and begin to walk with Christ. Is it possible that certain things are invisible when you are not moving at the rate of speed that God is moving? ” |
Speaking to MP3 Culture October 18, 2004 |
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| “ I think we need to be willing to take the long journey home. We need to stop arguing with people through the format of boxing and start using Tae Kwon Do. Stop blocking their shots and punching back. We need to take the full weight of their argument and just go on their journey with them and let it take us to its natural conclusion. And you know what is going to surprise you? You think God and his truth is just over here and if you go down the journey with them you are going to move further from the truth. But what you are going to find is if you go down their road it's going to sort of meander all the way back around because their truth is not truth and it will find it's way back to God. That's why Paul could begin with a statue to the 'unknown god' and know it would lead him all the way back to Jesus. [Acts 17:22-31] ” |
Speaking to MP3 Culture October 18, 2004 |
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| “ A lot of us think that a white lie hurts less than the hard truth, but it's just not true. See human beings are created for truth. We're designed to resonate with truth. And when we live in falsehood our souls get sick. Truth isn't just about being right and wrong, truth is about being healthy and whole. ” |
Postmoderns October 13, 2005 |
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| “ Every human being is on a search for meaning, and what we want to do is we want to download the journey before they even take the first step. But you can't be afraid of the questions. You just can't. ” |
Postmoderns October 13, 2005 |
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| “ [Journalists asked me:] 'What about this whole thing of intelligent design not being allowed in schools?' Oh, that's real simple. See in the sixties, most of the professors at universities were conservatives. And if there's one thing I know about young people it's that they will rebel against 'the institution'. They will defy 'the man'. And so you get all these conservative institutions where the brightest and best minds in America were liberals. And now all the universities are essentially facultied by liberals. And some of the brightest and sharpest minds across America are conservatives. You see whatever you put in the institution you're going to have revolution. So just go ahead. Only teach evolution. Let them hear that there's another option out there, but it's banned. You are creating the context for a revolution of intelligent design and these 17 year olds are going 'I don't care if you say I cannot study this. I'm going to get one, and I'm going to figure this thing out on my own.' ” |
Postmoderns October 13, 2005 |
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| “ When given the opportunity God always chooses the path of forgiveness. You see, the intersection between you and God is not supposed to be an encounter where you experience the wrath and judgement and condemnation of God. But here is the difficulty, God gives you the right to choose. And if you do not choose the path of forgiveness what is a Holy God to do with you? ” |
God Walked Among Us Jesus in the Sand April 18, 2004 |
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| “ But there is something wrong where our [the church's] best community isolates the outsider. Real community creates inclusivity, warmth, accessability, love, compassion, friendship for the person furthest out. Not simply for the person furthest in. ” |
God Walked Among Us Jesus in the Temple April 25, 2004 |
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| “ Whatever is on your heart, what God is saying to you, the moment you understand it - that is the moment you are supposed to act on it, not later. That moment. [James 4:17] ” |
God Walked Among Us Jesus in the Garden May 23, 2004 |
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| “ I know sometimes that this book [the Bible] seems really big. But if you think about it, if this is the primary document of God's conversation with humanity it's really small. So every line, every verse, every space, every word would be so important. ” |
Advance Go Unless You Get a No March 19, 2006 |
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| “ If you are a follower of Jesus Christ you have to pursue truth wherever it takes you. You just can't be afraid of the questions. ” |
Life's Toughest Questions Does God Care? September 10, 2006 |
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| “ You know what's so funny? We want our freewill but we don't want to live with the consequences of our choices, do we? You see, get mad at God because He didn't make you a pupet. If you want a reason to get mad at God, get mad at God because He gave you the right to choose and you're probably not responsible enough to choose, and neither am I. See we can't get mad at God because He created us thinking creative beings, and then we make destructive choices and we can't be ticked off at God because we made destructive choices. [Proverbs 19:3] ” |
Life's Toughest Questions Does God Care? September 10, 2006 |
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| “ When you look at the backdrop of human history and religion you have to basically categorize religion into two categories: they are either legalistic or fatalistic. See, either religions say look, God is aloof or they say God is impersonal. And so sometimes God is aloof and that leads to legalism. And so then you have all these rules and all these rituals and all this criteria that you have to live up to and strive toward so that God might accept you into His kingdom. And the message of Jesus is different than [both of these]. And the other one is essentially fatalism that says, really, you have no control over your destiny. It's all mapped out, it's all prepackaged, it's all preplanned, and you have an illusion, a perception of freedom and choice but the truth of the mater is that you don't really get to choose, it's all set into order. And what you find is that those two different views inform world religions... You [must] choose between legalism (Islamn, Budhism) and love, fatalism (Humanism, Universalism, Budhism, Calvanism) and freedom. ” |
Life's Toughest Questions Is Jesus the Only Way? October 1, 2006 |
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| “ You say 'Well why does Jesus say he is the only way?' [John 14:6] He's not giving you the bad new from His perspective, He's giving you the bad news from reality. He's saying no one else is coming for you. There is no other God who loves you and passionately pursues you and longs to forgive you of your sin and to heal you from your brokenness. So choose life because the Lord is your life. [Colossians 3:4] ” |
Life's Toughest Questions Is Jesus the Only Way? October 1, 2006 |
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| “ What the scriptures tell us [Acts 17:26-27] is that God has strategically given every person the time and place where they should live so they would have the optimal opportunity to come to Him. I know it's hard for us to believe that a person might have a better chance of finding God as a [for example] Muslim or a Hindu than as a [for example] Presbyterian or a Baptist. But I have met enough Prebyterians and Baptists to know that there are people who are Budhist and Hindu who are closer on their journey to finding God than the others. ” |
Life's Toughest Questions Is Faith Nonsense? October 8, 2006 |
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| “ If you don't want to believe, nothing in the world is going to overcome your doubt. ” |
Life's Toughest Questions Is Faith Nonsense? October 8, 2006 |
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| “ [Matthew 4:1-4] Just read the Bible and all your hunger goes away. Well only of course if you eat the Bible, then your hunger starts going away. You see what Jesus was not doing was spiritualizing this question, this temptation, this struggle. I mean a lot of times we read the Bible and we spiritualize everything and it really doesn't mean anything to us. What Jesus was not saying is 'I don't need food, I have the word of God.' That's not what He was saying, He wasn't saying 'oh just sit down and read'. What Jesus was telling the evil one is you don't understand the dynamic of what actually satisfies the human soul. It's not the bread that meets our needs, it's that God has given that bread the capacity to satisfy our hunger. It's not water that quenches our thirst it's that God has spoken and given water the capacity to quench our thirst. ” |
Soul Cravings Crave January 28, 2007 |
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| “ What an amazing thing that John sees about love. Perfect love casts out all fear. [1 John 4:18] Love drives fear out of your life. Which makes more interesting the phrase in the scriptures that says the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom or the beginning of knowledge. [Proverbs 1:7] But you're going 'Wait wait a minute, perfect love casts out all fear but we are supposed to fear God?' Well you see, what you fear establishes the boundaries/parameters of your freedom... And fear can connect you to very cruel masters... And with God it is different. You see when you focus all your fear to God then God in His perfect love casts out all fear. He is the only one when you focus your fear on Him He doesn't hold you in a cage to that fear but He liberates you to live free with Him... I think I should make this note, fear is not a bad thing. Sometimes the best thing to feel is fear, it's different than living under the control of fear. ” |
Soul Cravings Intimacy Function February 11, 2007 |
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| “ Sometimes we put way too much pressure on each other to be everything. Don't do that to your job. I meet so many people who are so unhappy in their jobs. It's not your job it's you. That's why every time you change jobs you find the same problems because you brought them, the problems weren't there before you got there. You go 'I hate my job'. No you hate your life, get it right. It's worse than you think. Your job just reflects your life because your job isn't supposed to meet the deepest longings of your soul. And so you have some goals and some ambitions and the best thing that could happen to you is don't accomplish them because at least you can still live with the mirage, the illusion that if I could just attain that, then my life will be fulfilled. The worst thing that can happen to you is you get it and you realize it's been all a waste. It's not that it's not good to do exciting and wonderful and significant things, it's that they can't take the place of God in your soul. Because your soul craves [Him]. ” |
Soul Cravings Seek March 18, 2007 |
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| “ What brings you freedom is not the freedom to chose. It's the choices you make in freedom that determine whether you will be free. Just because you are free to make choices doesn't mean you are going to live a free life. There are some of you here tonight, and even in the early stages of your life you have already made choices that have cost you so much freedom. Choices that at one time you chose but now they own you. And if you were to be measured and described by some geopolitical definition you would be the most free person in the world. But you know more than anyone else how far your experience and existance is from being free. ” |
Intersections Life is Short... January 13, 2008 |
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| “ Sometimes what happens is we tend to sanitize the scriptures. And we forget really what's going on. ” |
Intersections Joy February 3, 2008 |
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| “ You don't have to become enemies once you disagree and see the world differently. And after it was over this young businessman... came to me and said 'I am strangely compelled by your message of Jesus... I am so very much attracted to this philosophy, this teaching, but I have this question that just demands to be answered, it doesn't make sense to me.' And I said what's that? And he said 'If this Jesus that you are presenting tonight is real, this is the Jesus that is true, how do you explain that every Christian I have ever met is dogmatic, judgemental and condemning?' And once again I just felt so sad, and I was so greatful that he didn't put me in that category that day and I felt that was a huge win... And I said 'You know those people you met that were dogmatic, judgemental and condemning and they were Christians?' He said yeah, and I go 'Well they were just dogmatic, judgemental and condemning people who happened to be Christians. But if they had been Budhist or Muslims or atheists they would have been dogmatic, judgemental and condemning people. It just happens to be who they chose to be and then they added Jesus. It's not Jesus who makes you like that. It's that we try to bring Jesus into that.' ” |
Intersections Coming Soon to Judge February 10, 2008 |
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| “ And while it was true that poverty has the symptoms and the realities of lack of food and lack of clothing and lack of shelter, those pale in comparison to the poverty of lack of opportunity. And even that is diminished when you begin to discover that one of the things that is lost in the midst of poverty is the capacity to imagine a different life, a different world. And there is a poverty of dreaming that brought such despare and hopelessness. ” |
Slavery and Freedom February 17, 2008 |
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| “ Stop making decisions based on what's right and wrong, make decisions on what is most noble. ” |
Vital Signs Recalibrate Your Priorities April 13, 2008 |
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| “ All healing in this life is temporary. And it's a part of this bigger picture of what God is doing in the world. But I want you to see also with me that what we find from Jesus in this moment is that God would never use rules, as an excuse to avoid compassion. That God would never use religion as an excuse to not do the most good. In fact, you wonder what was unexplainable, follow the story with me and listen to the comedy of this, alright. Cause sometimes we read the Bible and we just know the story but listen to the comedy... [John 5:1-15, the Pharasees critisize a man who's been lame for decades but healed by Jesus on a Saturday and walking home, carying his mat. Their response is essentially] 'Its the Sabath, how in the world are you up walking? You were the paralized guy. I've seen you for 38 years, always there. Were you faking?' Thirty-eight years! And all they are focused on is the guy picked up his mat on the Sabath because their stupid, meaningless, insignificant rule said you shouldn't do that. Because this is what it means to be holy, to be religious, so they're more focused on the fact that the guy picked up his mat than the fact that he could pick up his mat, much less pickup himself... And what's happening here is the religious leaders have been using the rules of God, the commands of God, the guidelines and the insights as an excuse from doing the most good. And for some reason along the way we begin to think that God gives us commands just to control us... and we tend to think of God as this ominous pupetier trying to control your life, to diminish your freedom and pleasure and enjoyment. And what we find here is in fact the opposite. It's that God has never given us a command to diminish our freedom but to actually accentuate it. God has never given a command to control us, but to liberate us, to free us. So it wasn't a problem at all for Jesus to tell the guy on the Sabath 'You're healed, get up and walk home'. But for some strange reason we become more concerned with the rules and the rituals than we do with the people. It's the only way you can explain even what's happening in the church all over the world. It's a harsh thing to say but when I talk to spiritual leaders I tell them 'Look, you guys chose to keep your rituals and loose your children.' See the truth of the mater is a lot of us love our traditions more than we love our families. And people always ask me 'well why do you guys do what you do at Mosaic' and I go 'it's because we actually love people more. We just care more about our kids, we care more about our friends, we care more about our city than we care about our stupid traditions and rituals and the way we've done things'... And what we find here is Jesus is reminding us what God's priorities are, where His heart is. ” |
Unexplainable Jesus Power Over Disease May 31, 2009 |
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| “ You never need to protect youself from doing more good. And I think so many times the question we ask is 'well should I do this or this?' And I go 'I don't know, just do the most good you can, and see how that works out for you.' ” |
Unexplainable Jesus Power Over Disease May 31, 2009 |
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| “ I remember years ago this intern in our community said it this way: Sunday is just a commercial for what happens the rest of the week at Mosaic. ” |
Fresh Start F.S. for Mosaic January 24, 2010 |
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| “ [Matthew 18:19-20] This faith journey that you're on, it's not just for you. Yes it needs to be personal but it's not supposed to be private... There's a part of your relationship with God you can only experience alone and it's really important to have that. But there's a part of your relationship with God that only happens together. ” |
Fresh Start F.S. for Mosaic January 24, 2010 |
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| “ I think sometimes we forget that no matter how much power, no matter how much wealth, no matter how much success, no matter how much notariety a person has their soul is still desparately searching for God. ” |
Fresh Start F.S. for Mosaic January 24, 2010 |
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| “ I think wisdom is the integration of a life lived around the true, the good and the beautiful. ” |
Reality Check Too Smart for Your Own Good March 14, 2010 |
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| “ [2 Corinthians 3:6] I meet a lot of people who come to church and go 'I just want to go deep.' That's common Christian vernacular. 'I want to go deep in the word.' What does that mean? It's not that thick, you've got to be very cramped in there going deep. You know what I find? You see we pretend that we are followers of Jesus but we're actually followers of John Locke. We think that knowledge makes us better. It just makes us more arrogant. And so whenever I hear people say 'I want to go deep in the scriptures' they usually mean 'I want to be in this Bible study where we break down the words and go into the Greek and the Hebrew and we can just know more and know more.' The scriptures never talk about deep like that. That's called shallow. Deep is when you allow your soul to be absolutely permiated by the presence of God. Deep is when you allow truth to change and transform you, to make you good, and to produce the beautiful from your life. ” |
Reality Check Too Smart for Your Own Good March 14, 2010 |
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| “ [Genesis 3:19] [God] says look, you came from dust, you're going to go back to dust because this is the consequence of the severing of your relationship with me. He's not saying this is the way it's supposed to be. He's saying this is what's going to happen. You're going to live in this trap of time that was never supposed to be a prison for you, it was supposed to be a playground. But because you have walked away from me the playground turns into a prison and you're trapped in time. ” |
Reality Check Is This All There Is? April 11, 2010 |
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| “ One of the most dangerous things that we can do as parents is expose our children to just a little bit of God... (Consider how the flu vaccine works.) I would argue that as parents so many of us unknowingly give their children just a little bit of the things of God, making them immune to all of His goodness and glory and power and majesty. They find themselves knowing just a little bit about God but not knowing God personally and intimately in a life changing way [Matthew 22:36-40]. ” |
Parenting (wk 1) |
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| “ What you believe determines how you behave. ” |
Tru(ish) (wk 1) |
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| “ People just instinctively reject Jesus because Christians have been about all truth and very little or no grace... And truth without grace leads to legalism and judgementalism. But then there's the flip side and that's the mindset of the world today and that's relativism and subjectivism. And that is all grace and no truth... But when Jesus came he came for grace and truth (John 1:14,17) and when you seek Jesus and you experience grace and truth He is life changing. ” |
Tru(ish) (wk 1) |
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| “ Although it is politically incorrect and incredibly unpopular and I just put myself in a corner by saying this where people all over the world will criticize me and hate me, I believe if there was any other way to God besides Jesus then there would have been absolutely no reason for His birth, His sinless life, His death on the cross, His ressurection and His assention. And those who knew Him and saw it died the death of a martyr because they realized that He is the way and the truth and the life [John 14:6] and there is no other name by which a person can be saved [Acts 4:12] besides the glorious and matchless name of God's son Jesus Christ. By that I stand and would give my life to forever. ” |
So You're Dead... Now What (wk 4) |
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| “ To reach people nobody is reaching you've got to do things nobody is doing. ” |
Behind the Curtain (wk 1) |
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| “ Our sexuality is Satan's easiest door to [our] shame... Shame leads to wrong thinking, which leads to wrong doing, which leads to destruction... Guilt makes us realize 'I did a bad thing' but shame makes us think 'I am a bad person'... There are things that only grow in the dark: fungus, mold, shame... ” |
Satan's Sex Ed (wk 1) |
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| “ [Acts 4:13] Today's system is all messed up. Think about the church world today. You go and look in any Christian magazine for ministry and you look in the back and there's little advertisements and you can look for want adds for senior pastors. 'Our church is looking for a senior pastor' and then they list the qualifications. Here's what you're going to see almost every single time. They're going to ask for a senior pastor who's been in ministry for at least 10 years, is married and has a seminary degree. Which when you think about it what that says is Jesus Christ the Son of God could not be the pastor of most churches in our country! Think about it, He's not qualified. Jesus, the Son of God, is not qualified by man's system. Man is looking for people who fit into the world's system, God is looking for idiots [who believe Him at His word]. ” |
Unstopable (wk 3: idiots) |
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| “ To look out at this kind of creation out here and not believe in God is to me impossible. ” |
John Glenn November 1st, 1998 (On the fourth day as the first senior citizen in space.) |
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| “ While searching for God's will we must not overlook God's word. ” | |
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| “ Any pan is 'no-stick' if you no cook in it ” | |
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| “ God created us in His own image and yet we try to return the favor, and ultimately no matter what we feel or no matter what we think does not determine or change who God is in His purest essence. ” | |
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| “ Q: Why is there a double standard for men and women on the issue of sex and first dates? A: It is easy for a woman, all she has to do is walk into a bar and say 'ok' so the label 'easy' is accurate. But it is much more difficult for a man, so if he succeeds he is admired for his persuasion skill. ” [Note I do not aprove of sex outside of marriage but found this to be a very honest explaination worth recording.] | |
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| “ Even a broken clock is right twice a day. ” | |
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| “ Life is a roller coaster, not a monorail. ” | |
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| “ Our problems are big if we have a small God but small if we have a big God. ” | |
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| “ Salvation is free (to receive) but cost Christ everything (to make available) and still costs you everything (to obey). ” | |
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| “ If Satan, our spiritual enemy, can't make us really really bad then he'll try to make us really really busy. ” | |
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