“Failure does not shape you; the way you respond to failure shapes you.”

One reason why we fail to hear God speak is that we are not attentive. We suffer from what might be called ‘spiritual mindlessness.’

True love is willing to warn, reprove, confront or admonish when necessary.

Real question is not who was this man (Jesus), but who is this man?

We are too often double espresso followers of a decaf Sovereign.

Make your life about something bigger than your life.

To become truly free, you must surrender.

The Holy Spirit says: You are it. You are God’s plan. In a thirsty world, people need to be refreshed. It is a broken world, and people need to be healed. Now get out there and do it!

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.

The character of the faith that allows us to be transformed by suffering and darkness is not doubt-free certainty; rather, it is tenacious obedience.

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.

The harder you strike it, the deeper it goes.

Jesus is mysterious not just because of what we don’t know about him, but because of what we do know about him.

Genuine brokenness pleases God more than pretend spirituality.

Disciplined people can do the right thing at the right time in the right way for the right reason.

Self-improvement is no more God’s plan than self-salvation.

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.

[Responding to trick query about whether she believed herself in a state of grace:] If I am not, may it please God to bring me into it; if I am, may He preserve me in it.

I always found that the closer I got to who I really am, on stage, the more they responded to it.

People will be able to raise their concerns: what are local officers doing about the drug dealing in the local park? What’s happening about the pub where all the trouble is? And the police will have to respond.

You tend to work out what makes them tick, what they respond to.

Public opinion is presumptively an input to policy formation in a democracy because politicians respond to it or at least are believed to respond [to it].

I was quite overtaken by success and fame. I was one of those types who responded to it in a negative way. It was not easy.

I think that you can’t choose leadership. You have to deal with the leadership that the people respond to.

We must continually reinvent ourselves, responding to changing times with innovative new business models.