Joylessness may be the sin most readily tolerated by the church.
JOHN ORTBERGSignificance is about who we are before it is about what we do.
More John Ortberg Quotes
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Every human being who has ever lived has suffered from a messiah complex-except one.
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God has entrusted us with his most precious treasure – people. He asks us to shepherd and mold them into strong disciples, with brave faith and good character.
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What matters is not the accomplishments you achieve; what matters is the person you become.
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One of the great illusions of our time is that hurrying will buy us more time.
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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.
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At the deepest level, pride is the choice to exclude both God and other people from their rightful place in our hearts. Jesus said the essence of the spiritual life is to love God and to love people. Pride destroys our capacity to love.
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Skepticism can keep us from blessing, can keep us trapped in two minds.
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For many of us the great danger is not that we will renounce our faith. It is that we will become so distracted and rushed and preoccupied that we will settle for a mediocre version of it.
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Your world could grow infinitely bigger if you were only willing to become appropriately small.
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When preaching is done right, it can change lives. When it’s done badly, my failure goes beyond the merely human.
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What repeatedly enters your mind and occupies your mind, eventually shapes your mind, and will ultimately express itself in what you do and who you become.
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Peace does not lie in getting God to give me other circumstances. Peace lies in finding God in these circumstances.
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The life of Abraham Lincoln is by most accounts an amazing study in character formation. Yet he was notoriously disorganized; he even had a file in his law office labeled If you can’t find it anywhere else, try looking here.
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God wishes to be seen, wishes to be sought, wishes to be expected, and wishes to be trusted.
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The most important task of your life is not what you do, but who you become.
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Jesus is mysterious not just because of what we don’t know about him, but because of what we do know about him.
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It may be a very bad thing that I needed God to die for me, but it is a wonderful thing that God thinks I am worth dying for.
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We may be unlovely yet we are not unloved.
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Peace doesn’t come from finding a lake with no storms. It comes from having Jesus in the boat.
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God is not interested in our spiritual life. He’s interested in our life.
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Churches can become places of cynicism, resistance, and pessimism.
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It’s better to have the faith to embrace reality with all its pain than to cling to the false comfort of a painless fantasy.
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The ministry of bearing with one another is learning to hear God speak through difficult people.
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Imagine watching all that God might have done with your life if you had let him.
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One reason why we fail to hear God speak is that we are not attentive. We suffer from what might be called ‘spiritual mindlessness.’
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Passion for our work is not usually a subterranean volcano waiting to erupt. It is a muscle that gets strengthened a little each day as we show up – as we do what is expected of us, and then some.
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