John Ortberg quotes: wise famous quotes, sayings and quotations by John Ortberg

John Ortberg Famous Quotes & Sayings

Discover top inspirational quotes from John Ortberg on Wise Famous Quotes.

Sometimes, an inability to believe in Satan reflects a larger inability to believe in a spiritual plane at all.

People cheer the Bible, buy the Bible, give the Bible, own the Bible - they just don't actually read the Bible.

It strikes me that presidential campaigns can often bring out the worst as well as the best in us.

Better to be a loving person without knowing how you got there, than an expert no one can stand to be around.

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

artist, musician,

Death is the prerequisite to resurrection, the new life God intends.

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

what matters most is not the decision I make but how I throw myself into executing it well.

Over time, grit is what separates fruitful lives from aimlessness.

Somebody said that if you're the smartest person in the room, you're in the wrong room.

We who preach have one tool. We are people of the book.

My main job is to remain connected to God. When my primary focus is being present with him, everything else has a way of falling into place.

The toppling of idols - even respectable, admired, best-practice, fastest-growing idols - is always the road to liberation.

Over and over in the Bible, it is fear that threatens to keep people from trusting and obeying God.

I am so wrapped up in the hurt I have received that I do not notice the hurt I inflict.

We are not lost because we are going to wind up in the wrong place. We are going to wind up in the wrong place because we are lost.

No heart is as whole as a broken heart, and no faith is as solid as a wounded faith. Elie Wiesel

Our soul begins to grow in God when we acknowledge our basic neediness.

But in a world where victimhood has become status, souls go unexamined for hardness.

Make your life about something bigger than your life.

The best place to start doing life with God is in small moments.

The church is in the hope business.

A very simple way to guard your soul is to ask yourself, Will this situation block my soul's connection to God?

The only cure from sin is by maintaining a vision of God.

Christianity is like a nail," he (Yemelian Yaroslavsky). "The harder you strike it, the deeper it goes.

Love me, love my rag dolls," God says. It's a package deal.

When Jesus came in the form of a servant, he was not disguising who God is. He was revealing who God is.

The hurried can become unhurried. But it will not happen by trying alone, nor will it happen instantly. You will have to enter a life of training.

In solitude we remember we are not what anybody thinks of us - we are sheep tended to by the Shepherd.
-John Ortberg

The question isn't if someone will sign up for spiritual formation; it's just who and what our spirits will be formed by.

The goal is not for us to get through the Scriptures. The goal is to get the Scriptures through us.

A deep soul lives in conscious awareness of eternity, not simply today.

If you want to walk on water, you have to get out of the boat.

Gratitude is the ability to experience life as a gift. It liberates us from the prison of self-preoccupation.

People with the strongest and healthiest sense of calling are not obsessed with their calling. They are preoccupied with the Caller.

The only true and lasting inspiration for life is genuine love for God, and submitted gratitude that I get to be a part of the redemptive quest.

The single dynamic that helps people be most aware of God and most experiencing the fruit of the Spirit is gratitude.

Self-improveme nt is no more God's plan than self-salvation.

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.

If you want to do the work of God, pay attention to people. Notice them. Especially the people nobody else notices.

We must assess our thoughts and beliefs and reckon whether they are moving us closer to conformity to Christ or farther away from it.

The Bible does not say you are God's appliance; it says you are his masterpiece. Appliances get mass-produced.

God is a God of endless opportunities to do good; the God of the open door.

Repenting of our sin is never despairing of our sin; it is always done in hope.

as Aristotle said, "The soul never thinks without a picture.

There is a me I cannot see.

I know that those of us who go into church work are to regard ourselves as servants, are to offer our lives as a gift.

In my love-challenged condition, seeing a difficulty for someone else can leave me feeling a little more smug or superior-by-comparison.

Be doers of the word, and not merely hearers. (James 1:22 NRSV)

Sometimes the opportunity doesn't involve going to a new place; it means finding a new and previously unrecognized opportunity in the old place.

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.

Grace is the offer of God's ceaseless presence and irrational love that cannot be stopped.

When people feel they're getting to speak into what's being preached, there is high built-in motivation to participate.

Hurry is the great enemy of spiritual life in our day. You must ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life.

Waiting on the Lord is a confident, disciplined, expectant, active, sometimes painful clinging to God.

Repenting is a gift God gives us for our own sake, not his.

People who live with largeness of soul are occupied by large problems.

Authority can be faked. That's why impersonating a police officer is a crime. Sometimes the outward appearances of authority can be deceiving.

Wise people build their lives around what is eternal and squeeze in what is temporary. Not the other way around.

As long as we have unsolved problems, unfulfilled desires, and a mustard seed of faith, we have all we need for a vibrant prayer life.

When you give your soul rest, you open it to the peace Jesus intends for you.

Ghettos and barrios and abusive homes and trauma wards may produce scarred souls; they can cripple more human spirits than they strengthen.

God never grows two people the same way. God is a hand-crafter, not a mass-producer.

God's primary will for your life is not the achievements you accrue; it's the person you become.

Our bodies are these collections of appetites that veer out of control and habits that drag us down paths we don't want to travel.

Your world could grow infinitely bigger if you were only willing to become ... appropri ately small.

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

Work is a form of love. We cannot be fully human without creating value.

Imagine watching all that God might have done with your life if you had let him.

At the heart of Christian faith is the story of Jesus' death and resurrection.

Jesus did not come as a servant in spite of the fact that he is God; he came precisely because of the fact that he is God.

Tithing is a bad ceiling but an excellent floor.

The soul without God for eternity is in an abyss.

Churches can become places of cynicism, resistance, and pessimism.

We will always take the most care of that which we value most deeply.

Jesus' life as a foot-washing servant would eventually lead to the adoption of humility as a widely admired virtue.

We all want to feel spiritually vigorous, and we hurt when we don't. This pain is intensified for people who lead church ministries.

The most important task of your life is not what you do, but who you become.

The soul is hidden in God's creating hand: 'In his hand is the soul of every living thing' " (Job 12:10).

Jesus had a universal concern for those who suffered that transcended the rules of the ancient world.

Women are the first witnesses to the resurrection and pillars of the early church.

Biblically, waiting is not just something we have to do until we get what we want. Waiting is part of the process of becoming what God wants us to be.

When preaching is done right, it can change lives. When it's done badly, my failure goes beyond the merely human.

Love and hurry are fundamentally incompatible. Love always takes time, and time is the one thing hurried people don't have.

God has decided, for his own good reasons, that people are not transformed outside of community.

THE NEGLECTED SOUL DOESN'T GO AWAY; IT GOES AWRY

When you discover your strengths, you are learning an indispensible part of what it means to be made in the image of God.

Greatness of soul is available to people who do not have the luxury of being ecstatic about the condition and appearance of their bodies.

The most important thing about you," Dallas would often say, "is not the things that you achieve; it is the person that you become.

In reality, each thought we have carries with it a little spiritual power, a tug toward or away from God. No thought is purely neutral.

The day people around me stop questioning my character is the day my character begins to grow vulnerable.

Skill at helping people grow spiritually, like skill at playing chess, depends on understanding and valuing differences.

The reason our souls hunger so is that the life we could be living so far exceeds our strangest dreams.

A soul can be saved. But it will take softness and depth and space. The world won't help much.

Going in faith does not necessarily mean going with serenity or without doubts. Faith can be difficult.

This was the great irony of his day: The 'righteous' were more damaged by their righteousness than the sinners were by their sin.

You have a "turn" every time you have an opportunity to choose. But most of us only see a tiny fraction of the choices we have.

We may be unlovely yet we are not unloved.

Prayer allows us to wait without worry.