Live for God. Obey the Scriptures. Think of others before yourself. Be holy. Love Jesus. And as you do these things, do whatever else you like, with whomever you like, wherever you like, and you'll be walking in the will of God.
Don't try so hard to be hip. When the Church finds out what is cool, it is not cool anymore.
Here's good news: God is even more committed to your change, your growth, and your transformation than you are.
I try to keep in my mind the simple question: Am I trying to do good or make myself look good? Too many of our responsibilities get added to our plate when we are trying to please people, impress people, prove ourselves, acquire power, increase our prestige. All those motivations are about looking good more than doing good.
My fear is that of all the choices people face today, the one they rarely consider is, "How can I serve most effectively and fruitfully in the local church?" I wonder if the abundance of opportunities to explore today is doing less to help make well-rounded disciples of Christ and more to help Christians avoid long term responsibility and have less long-term impact.
Stewarding my time is not about selfishly pursuing only the things I like to do. It’s about effectively serving others in the ways I’m best able to serve and in the ways I am most uniquely called to serve.
Your love should be so far reaching, earnest, biblical, Christ-centered, pure, and self-sacrificing that the world may hate you for it.
You will not find what you want in the world, only in the Father.
The finality of Christs redemption for us is intimately tied to the finality of his revelation to us. . . . If we say revelation is not complete, we must admit that somehow the work of redemption also remains unfinished. . . . Scripture is enough because the work of Christ is enough. They stand or fall together.
If we truly long for revival, we will rejoice even when it starts at the church down the road.
To build your house on the rock is to hear what Jesus says and obey. To be foolish and build your house on the sand is to hear and ignore.
For Jesus, Scripture is powerful, decisive, and authoritative because it is nothing less than the voice of God.
There is no sin so prevalent, so insidious, and so deep as the sin of fearing people more than we fear God.
The next time someone tells you, "The Church is full of a bunch of hypocrites." You can respond, "You don't even know the half of it."
Perhaps God brought you into this mess so that he can bring you out of it for his glory.
Busyness does not mean you are a faithful or fruitful Christian. It only means you are busy, just like everyone else.
Keep sharing the good news; we have not yet exhausted the number of God's elect.
It's not convincing to say you are a child of God if you have none of the characteristics of your Father.
Walking in the light means we pursue obedience and are honest about our remaining darkness.
Just about everybody in America likes Jesus, but few like him for who he truly is.
The one indispensable requirement for producing godly, mature Christians is godly, mature Christians.
There is no way to work your way to God. There is no way to climb up to heaven. There is only one way, and that is through Christ.
Anxiety is simply living out the future before it gets here.
The Christian's comfort: I am not my own. I do not make my own rules or create my own identity. There is one who made me and can save me.
Seek first the kingdom of God, and then trust that He will take care of our needs, even before we know what they are and where we're going.
Sanctification will be drudgery unless we believe that holiness is possible and that it is pleasing to God.
The richest treasure God has for you are the people in your life. Give thanks and don't take them for granted.
If there really is a perfect will of God we are meant to discover, in which we will find tremendous freedom and fulfillment, why does it seem that everyone looking for God's will is in such bondage and confusion?
The world provides no cheerleaders on the pathway to godliness.
If we do not worship God, God will not be the lesser for it. But we will.
Sooner could a fish live upon a tree than the wicked in Paradise.
Am I trying to do good or to make myself look good?
God gets glory when his strength shines in our weakness.
Jesus was not just a prophet but the fulfillment of all prophecy.
Christianity is so much more than getting your doctrine right, but it is not less.
If you find yourself mistreated, misunderstood, and mocked as a Christian, take heart, for so they did to the Christ.
As the culture war rages on, Lord give us wisdom to see the difference between defending our rights and protesting our slights.
God knows everything. So why not run to him and tell him all the things that he already knows?
Our God is righteous enough to judge and kind enough to forgive.
One of the signs that you are walking in the light is that you are honest about having walked in the darkness.
You'll never be a mature Christian until you understand that God remembers his promises and forgets your sins.
God is still here, God is still real, and God has not gone anywhere, even if you have.
Grace is free, but it's not cheap.
Any gospel which says only what you must do and never announces what Christ has done is no gospel at all.
To start the day without prayer is to suggest the devil is feeble, God is irrelevant, and we can handle things on our own.
The world needs to see Christians burning, not with self-righteous fury at the sliding morals in our country, but with passion for God.
God's timing is rarely our timing.
When you share the gospel, you're not calling people to a better way of life, you're proclaiming to them eternal life.
Let us shout of our God from the rooftops, that the whole world would stand in silence before him.
It’s all too easy to turn the fight of faith into sanctification-by-checklist. Take care of a few bad habits, develop a couple good ones, and you’re set. But a moral checklist doesn’t take into consideration the idols of the hearts. It may not even have the gospel as part of the equation. And inevitably, checklist spirituality is highly selective. So you end up feeling successful at sanctification because you stayed away from drugs, lost weight, served at the soup kitchen, and renounced Styrofoam. But you’ve ignored gentleness, humility, joy, and sexual purity.
If you make the goal of your life just to stay alive, you'll fail. If you make the goal of your life the kingdom, you cannot lose.
You can think too highly of your interpretations of Scripture, but you cannot think too highly of Scriptures interpretation of itself. You can exaggerate your authority in handling the Scriptures, but you cannot exaggerate the Scriptures authority to handle you. You can use the word of God to come to wrong conclusions, but you cannot find any wrong conclusions in the word of God.
We walk into the future in God-glorifying confidence, not because the future is known to us but because it is known to God. And that's all we need to know. Worry about the future is not simply a character tic, it is the sin of unbelief, an indication that our hearts are not resting in the promises of God.
...,the will of God for your life is pretty straightforward: Be holy like Jesus, by the power of the Spirit, for the glory of God.
The seed of God's Word won't grow to fruitfulness without pruning for rest, quiet, and calm
Busyness kills more Christians than bullets.
You cannot be in Christ and be indifferent to the sin in your life.
We are not called to bring a broken planet back to its created glory. But we are to call broken people back to their creator.
Flattery is saying something nice in order to help yourself. Encouragement is saying something true in order help someone else.
The Bible tells us to love our neighbors as ourselves. Surely part of loving in this way is trying to understand what another person wants us to understand. I may not understand perfectly and I may not agree, but if I love you I should try to know what it is you wish I could know.
Our first love is Jesus. Holiness is not ultimately about living up to a moral standard. It's about living in Christ and living out of our real, vital union with him.
Jesus didn’t do it all. Jesus didn’t meet every need. He left people waiting in line to be healed. He left one town to preach to another. He hid away to pray. He got tired. He never interacted with the vast majority of people on the planet. He spent thirty years in training and only three years in ministry. He did not try to do it all. And yet, he did everything God asked him to do.
Plain horse sense ought to tell us that anything that makes no change in the man who professes it makes no difference to God either, and it is an easily observable fact that for countless numbers of persons the change from no-faith to faith makes no actual difference in the life.
We have been stuffed full of praise for mediocrity and had our foibles diagnosed away with hyphenated jargon and pop psychology.
The reason for your entire salvation, the design behind your deliverance, the purpose for which God chose you in the first place is holiness.
God did not send a concept, an idea, or a virtue. He sent his Son. Follow the God of love, not love as your god.
We take hold of Christ as his words take hold us.
The best way to leave a legacy is to believe, teach, defend, and promote what is true.
The only chains God wants us to wear are the chains of righteousness--not the chains of hopeless subjectivism, not the shackles of risk-free living, not the fetters of horoscope decision making--just the chains befitting a bond servant of Christ Jesus. Die to self. Live for Christ. And then do what you want, and go where you want, for God's glory.
Don't follow those who can talk a big game about their amazing faith in Christ. Follow people who are actually following Christ.
Some Christians need encouragement to think before they act. Others need encouragement to act after they think.
God's wrath was not just withdrawn. It was spent. Full atonement can it be? Hallelujah, what a Savior!
Submission to the Scriptures is submission to God. Rebellion against the Scriptures is rebellion against God
Inerrancy means the word of God always stands over us and we never stand over the word of God.
Worldliness is whatever makes sin look normal and righteousness look strange.
If we aren’t prepared to be counter-cultural we aren’t ready to be Christians.
Christianity loses its scriptural fidelity and internal power when it no longer affirms both sola fide and the necessity of obedience.
Biblical wisdom means living a disciplined and prudent life in the fear of the Lord
There is nothing gray about whether a follower of Christ should see 50 Shades of Grey. This is a black and white issue. Don’t go. Don’t watch it. Don’t read it. Don’t rent it.
No matter how long we have been walking with Jesus, we need to hear again, do not love the world.
If the gospel is old news to you, it will be dull news to everyone else.
Being a child of God means confidence, but it never means complacency.
As Christians living in changing times, we must keep three things open: our heads, our hearts, and our Bibles.
In the world of perpetual outrage, people cannot see the difference between deflated footballs, a dead lion, and dismembered babies.
Those trapped in sin will not normally thank you for pointing out the darkness in their lives.
We do not truly know what love is unless we know Christ.
The man who attempts Christianity without the church shoots himself in the foot, shoots his children in the leg, and shoots his grandchildren in the heart.
So go marry someone, provided you're equally yoked and you actually like being with each other. Go get a job, provided it's not wicked. Go live somewhere in something with somebody or nobody. But put aside the passivity and the quest for complete fulfillment and the perfectionism and the preoccupation with the future, and for God's sake start making some decisions in your life. Don't wait for the liver-shiver. If you are seeking first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, you will be in God's will, so just go out and do something.
The secret of the gospel is that we actually do more when we hear less about all we need to do for God and hear more about all that God has already done for us.
It's true that every road leads to God. But only one way leads to a pleasant encounter with Him.
Why should we think that we wouldn't have a cross to carry? Are we somehow more deserving than our Lord?
Not only is holiness the goal of your redemption, it is necessary for your redemption
God is not a magic eight ball we shake up and peer into whenever we have a decision to make. He is a good God who gives us brains, shows us the way of obedience, and invites us to take risks for him.
Scripture is profitable for training in righteousness. No one succeeds at the highest level in sports without working out. No one makes it in music without lots of practice. No one excels in scholarship without years of study. And no one makes it far in the school of holiness without hours and days and years in the word. You and I simply will not mature as quickly, minister as effectively, or live as gloriously without immersing ourselves in the Scriptures. We need the Bible if we are to be competent Christians.
Grace does not lead us to overlook obedience. Grace compels and empowers us for obedience.
The word of God is more than enough for the people of God to live their lives to the glory of God
You will fear something or someone. The Bible says the wisest way to go about your life is to fear God.
Holiness is the sum of a million little things — the avoidance of little evils and little foibles, the setting aside of little bits of worldliness and little acts of compromise, the putting to death of little inconsistencies and little indiscretions, the attention to little duties and little dealings, the hard work of little self-denials and little self-restraints, the cultivation of little benevolences and little forbearances.
On the last day, God will not acquit us because our good works were good enough, but he will look for evidence that our good confession was not phony. It’s in this sense that we must be holy.
The goal of a church is not to have a bigger building or budget but to see the word of God increase and disciples multiply
Sincere biblical repentance is as much a work of grace as not sinning in the first place. To err is human, to make progress is divine.
Christians often equate holiness with activism and spiritual disciplines. And while it's true that activism is often the outgrowth of holiness and spiritual disciplines are necessary for the cultivation of holiness, the pattern of piety in the Scripture is more explicitly about our character. We put off sin and put on righteousness. We put to death the deeds of the flesh and put on Christ. To use the older language, we pursue mortification of the old man and the vivification of the new.
Faith is more than getting a theological quiz right. Faith is to know, to assent, to put your trust in, and to cherish what is true.
Expecting perfection from ourselves or others is not what holiness is about.
All paths lead to God, but only one path will present you before God without fault and with great joy. Pick a path, any path—it will take you to God. Trust me: you will stand before Him one day. You will meet your Maker. You will see the face of Christ. There are many ways up the mountain, but only one will result in life instead of destruction.
Die to self. Live for Christ. And then do what you want, and go where you want, for God's glory.
God tends to do his best work when the odds appear stacked against him.
Much of the impotence of American churches is tied to a profound ignorance and apathy about justification. Our people live in a fog of guilt. Or just as bad, they think being a better person is all God requires.
No one can hate you in this life more than Jesus was hated.
We walk into the future in God-glorifying confidence, not because the future is known to us but because it is known to God.
The worship of Christ is our joy and privilege today. And tomorrow, and next Sunday, and for all eternity.
We can stop pleading with God to show us the future, and start living and obeying like we are confident that He holds the future.
To run hard after holiness is another way of running hard after God.
Some of us live a Christian life as if we're always under the stern, watchful eye of our Father and he is very impossible to please... No, God delights even in our heartfelt attempts at obedience.
Obsessing over the future is not how God wants us to live, because showing us the future is not God's way.
If you want to know God as your Father, you need to know Jesus Christ as your Savior.
You will never see the preciousness of a Savior, if you do not see the reality of your sin.
If the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, then growing in our knowledge of God is always practical.
The goal of revelation is not information only, but affection, worship, and obedience. Christ in us will be realized only as we drink deeply of the Bible, which is God's word outside of us
Try this New Year's resolution: I won't check my phone, my tablet, or my computer until I've first read a chapter in my Bible.
When "everything is awesome" we may miss what (and Who) is truly deserving of awe.
Everything before Jesus is preface. Everything after Jesus is appendix. Jesus is the story.
When busyness goes after joy, it goes after everyone's joy.
The only thing more important than ministry is being ministered to.
No one in the history of the world has been more inclusive of repentant sinners than Jesus and no one has been more intolerant of sin.
