Rick warren quotes

The ultimate test of faith is not how loudly you praise God in happy times but how deeply you trust him in dark times.

People are interested by talent. God is impressed by character

Living by faith isn't living with certainty. It's trusting God in spite of unanswered questions and unresolved doubts.

God changes caterpillars into butterflies, sand into pearls and coal into diamonds using time and pressure. He's working on you, too.

Our culture has accepted two huge lies. The first is that if you disagree with someone’s lifestyle, you must fear or hate them. The second is that to love someone means you agree with everything they believe or do. Both are nonsense. You don’t have to compromise convictions to be compassionate.

We are healed to help others. We are blessed to be a blessing. We are saved to serve, not to sit around and wait for heaven.

Our time on earth and our energy, intelligence, opportunities, relationships, and resources are all gifts from God that he has entrusted to our care and management. We are stewards of whatever God gives us. This concept of stewardship begins with the recognition that God is the owner of everything and everyone on earth. ... We never actually own anything during our brief stay on earth. God just loans the earth to us while we're here. It was God's property before you arrived, and God will loan it to someone else after you die.

Blessed are the uncool; for they shall be happy without needing the approval of others.

Character is both developed and revealed by tests, and all of life is a test... You will be tested by major changes, delayed promises, impossible problems, unanswered prayers, undeserved criticism, and even senseless tragedies.

The closer you live to God, the smaller everything else appears.

The most common mistake Christians make in worship today is seeking an experience rather than seeking God

The way you think determines the way you feel, and the way you feel determines the way you act.

The purpose of influence is to "speak up for those who have no influence." (Pr.31:8) It's not about you.

God's LOVE is Like an Ocean; You can See its Beginning, but not its end.

The only really happy people are those who have learned how to serve.

God will never love you any less or more than he does right now because his love is based on who he IS,not what you've done.

You can keep your own religion - Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism, Mormonism - you just need to add Jesus to the equation. Then you become complete. You become a Buddhist with Jesus, a Hindu with Jesus, a Muslim with Jesus and so on. You can throw out the term Christianity and still be a follower of Jesus. In fact, you can throw out the term Christian too. In some countries, you could be persecuted for calling yourself a Christian, and there is no need for that. Just ask Jesus into your heart, you don't have to identify yourself as a Christian.

We are products of our past, but we don't have to be prisoners of it.

Every time you defeat a temptation, you become more like Jesus!

Faithful servants never retire. You can retire from your career, but you will never retire from serving God.

God's ultimate goal for your life on earth is not comfort, but character development. He wants you to grow up spiritually and become like Christ.

If you try to serve people, it impresses them. If you try to impress people it irritates them.

You never know God is all you need until God is all you have.

Living for God's glory is the greatest achievement we can accomplish with our lives.

Great opportunities are often disguised as small acts of service.

While it is wise to learn from experience, it is wiser to learn from the experiences of others.

Love leaves legacy. How you treated other people, not your wealth or accomplishments, is the most enduring impact you can leave on earth.

Having authority implies accountability. If you reject the blame for failures under your watch, people reject your leadership.

Receiving, reading, researching, remembering, and reflecting on the Word of God are all useless if we fail to put what we learn into practice.

God intentionally allows you to go through painful experiences to equip you for ministry to others.

Since God intends to make you like Jesus, he will take you through the same experiences Jesus went through. That includes loneliness, temptation, stress, criticism, rejection, and many other problems.

You'll find success in life when you stop trying to include God in your plans and Instead ask God to include you in His.

Never let an impossible situation intimidate you. Let it motivate you - to pray more, trust more, expect more.

Your spiritual family is even more important than your physical family because it will last forever. Our families on earth are wonderful gifts from God, but they are temporary and fragile, often broken by divorce, distance, growing old, and inevitably, death.

God accepts us unconditionally, and in his view we are all precious and priceless. Focus on this and you will not waste any time and effort trying to be someone you're not.

Happy moments, PRAISE GOD Difficult moments, SEEK GOD Quiet moments, WORSHIP GOD Painful moments, TRUST GOD Every moment, THANK GOD

God's Word is not meant just to inform you, but to transform you.

Our hope is not in the man we put in the White House but in the Man we put on the Cross.

God sometimes removes a person from your life for your protection. Don't run after them.

If you prayed as much as you worry, you'd have nothing to worry about.

Resentment always hurts you more than it does the person you resent. While your offender has probably forgotten the offense and gone on with life, you continue to stew in your pain, perpetuating the past. Listen: those who hurt you in the past cannot continue to hurt you now unless you hold on to the pain through resentment. Your past is past! Nothing will change it. You are only hurting yourself with your bitterness. For your own sake, learn from it, and then let it go.

The greatest use of your words is prayer. Talk to God about EVERYTHING, all the time. Maintain a running conversation.

God teaches us to love by putting some unlovely people around us.

Integrity is built by defeating the temptation to be dishonest; humility grows when we refuse to be prideful; and endurance develops every time you reject the temptation to give up.

When you feel nothing, God is teaching you to live by faith.

Life is about letting God use you for his purposes, not using him for your own purpose.

The first step to becoming what God made you to be is to stop worrying about what others want you to be.

Satan tries to limit your praying because he knows your praying will limit him.

Worry is the warning light that shows I’ve stopped looking to God to meet my needs.

You are loved by the One who knows you best. God's love will never disappoint you and never give up on you.

God is more interested in your character than your comfort. God is more interested in making your life holy than He is in making your life happy.

When God wants to make a mushroom, he does it overnight, but when He wants to make a giant oak, He takes a hundred years. Great souls are grown through struggles and storms and seasons of suffering. Be patient with the process.

Wearing a mask wears you out. Faking it is fatiguing. The most exhausting activity is pretending to be what you know you aren't.

Life is a series of problem-solving opportunities. The problems you face will either defeat you or develop you depending on how you respond to them.

God wants to use you to make a difference in His world. He wants to work through you. What matters is not the duration of your life, but the donation of it. Not how long you lived, but how you lived.

Start today by practicing constant conversation with God and continual mediation on his Word. Prayer lets you speak to God; mediation lets God speak to you.

God has a purpose behind every problem. He uses circumstances to develop our character. In fact, he depends more on circumstances to make us like Jesus than he depends on our reading the Bible.

A lie doesn't become truth, wrong doesn't become right and evil doesn't become good, just because it's accepted by a majority.

When you use your life for God's glory, everything you do can become an act of worship

Christians can be positive even in a negative situation because we know God has a purpose for allowing that problem.

You are not an accident. Your parents may not have planned you, but God did. He wanted you alive and created you for a purpose. Focusing on yourself will never reveal your real purpose. You were made by God and for God, and until you understand that, life will never make sense. Only in God do we discover our origin, our identity, our meaning, our purpose, our significance and our destiny.

All leaders are learners. The moment you stop learning, you stop leading. I learn as much as I can, from as many as I can, as often as I can.

You can't make a life without making mistakes. Relax and learn something

God is much more concerned about your character than your career, because you will take your character into eternity, but not your career.

The secret of endurance is to remember that your pain is temporary but your reward will be eternal.

Delays are as much a part of God plan as answered prayers. God wants you to trust him.

We receive from God, then we give to others.

Let me tell you how worthwhile you are. You are infinitely valuable to God. First, God created you. Second, Jesus died for you. Third, he puts his Spirit within you. Fourth, he wants you to be with him forever in eternity. That's how valuable you are to God. You are infinitely valuable to God.

You discover your identity and purpose through a relationship with Jesus Christ.

You don't bring glory or pleasure to God by hiding your abilities or by trying to be someone else. You only bring him enjoyment by being you.

Humility is not denying your strengths, humility is being honest about your weaknesses.

Whenever you feel unimportant, unloved, or insecure, remember to who you belong.

Many people allow their need for other people's approval to control their lives. They spend their lives worrying about what others think of them.

Failure isn't a character quality. It's just an event. How you respond to failure is your character.

Not everything in this life has a happy ending, but this life is not the end of the story.

When you feel abandoned by God yet continue to trust him in spite of your feelings, you worship him in the deepest way.

When God is at the center of your life, you Worship, when He's not, you Worry.

If God only used perfect people, He would have no one to use.

Unkind people need your kindness the most. They advertise their pain.

Doing the easy thing makes you popular. Doing the hard thing makes you a leader.

Forgiveness must be immediate, whether or not a person asks for it. Trust must be rebuilt over time. Trust requires a track record.

If your activities don't match your priorities, you are wasting your life.

Learning to love unselfishly is not an easy task. It runs counter to our self-centered nature.

Forgiveness is a gift we give ourselves that allows us to get on with our lives instead of being trapped in the past by resentment.

Forgiveness must be immediate, whether or not a person asks for it. Trust must be rebuilt over time. Trust requires a track record. If someone hurts you repeatedly, you are commanded by God to forgive them instantly, but you are not expected to trust them immediately, and you are not expected to continue allowing them to hurt you.

People may refuse our love or reject our message, but they are defenseless against our prayers.

In deep pain, people don't need logic, advice, encouragement, or even Scripture. They just need you to show up and shut up.

Kindness always starts with noticing the needs and hurts of others.

Temptation always starts in your mind, not in circumstances.

Telling others how they can have eternal life is the greatest thing you can do for them.

Only changed people can change the world. Start with yourself.

Gods plan isn't a map for your life that you see all at once, but a scroll unrolled a little at a time.

When you give someone your time, you are giving them a portion of your life that you'll never get back.Your time is your life. That is why the greatest gift you can give someone is your time

Regardless of the cause, none of your problems could happen without God's permission.

If someone broke your heart it doesn't mean you should build a wall around it and quit loving. Redirect your love.

If you don't live by priorities, you'll live by pressures. Either you determine what's important in life or other people will determine it for you.

Great opportunities may come once in a lifetime, but small opportunities surround us every day.

Worry is a waste of energy. It cant change the past. It cant control the future. It only makes today miserable

In God’s garden of grace, even broken trees bear fruit...

There is nothing you can do that will make God stop loving you. You could try, but you simply can't do it - because his love for you is based upon his character and not on anything you do or say or feel.

Little people belittle people. Great people make people feel great.

It’s not about you. The purpose of your life is far greater than your own personal fulfillment, your peace of mind, or even your happiness. It’s far greater than your family, your career, or even your wildest dreams and ambitions. If you want to know why you were placed on this planet, you must begin with God. You were born by his purpose and for his purpose.

Real security can only be found in that which can never be taken from you - your relationship with God.

A Christian ought to speak kindly even when given the opportunity to retaliate.

Remember how far you've come, not just how far you have to go. You are not where you want to be, but neither are you where you used to be.

Pride builds walls between people, humility builds bridges.

There is no growth without change, no change without fear or loss and no loss without pain.

The more you care about the powerless, the more power you have. The more you serve those with no influence, the more influence God gives you. The more you humble yourself, the more you're honored by others.

God specializes in giving people a fresh start.

Worship isn't an event to attend & watch. It's a lifestyle to be lived.

You won't step on other's toes if you imagine yourself in their shoes.

Life is a school and problems are the curriculum.

If you are facing trouble right now, don't ask, “Why me?” Instead ask, “What do you want me to learn?” Then trust God and keep on doing what's right.

Your wisest moments will be those when you say yes to God.

To make the most of your life you must keep the vision of eternity continually in your mind and the value of it in your heart.

In pain, I'd rather walk with Jesus with all of my questions, than walk by myself with all the answers.

The deepest level of worship is praising God inspite of pain, trusting Him during a trial, surrendering while suffering, and loving Him when He seems distant.

Without God, life has no purpose, and without purpose, life has no meaning. Without meaning, life has no significance or hope.

Surrender is not the best way to live; it is the only way to live. Nothing else works.

Nothing shapes your life more than the commitments you choose to make.

Without the grace of Jesus: a hopeless end. With the grace of Jesus: an endless hope.

You were made by God and for God, and until you understand that, life will never make sense.

If you always feel comfortable reading God's Word, you're either not reading ALL of it, or you aren't letting it sink in.

Be grateful for who you are and whatever you have. Everything you have is a gift from God.

When pressure builds up, don't panic. Pray! Prayer is a tremendous stress reliever. It can be your safety valve.