John Ortberg Quotes
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In the context of worship, amusement is a waste of time and a waste of life, and therefore a form of sin.
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Women are the first witnesses to the resurrection and pillars of the early church.
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To have my mind racing and my heart beating fast over glorious possibilities is very close to the summit of life experience for me.
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In my love-challenged condition, seeing a difficulty for someone else can leave me feeling a little more smug or superior-by-comparison.
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Authority can be faked. That's why impersonating a police officer is a crime. Sometimes the outward appearances of authority can be deceiving.
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There are dozens of references to God in the Scriptures for every one to the figure of Satan. This reflects a sometimes forgotten theological truth that the devil is by no means God's counterpart. He is a creature, not the Creator.
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Congregations shaped by the Scriptures generally have preachers who are shaped by the Scriptures.
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Some leaders are not intimidated by opposition; they actually thrive on it. It wakes them up. It energizes them. It calls them to battle. It causes them to mobilize their thoughts and energy.
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'Who Is This Man?' is about the impact of Jesus on human history. Most people - including most Christians - simply have no idea of the extent to which we live in a Jesus-impacted world.
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Jesus had a universal concern for those who suffered that transcended the rules of the ancient world.
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Ghettos and barrios and abusive homes and trauma wards may produce scarred souls; they can cripple more human spirits than they strengthen.
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Authentic spiritual authority is what puts you in touch with reality.
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The human longings that are deep inside of us never go away. They exist across cultures; they exist throughout life. When people were first made, our deepest longing was to know and be known. And after the Fall, when we all got weird, it's still our deepest longing - but it's now also our deepest fear.
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The New Testament doesn't present Jesus as a single man to cover up his humanity. It presents him as a single man because... he was a single man.
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The church is in the hope business. We, of all people, ought to be known most for our hope because our hope is founded on something deeper than human ability or wishful thinking.
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I wrote 'Soul Keeping' because we are taught more about how to care for our cars than how to steward our souls. But you cannot have an impactful life with an impoverished soul.
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Better to be a loving person without knowing how you got there, than an expert no one can stand to be around.
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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.
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In community, we discover who we really are and how much transformation we still require. This is why I am irrevocably committed to small groups. Through them, we can accomplish our God-entrusted work to transform human beings.
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Over time, grit is what separates fruitful lives from aimlessness.
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Politics, after all, is largely about power. And power goes to the core of our issues of control and narcissism and need to be right and tendency to divide the human race into 'us' vs. 'them.'
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Spiritual formation is for everyone. Just as there is an 'outer you' that is being formed and shaped all the time, like it or not, by accident or on purpose, so there is an 'inner you.' You have a spirit.
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Prudence is what makes someone a great commodities trader - the capacity to face reality squarely in the eye without allowing emotion or ego to get in the way. It's what is needed by every quarterback or battlefield general.
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I don't have a problem with delegation. I love to delegate. I am either lazy enough, or busy enough, or trusting enough, or congenial enough, that the notion leaving tasks in someone else's lap doesn't just sound wise to me, it sounds attractive.