John Ortberg Quotes
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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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From ancient times, the core idea of the soul is the soul is the capacity to integrate different functions into a single being or into a single person. The soul is what holds us all together: what connects our will and our minds and our bodies and connects us to God.
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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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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 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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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.
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I'm not sure ministry can ever have the urgency it requires if it is not aware of evil, both externally and internally.
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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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'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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I need an inspiration that is grounded in reality while thoroughly transcendent.
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My main job is to live with deep contentment, joy, and confidence in my everyday experience of life with God. Everything else is job number two.
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Jesus' life as a foot-washing servant would eventually lead to the adoption of humility as a widely admired virtue.
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Authentic spiritual authority is what puts you in touch with reality.
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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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A bad sermon is like a car wreck - everyone slows down to see what happened.
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We call an obsession with having someone's approval 'co-dependency;' the Bible's word for it is idolatry. A country can be an idol. A family can be an idol.
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Prudence is not the same thing as caution. Caution is a helpful strategy when you're crossing a minefield; it's a disaster when you're in a gold rush.
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As much as we complain about it, though, there's part of us that is drawn to a hurried life. It makes us feel important. It keeps the adrenaline pumping. It means I don't have to look too closely at my heart or life. It keeps us from feeling our loneliness.
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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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Sometimes, an inability to believe in Satan reflects a larger inability to believe in a spiritual plane at all.
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Over time, grit is what separates fruitful lives from aimlessness.
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Sin is protean. It is a cancer that keeps mutating, and just when you think you have killed off one form, it turns out a deadlier strain yet is threatening your heart.
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There are no clear boundary lines between what is physiological, what is psychological, and what is spiritual. Those are language domains that make sense and have integrity but overlap significantly.
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Skill at helping people grow spiritually, like skill at playing chess, depends on understanding and valuing differences.