John Ortberg Quotes
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Learning something new is a fabulous way to be refreshed. When work can grind you down, something about learning a new activity thrills the soul. It reminds you that the world is bigger than your desk and your to-do list.
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When it comes to sermon writing, generally there are two problems. Some preachers love the research stage but hate the writing, and they start writing too late. Others don't like doing research, so they move way too fast to the writing part.
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Universities such as Cambridge, Oxford, and Harvard all began as Jesus-inspired efforts to love God with all ones' mind.
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At the heart of Christian faith is the story of Jesus' death and resurrection.
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Over time, grit is what separates fruitful lives from aimlessness.
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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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I have always heard that you need to give yourself a long time to unplug when you do a sabbatical. I unplugged so fast I was a little concerned that I was losing brain capacity.
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Normally, if someone's legacy will outlast their life, it's apparent when they die. On the day when Alexander the Great, or Caesar Augustus, or Napoleon, or Socrates, or Muhammad died, their reputations were immense. When Jesus died, his tiny, failed movement appeared clearly at an end.
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Skill at helping people grow spiritually, like skill at playing chess, depends on understanding and valuing differences.
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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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Tithing is considerably less popular than words like generosity or sharing.
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Women are the first witnesses to the resurrection and pillars of the early church.
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Jesus viewed his own destiny - to be glorified in and through death - as an expression of a kind of cosmic principle: the pathway to life runs through death.
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Both hope and pessimism are deeply contagious. And no one is more infectious than a leader.
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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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Jesus' life as a foot-washing servant would eventually lead to the adoption of humility as a widely admired virtue.
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When I teach the formal curriculum, I have the chance to think about it ahead of time. I can rehearse it. I can illustrate it with self-deprecating humor and humble-sounding personal disclosure. I can try to make it comes out just right.
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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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The single dynamic that helps people be most aware of God and most experiencing the fruit of the Spirit is gratitude.
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Death is the prerequisite to resurrection, the new life God intends.
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A simple way to address hidden curriculum issues is to spend time talking with staff and key leaders about their spiritual lives.
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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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What influences our behavior, and what our level of responsibility is, are very complex issues. And anytime we try to make this simplistic, we don't serve people well.
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Gratitude is what we radiate when we experience grace, and the soul was made to run on grace the way a 747 runs on rocket fuel.