Erwin McManus Quotes
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It is amazing how much we can endure when we are convinced there is a purpose to our struggle.
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For years I have made it my mission to destroy the influence of the Christian clich, 'the safest place to be is in the center of the will of God.' God would never choose for us safety at the cost of significance. God created you so that your life would count, not so that you could count the days of your life.
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Love, no matter how you come at it, is a huge risk. It makes it easier for me to remember that God will never reject me because I am not good enough and that any community that has His heart will embrace me as I am. Jesus invites us into a community where imperfect people can find acceptance, love, forgiveness, and a new beginning.
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We can’t change history, but we can create the future.
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Within a moment there is monumental potential. That is the mystery of a moment. It is small enough to ignore and big enough to change your life forever.
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Courage is not the absence of fear; it is the absence of self.
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The future awaits those with the courage to create it.
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I think Christianity is the same as Buddhism and Hinduism - whenever a religion begins to say that these are the things you have to do to be loved by God, you have a religion.
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People who are fully alive look out of their minds to those who simply exist.
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It is amazing where God will take you when you are willing to follow. Life is full of surprises when we choose mystery over security.
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Would you be willing to give your life to save the world if no one ever knew your name? If anonymity was the price you would have to pay for significance, would it be too great a price? To live a life of courage is not a guarantee of prestige or adulation. It only matters if you live and die fulfilling the mission you were born for.
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I"m often accused of being irreligious, and I suppose it's for this very reason. Whether it's Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Catholicism, Hinduism, Judaism, or any other ism, when a religioin is created on the subtle premise that God withholds his love and you must submit to the system to earn that love, I consider it the worst of corruptions... For centuries, the church has been telling us that if we want God to love us, we need to follow the rules. It's been far more important to focus on the sin problem than the love problem.
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The more isolated and disconnected we are, the more shattered and distorted our self-identity. We are not healthy when we are alone. We find ourselves when we connect to others. Without community we don't know who we are... When we live outside of healthy community, we not only lose others. We lose ourselves...Who we understand ourselves to be is dramatically affected for better or worse by those we hold closest to us.
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God allows and at times causes us to go through the kinds of circumstances that strip away all falsehood and leave us with our real selves. God's ultimate intent is not to leave us faithless, but to leave us faith-full. There are few things as exhilarating as going through the fire and finding that you had the resilience to make it through. All of us wonder at times whether we have what it takes. God wants to bring us to a place where we have no doubt of the work He has done within us.
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When the church becomes an institution, people are nothing more than volunteers to be recruited. When the church is a movement, our stewardship becomes the unleashing of our God-given gifts, talents, and passions.
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Deeper than our instinct to live is our longing to be alive.
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We need both to aspire and accomplish. Without a vision for your life, without a sense of purpose, you will begin to die a slow death.
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It is not balance you need but adaptability.
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This thing that haunts you, that never seems satisfied, the cravings in your soul that you are unable to satiate through all the success that the world can bring this is your soul screaming for God.
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The real measure of our power is the freedom and opportunity we create for others.
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If God imagined you at birth, what makes you think He's stopped imagining you now.
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We may not be able to accomplish everything we can dream, but we will not accomplish anything without our dreams.
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The church must acclimate to a changing world, or she will destine herself to irrelevance or even extinction. ...One of those dramatic changes in our environment is the shift from words to images. To do church in a way that is entirely text driven is the kiss of death.
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All the evidence you need to prove God is waiting within you to be discovered.