John Ortberg Quotes

190 quotes in 2163 categories

• 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…
• Both hope and pessimism are deeply contagious. And no one is more infectious than a leader.
• I am a political junkie. During a presidential campaign, I will often buy a couple of newspapers a day just to keep up.
• It strikes me that presidential campaigns can often bring out the worst as well as the best in us.
• Sin is, somehow, at the root of all human misery. Sin is what keeps us from God and from life. It is in the face…
• Pastors have historically understood their primary battle to be not the battle to build a big church, but the battle against the power of sin.
• 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…
• In the context of worship, amusement is a waste of time and a waste of life, and therefore a form of sin.
• Sometimes, an inability to believe in Satan reflects a larger inability to believe in a spiritual plane at all.
• Preaching a series allows you to go into greater depth in the text, and spending several weeks on one theme allows the teaching to be…
• There are usually multiple messages that could be preached from the same text.
• People with the strongest and healthiest sense of calling are not obsessed with their calling. They are preoccupied with the Caller.
• To have my mind racing and my heart beating fast over glorious possibilities is very close to the summit of life experience for me.
• I need an inspiration that is grounded in reality while thoroughly transcendent.
• The only true and lasting inspiration for life is genuine love for God, and submitted gratitude that I get to be a part of the…
• Tithing is considerably less popular than words like generosity or sharing.
• Tithing is a bad ceiling but an excellent floor.
• 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…
• 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.…
• 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…

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