John Ortberg Quotes

90 Sourced Quotes

God is still in the business of coming down to earth: to this cubicle, this email, this room, this house, this job, this hospital room, this car, this bed, this vacation. Any place can become Bethel, the house of God. Cleveland, maybe. Or the chair you're sitting in as you read these words.

John Ortberg
The goal is not for us to get through the Scriptures. The goal is to get the Scriptures through us.

John Ortberg
The most important task of your life is not what you do, but who you become.

John Ortberg
Peace does not lie in getting God to give me other circumstances.
Peace lies in finding God in these circumstances.

John Ortberg
At the deepest level, pride is the choice to exclude both God and other people from their rightful place in our hearts. Jesus said the essence of the spiritual life is to love God and to love people. Pride destroys our capacity to love.

John Ortberg
A boss who interrupts an employee a lot is called an extrovert, whereas an employee who interrupts a boss too often is called an ex-employee.

John Ortberg
Ironically, often the thing that keeps me from experiencing joy is my preoccupation with self. The very selfishness that keeps me from pouring myself out for the joy of others also keeps me from noticing and delighting in the myriad small gifts God offers each day. This is why Walker Percy describes boredom as "the self stuffed with the self."

John Ortberg
I need to learn. Joy is at the heart of God's plan for human beings. The reason for this is worth pondering awhile: Joy is at the heart of God himself. We will never understand the significance of joy in human life until we understand its importance to God. I suspect that most of us seriously underestimate God's capacity for joy.

John Ortberg
We must learn to cast off our anxieties because we have so many of them. The world destroys spiritual life by generating constant anxiety. Jesus said that the life of the gospel is choked out by the cares of this world. We know this to be true yet we are more chained and tethered to the world than ever before in the human race.

John Ortberg
There is no way for a human being to come to God that does not involve surrender.

John Ortberg
Sloth is the failure to do what needs to be done when it needs to be done - like the kamikaze pilot who flew seventeen missions.

John Ortberg
Skeptics would rather, even at their own expense, appear to be right than take the risk of trusting.

John Ortberg
The greatest bloodbaths in the history of the human race were recorded in the twentieth century in countries that sought to eliminate God, worship, and faith.

John Ortberg
In a contagious world,we learn to keep our distance. If we get too close to those who are suffering, we might get infected by their pain. It may not be convenient or comfortable. But only when you get close enough to catch their hurt will they be close enough to catch your love.

John Ortberg
One reason why we fail to hear God speak is that we are not attentive. We suffer from what might be called 'spiritual mindlessness.'

John Ortberg
There is a world of difference between being friendly to someone because they're useful to you and being someone's friend.

John Ortberg
Going in faith does not necessarily mean going with serenity or without doubts. Faith can be difficult.

John Ortberg
The miracle of Sunday is that a dead man lives. The miracle of Saturday is that the eternal Son of God lies dead.

John Ortberg
If we do not become changed from the inside-out - if we don't morph - we will be tempted to find external methods to satisfy our need to feel that we're different from those outside the faith. If we cannot be transformed, we will settle for being informed or conformed.

John Ortberg
Wise people build their lives around what is eternal and squeeze in what is temporary. Not the other way around.

John Ortberg
Imagine watching all that God might have done with your life if you had let him.

John Ortberg
It only makes sense to ask God for guidance in the context of a life committed to "seeking first the kingdom."

John Ortberg
We are too often double espresso followers of a decaf Sovereign.

John Ortberg
If we are serious about loving God, we must begin with people, all people. And especially we must learn to love those that the world generally discards.

John Ortberg
The Holy Spirit will lead you to be with people as Jesus would be with them if He were in your place.

John Ortberg
We are tempted to live under the illusion that somewhere out there are people who are normal.

John Ortberg
If ever there were a true "just as I am" church, if ever there were a community where everybody could bring all their baggage and brokenness with them without neat and tidy happy endings quite yet, if ever there was a group where everyone was loved and no one pretended - we could not make enough room inside the building.

John Ortberg
Your world could grow infinitely bigger if you were only willing to become...appropri ately small.

John Ortberg
Passion for our work is not usually a subterranean volcano waiting to erupt...It is a muscle that gets strengthened a little each day as we show up - as we do what is expected of us, and then some.

John Ortberg
Jesus is mysterious not just because of what we don't know about him, but because of what we do know about him.

John Ortberg