John Ortberg - God Quotes

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The Bible does not say you are God's appliance; it says you are his masterpiece. Appliances get mass-produced.

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

John Ortberg
Sheldon Vanauken wrote that the strongest argument for Christianity is Christians, when they are drawing life from God. The strongest argument against Christianity? Also Christians, when they become exclusive, self-righteous, and complacent.

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
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
Waiting on the Lord is a confident, disciplined, expectant, active, sometimes painful clinging to God.

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
The goal of prayer is to live all of my life and speak all of my words in the joyful awareness of the presence of God. Prayer becomes real when we grasp the reality and goodness of God's constant presence with 'the real me.' Jesus lived his everyday life in conscious awareness of his Father.

John Ortberg
Over and over in the Bible, it is fear that threatens to keep people from trusting and obeying God.

John Ortberg
If you want to do the work of God, pay attention to people. Notice them. Especially the people nobody else notices.

John Ortberg
It may be a very bad thing that I needed God to die for me, but it is a wonderful thing that God thinks I am worth dying for.

John Ortberg
Never try to have more faith - just get to know God better. And because God is faithful, the better you know Him, the more you'll trust Him.

John Ortberg
Low self-esteem causes me to believe that I have so little worth that my response does not matter. With repentance, however, I understand that being worth so much to God is why my response is so important. Repentance is remedial work to mend our minds and hearts, which get bent by sin.

John Ortberg
When we live in the love of God, we begin to pay attention to people the way God pays attention to us.

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
God is so immense that if he were 'too visible,' people would give forced compliance without expressing their heart. So God made it possible, in enormous love, for us to live as if he were not there.

John Ortberg
God sees with utter clarity who we are. He is undeceived as to our warts and wickedness. But when God looks at us that is not all He sees. He also sees who we are intended to be, who we will one day become.

John Ortberg
The soul seeks God with its whole being. Because it is desperate to be whole, the soul is God-smitten and God-crazy and God-obsessed. My mind may be obsessed with idols; my will may be enslaved to habits; my body may be consumed with appetites. But my soul will never find rest until it rests in God.

John Ortberg
In reality, each thought we have carries with it a little spiritual power, a tug toward or away from God. No thought is purely neutral.

John Ortberg
God is never a God of discouragement. When you have a discouraging spirit or train of thought in your mind, you can be sure it is not from God. He sometimes brings pain to his children-conviction over sin, or repentance over fallenness, or challenges that scare us, or visions of his holiness that overwhelm us. But God never brings discouragement.

John Ortberg
Every day you and I walk through God's shop. Every day we brush up against objects of incalculable worth to Him. People. Every one of them carries a price tag, if only we could see it.

John Ortberg
There is such a love, a love that creates value in what is loved. There is a love that turns rag dolls into priceless treasures. There is a love that fastens itself onto ragged little creatures, for reasons that no one could ever quite figure out, and makes them precious and valued beyond calculation. This is love beyond reason. This is the love of God.

John Ortberg