Jared C. Wilson Quotes

I had been feeling that it was more important for me to understand how much Jesus loved me than it was for me to figure out how to love Him.

Only God can write a story that resonates not just in the power of the imagination or the heart or the mind, but in the very soul; only God can write a story that brings dead things to life.

Let's stop trying to conjure up God (by which, let's be honest, we're often just trying to conjure up our emotions), and let us marvel and enjoy that he cannot be conjured.

I am plum tuckered on Monday morning. I face ample temptation to wallow. But Jesus promises rest. I may be a shell of a pastor at this time each week, but God is no less God. His might is no less mighty. His gospel is no less power. His reach is no less infinite. His grace is no less everlasting. His lovingkindness is no less enduring.

We forget that the kingdom does not come through political plotting but through the proclamation of the gospel. We stretch our branches to the wrong king.

The gospel of Jesus Christ solves the innate problem we have of "glory greed." We are, every one of us from birth, incompetent thieves of the glory that belongs only to God. We know in our insidest insides that we fall short of his glory, and so we are constantly clawing and scratching to make up that difference in some way. This is how all sin is fundamentally idolatry and how all accumulations of worldly treasures - be they material goods or religious merit - are fundamentally acts of self-worship. Then in the gospel of Christ, God forgives our petty theft, sets us free from the bondage of our idols, and unites us Spiritually, irrevocably, and satisfyingly to himself. Now the glory we tried to steal is shared with us freely, and it is real glory this time, not these pathetic knockoffs we think will do the trick.

The frightening thing is that, to enter hell, all one has to do is nothing.

The beauty of Christ and his gospel continues to captivate millions of believers all over the world and drive them to passionate worship while it simultaneously disgusts, angers, or bores millions of others.

God razes us before he raises us.

He is no fool who believes the man who knows everything.

Dallas Willard explains: The world has succeeded in opposing intelligence to goodness. . . . And today any attempt to combine spirituality or moral purity with great intelligence causes widespread pangs of "cognitive dissonance." [As with Jesus,] Mother Teresa . . . is thought of as . . . nice, of course, but not really smart. "Smart" means good at managing how life "really" is.

The religious climate of Jesus's day was evidence of what happens when no one stops the counterfeit. The Spirit of God had gone silent after Malachi, but that did not stop the spiritual authorities from trying to keep the whole mechanism turning under the power of their own self-righteousness. Can you imagine what it might be like to have been faking spiritual power for hundreds of years when suddenly the real thing shows up?

The Devil is like a rat in a jar that is filling with ether. We should expect that as his death gets ever-nearer, he will beat his claws more furiously against the glass.

We will always prefer lesser satisfactions to the satisfaction of Christ, because the lesser ones appeal to the god of self - a ravenous, insatiable, fickle idol indeed - while satisfaction in Christ requires that we assassinate that god. We won't know what it really means for the joy of the Lord to be our strength until we've had intravenous idolatry yanked out and all other crutches kicked away. For many of us, Jesus won't be our absolute treasure until we are out of options.

His job ruled his day. Cable television infomercials and YouTube searches ruled his nights.

The way the church wins its people shapes its people. So the most effective way to turn your church into a collection of consumers and customers is to treat them like that's what they are.

It's possible to do "Jesusy" stuff without knowing Jesus. It's possible to do good as part of some religious self-salvation project and not out of the joy of being saved.

Kids have faith. Adults have the facts that make faith seem like kid's stuff.

But really, my ability to exercise oversight willingly flows from my vision. No, not a vision for an "awesomely bold" church - at least, not at first - but of my God and for the flock of God that is among me.

Every agnostic has a minister, Mike. Otherwise, they's be atheists.

Christ's sacrifice on the cross and resurrection out of the grave are big enough, grand enough, effective enough, and eternal enough to cover your shoddy Christian life,

Because He lives, I can face yesterday.

The way some people read the parables reminds me of Aesop's Fables. And the way others read them reminds me of the way some discern clue after perplexing clue in their Beatle albums as evidence for a cover-up of Paul's having died in a car accident.

The well-known evangelist D. L. Moody is reported to have said that he had more trouble with D. L. Moody than with any other person he met!

Some days taking up your cross feels like putting up with an annoying coworker or a flat tire. And some days taking up your cross feels like what it is - death.

I once led a church largely made up of young adults - twentysomethings and thirtysomethings, mostly. Many lamented that we weren't more multigenerational (you know, like the church), but at the same time the married young people wanted to be in a separate small group from the single young people because they didn't have anything in common with the singles. "You mean, besides Jesus?" I asked.