Jen Wilkin Quotes

Women teachers, let's shift the focus from 'you are a daughter of the King' to 'behold your King'.

finding greater pleasure in God will not result from pursuing more experiences of him, but from knowing him better. It will result from making a study of the Godhead.

the One whom we most need to behold has made himself known. He has traced with a fine hand the lines and contours of his face. He has done so in his Word. We must search for that face, though babies continue to cry, bills continue to grow, bad news continues to arrive unannounced, though friendships wax and wane, though both ease and difficulty weaken our grip on godliness, though a thousand other faces crowd close for our affection, and a thousand other voices clamor for our attention. By fixing our gaze on that face, we trade mere human glory for holiness:

Build slowly if you must, but by all means, build. In pursuing an orderly process [of Bible study], you follow a pattern established by God himself. The God of the Bible is a God of order.

I believe that a woman who loses interest in her Bible has not been equipped to love it as she should. The God of the bible is too lovely to abandon for lesser pursuits.

God, who is himself uncreated, creates everything. Gathering no materials, pinning no swatches to mood boards, consulting no color wheels, God speaks, and the universe leaps into being.

Bible literacy matters because it protects us from falling into error. Both the false teacher and the secular humanist rely on biblical ignorance for their messages to take root, and the modern church has proven fertile ground for those messages. Because we do not know our Bibles, we crumble at the most basic challenges to our worldview. Disillusionment and apathy eat away at our ranks. Women, in particular, are leaving the church in unprecedented numbers.1

Over what do I have control? A few very important things. My thoughts, which I can take captive by the power of the Holy Spirit. And if I can control my thoughts, it follows that I can control my attitude - toward my body, my stuff, my relationships, and my circumstances. If my thoughts and attitude are in control, my words will be as well, and my actions. The redeemed obediently submit thought, word, and deed to their heavenly Ruler, trusting uncertainty to him who "works all things according to the counsel of his will" (Eph 1:11). They step away from the throne, acknowledging that they are utterly unqualified to fill

As Moses would learn during the Exodus, who he was bore no impact on the outcome of his situation.

If we want our lives to align with God's will, we will need to ask a better question than "What should I do?" . . . God is always more concerned with the decision-maker than he is with the decision itself.

Our whole lives as Christ-followers are to be given over to the identification and celebration of the limits God has ordained for us.

Our primary problem as Christian women is not that we lack self-worth, not that we lack a sense of significance. It's that we lack awe.

It matters that women teach women, and that they do so with excellence.

The fact that you are currently inhaling and exhaling at this very moment means that you are a recipient of mercy.

Forgiving lavishly does not mean that we continue to place ourselves in harm's way. The Bible takes great pains to address the dangers of keeping company with those who perpetually harm others. Those who learn nothing from their past mistakes are termed fools. While we may forgive the fool for hurting us, we do not give the fool unlimited opportunity to hurt us again. To do so would be to act foolishly ourselves. When Jesus extends mercy in the Gospels, he always does so with an implicit or explicit, "Go and sin no more." When our offender persists in sinning against us, we are wise to put boundaries in place. Doing so is itself an act of mercy toward the offender. By limiting his opportunity to sin against us, we spare him further guilt before God. Mercy never requires submission to abuse, whether spiritual, verbal, emotional, or physical.

You will never turn from a sin you don't hate.

God is our origin. Knowing where you came from makes all the difference in seeing where it is you need to go.

Your love for others is the overflow of your love for God. Your love for God will increase as you learn to know him better. But never lost sight that your influence will be noticed in how you use your heart, not your head. Bible literacy that does not transform is a chasing after the wind. Christians will be known by our love, not our knowledge. We will not be known by just any kind of love - we will be known for the kind of love the Father has shown to us and we in turn show to others.

Everything we say or do will either illuminate or obscure the character of God. Sanctification is the process of joyfully growing luminous.

If we focus on our actions without addressing our hearts, we may end up merely as better behaved lovers of self.

The second thing I got backwards in my approach to the Bible was the belief that my heart should guide my study. The heart, as it is spoken of in Scripture, is the seat of the will and emotions. It is our "feeler" and our "decision-maker." Letting my heart guide my study meant that I looked for the Bible to make me feel a certain way when I read it. I wanted it to give me peace, comfort, or hope. I wanted it to make me feel closer to God.

The Bible does not want to be neatly packaged into three-hundred-and-sixty-five-day increments. It does not want to be reduced to truisms and action points. It wants to introduce dissonance into your thinking, to stretch your understanding. It wants to reveal a mosaic of the majesty of God one passage at a time, one day at a time, across a lifetime.

It is not coincidental that a lack of discernment and a neglected Bible are so often found in company.

Psalm 139 is not a psalm about me, fearfully and wonderfully made. It is a psalm about my Maker, fearful and wonderful. It is a psalm to inspire awe.

We must make a study of our God: what he loves, what he hates, how he speaks and acts. We cannot imitate a God whose features and habits we have never learned. We must make a study of him if we want to become like him. We must seek his face.

There is a vastness between what I am and what I ought to be, but it is a vastness able to be spanned by the mercy and grace of him whose face it is most needful for me to behold. In beholding God we become like him. So

A vision of God high and lifted up reveals to me my sin and increases my love for him. Grief and love lead to genuine repentance, and I begin to be conformed to the image of the One I behold.

The Bible is a book that boldly and clearly reveals who God is on every page.

We humans must confess, 'I am because he is.' Only God can say, 'I AM WHO I AM'.

A well-rounded approach to Bible study recognizes that the Bible is always more concerned with the decision-maker than with the decision itself. Its aim is to change our hearts so that we desire what God desires, rather than to spoon-feed us answers to every decision in life.

If we want to feel deeply about God, we must learn to think deeply about God.

Shaping someone's understanding of the things of God is a huge responsiblity, and it is not to be taken lightly.

Are we called to be like Noah? Yes. Are we called to be like the Good Samaritan? Yes. But not simply because they are positive examples to inspire us to righteousness. These stories point us to Christ.

The Word is living and active. It will conform you by dividing you. And in the dividing, miracle of miracles, it will render you whole.

What freedom is found in recognizing that only God creates! No longer must we labor under the delusion of our own self-importance. We need not find our value in people or possessions - it rests in our origin.

There is no true knowledge of self apart from the knowledge of God.

The problem with using our desires as the litmus test for holiness is that sin feels more normal than righteousness.

For years I viewed my interaction with the Bible as a debit account: I had a need, so I went to the Bible to withdraw an answer. But we do much better to view our interaction with the Bible as a savings account: I stretch my understanding daily, I deposit what I glean, and I patiently wait for it to accumulate in value, knowing that one day I will need to draw on it.

When women grow increasingly lax in their pursuit of Bible literacy, everyone in their circle of influence is affected. Rather than acting as salt and light, we become bland contributions to the environment we inhabit and shape, indistinguishable from those who have never been changed by the gospel. Home, church, community, and country desperately need the influence of women who know why they believe what they believe, grounded in the Word of God. They desperately need the influence of women who love deeply and actively the God proclaimed in the Bible.

It is God who speaks life into us. God is the One who resurrects the spiritually dead to life.

Here is a remarkable truth: God is able to bring eternal results from our time-bound efforts. This is what Jesus intimates when he tells us to store up treasure in heaven rather than on earth. When we invest our time in what has eternal significance, we store up treasure in heaven. This side of heaven, the only investments with eternal significance are people. "Living this day well" means prioritizing relationships over material gain. We cannot take our stuff with us when we die, but, Lord willing, we may feed the hungry and clothe the needy in such a way that an eternal result is rendered. We may speak words that, by the favor of the Lord, transform into the very words of life. This is the calling of the missionary, the magnate, and the mother of small children: spend your time to impact people for eternity.

The Bible does tell us who we are and what we should do, but it does so through the lens of who God is. The knowledge of God and the knowledge of self always go hand in hand.

If I am fully known and not rejected by God, how much more ought I to extend grace to my neighbor, whom I know only in part?

We will not wake up ten years from now and find we have passively taken on the character of God.

We must be those who build on the rock-solid foundation of mind-engaging process, rather than on the shifting sands of 'what this verse means to me' subjectivity.

The heart cannot love what the mind does not know.

Study everything that makes God wonderful and mimic to your heart's delight, as the joyful expression of your reciprocal love for him.

The key to enjoying wine isn't just to guzzle a lot of expensive wine, it's to learn about wine.