Judah Smith Quotes

Rules are not proof of our spirituality. If anything, they are proof of our sinfulness, a reminder that we have a tendency toward wrongdoing and that we need help.

Rules are not bad, but they can't save anyone.

Are you struggling with sin? You don't need more will power. You need more of Jesus.

A father doesn't say, 'Don't go that way.' He says, 'ome follow me.'

What we do on Sunday absolutely doesn't matter unless it meets us on Monday. Changes us on Monday. Transforms us on Monday.

Notorious sinners didn't kill Jesus. Religious people did.

I think if Jesus had one shot at fixing us, He'd tell us how much He loves us. Jesus loves us right now, just as we are. He isn't standing aloof, yelling at us to climb out of our pits and clean ourselves up so we can be worthy of Him. He is wading waist-deep into the muck of life, weeping with the broken, rescuing the lost, and healing the sick.

Sometimes God takes your life for some crazy twists and turns.

When it comes to sin, the only one who has a right to condemn others is Jesus. And he refused.

Make rules and follow rules as needed, but don't focus on riles. Focus on faith. Focus on grace. Focus on Jesus.

But freedom starts with honesty. We aren't doing ourselves any favors by defining our- selves as good and others as bad. Let's just agree that we all need help, that we are all in this together.

I think people would be surprised to discover that their challenges and struggles are not too dissimilar to us, average ordinary people, we're all looking for essentially the same thing and I think that's faith and hope and love and meaning and of course satisfaction, peace, joy.

When we meet grace, it becomes the fuel of our faith. We pray, we read our Bibles, we worship and we live the purest lifestyle we can because we love a person.

Worry is useless. Worry saps our strength and steals our focus. It causes us to be more awestruck and dumbfounded by storms than by the one who silences storms with a word.

Christianity is not about not swearing. It's not about not having impure thoughts. Really, it's not about not at all. Christianity is about Jesus.

It's interesting how people try to redefine God to their liking. They bring him down to their level so they can understand him, then they reject him because he is too much like them.

A moment with Jesus changed everything.

God transforms us one area at a time.

We aren't Christians because we live like Christians; we are Christians because we have accepted the gift of salvation. We have come to know God on an experiential, authentic level.

It is absolutely essential to have a living visible example of what a Christian ought to be.

I'm a big fan of Disney's animated movies, or at least of most of them. I don't know what it is, but the songs get stuck in my head. There is a Disney song for every situation you encounter in life. Some people quote The Godfather. Some quote Monty Python and the Holy Grail. I quote Walt Disney. Those are the true classics.

It takes courage and humility to recognize we are as messed up as the drug addict next door, and many of us never get that honest.

If we could get people to think about Jesus, we reasoned, Jesus was more than able to reveal himself to them.

Sometimes we get way too fixated on how powerful sin is and how weak we are. We worry that if we relax for a second, we'll mess up royally and ruin everything. Ironically, our paranoia only serves to make us more conscious of our sinfulness.

No sooner do I conquer a bad habit than I become the biggest critic of anyone who still does what I just stopped doing.

I wonder if we have a lot of sons running around saying, "I want a Dad." But you won't abide in anyone.

No sinner is irreparable or irredeemable. No sin is so great that the blood of Jesus cannot cover it. His love is so deep and wide that he can, in one moment of our faith, forgive our past, present, and future sins. Sin is simply not a problem for God.

We need a bigger estimation of God and a smaller estimation of sin.

The common denominator is that we all need help.

God is not in a hurry to fix us. Our behavior is not his first priority. We are his first priority. Loving us, knowing us, affirming us, protecting us. That is his top goal and his main concern.

Jesus sees our sin more clearly than anyone, yet He loves us more than anyone.

That's how we often react when grace comes at us. It's awkward. God offers us something that's too good to be true - unearned, unmerited, total forgiveness - and we stand there, stiff and uncomfortable, waiting for the embrace to stop so we can get back to the business of earning our way into heaven. We need to embrace grace. We need to learn how to hug back.

Don't allow the opinions of other people to shape your concept of him. Get to know him yourself, and let the goodness of God change you from the inside out.

But difficult situations and wrong choices conspire to trap us in hopelessness.

God is with us, loves us, and wants us to be fulfilled and satisfied. God wants our lives to be awesome in every way.

I can imagine myself in her place: trapped by a sordid past, terribly alone, defenseless before a crowd of jeering judges who hold my life in their hands. And then, when hope is lost, the one who truly has the right to condemn me looks at me. In his eyes I read something completely unexpected. Compassion.

Jesus is not your accuser. He's not your prosecutor. He's not your judge. He's your friend and your rescuer. Like Zacchaeus, just spend time with Jesus. Don't hide from him in shame or reject him in self-righteousness.

You don't have to be good to be Jesus's friend. You just have to be honest.

What an opportunity we have to be a community ... A community where there are models.

We are often harsher judges than God himself.

Responsibility is good for your soul

God's love is so extravagant and so inexplicable that he loved us before we were us. He loved us before we existed. He knew many of us would reject him, hate him, curse him, rebel against him. Yet he chose to love us. God loves us because he is love.

You didnt access love, love accessed you!

It seemed too good to be true. That's grace.

Once you savor God's goodness, sin holds no lasting appeal.

Many of us live with incredible tension and anxiety because we think that our dreams will come true if we just get the right degree, if we just meet the right people, if we just get the right job. We assume our happiness is tied to our success, and our success depends on our performance. So we sweat and struggle and scheme and strategize, and we wonder why we aren't enjoying life.

Be the same person privately, publically and personally.

God loves us with never-ending love and unconditional passion.