Mark Batterson Quotes

The true purpose of prayer is to get into God's presence so He can outline His agenda for us.

True spirituality is "the place where desperation meets Jesus.

If you aren't hungry for God, you are full of yourself.

Faith is the willingness to look foolish.

I don't know about you, but I want God to reveal the second step before I take the first step of faith. But I've discovered that if I don't take the first step, God generally won't reveal the next step...

Most of us will only follow Christ to the point of precedence -- the place where we have been before. But ...

If you want God to do something new, you cannot keep doing what you've always done. You've got to push past the fear of the unknown. You've got to do something different.

Please read prayerfully what I'm about to write. When God puts a passion in your heart, whether it be relieving starvation in Africa or educating children in the inner city or making movies with redemptive messages, that God-ordained passion becomes your responsibility. And you have a choice to make. Are you going to be irresponsibly responsible or responsibly irresponsible?

Faithfulness is not holding the fort. It's storming the gates of hell and taking back enemy territory that belongs to God.

I'm afraid we've reduced righteousness to the absence of wrongness, but goodness is not the absence of badness. You can do nothing wrong and still do nothing right. Remember the parable of the bags of gold? Breaking even is bad. You've got to ante up everything.

No matter how many wrong turns we've taken and no matter how many detours we've been down, it's God's grace that gets us back onto the parade route.

Part of my driving desire as a pastor is to remove every obstacle except the cross that would keep people from coming to faith in Christ.

God said, 'Let there be light.'

Here's a paraphrase:

Let there be electromagnetic radiation with varying wavelengths traveling at 186,282 miles per second. Let there be radiowaves, microwaves, and X-rays. Let there be photosynthesis and fiber optics. Let there be LASIK surgery, satellite communication, and suntans. Oh, and let there be rainbows after rainstorms.

'Let there be light.'

These are God's first recorded words.

This is God's first recorded miracle.

Light is the source of vision; without it we can't see a thing. Light is the key to technology; it's how we can talk to someone halfway around the world without so much as a second's delay because light can circle the globe seven and a half times a second. Light is the first link in the food chain; no photosynthesis equals no food. Light is the basis of health; the absence of light causes everything from vitamin D deficiency to depression. Light is the origin of energy; in Einstein's equation E = MC squared, energy (E) is defined as mass (M) times the speed of light (C) squared. The speed of light is the constant. And light is the measuring stick for space-time; a meter is defined as the distance traveled by light in a vacuum during a time interval of 1/299,792,458 of a second.

Light is the alpha and omega of everything, and that includes you.

You cannot be in the presence of God and be bored at the same time. For that matter, you cannot be in the will of God and be bored at the same time.

The author gives an interesting naval etymology of the word "opportunity". It referred to days in which sailing ships had to wait outside a port for the appropriate tide, which then was their chance until the next tide.

If you don't hold out on God, I can promise you this: God will not hold out on you. But it's all or nothing.

God cannot reveal His faithfulness until we exercise our faith. But because Abraham went all in, God was able to reveal Himself as Jehovah-jireh, God our Provider.

In an urban environment, a church building is a thing of the past.

Pray like it depends on God and work like it depends on you." But there are others, such as, "Criticize by creating," "Thou shalt offend Pharisees," and "Catch people doing something right.

Any detail can be magnified to reveal even more detail ad infinitum. The technical term is "infinite complexity." Fractals are the theological equivalent of what theologians call the incomprehensibility of God. Just when we think we have God figured out, we discover a new dimension of His kaleidoscopic personality.

Just as one decision can change your destiny, so can one prayer. If you were to map out your spiritual history, you would find countless answers to prayer at key intersections along the way. Before you were even born, even named, many of you had parents and grandparents who prayed for you. At critical ages and stages, family and friends interceded on your behalf. And thousands of complete strangers have prayed for you in ways you aren't even aware of. The sum total of those prayers is your prayer genealogy.

Uniqueness isn't a virtue. It's a responsibility.

Society's goal is to make us less foolish. From the cradle to grave the pressure is on: "Be normal!" Our inner fool may be shackled and caged by a world made to suppress it, but Jesus came to free the fool.

You're never too old to go after the dreams God has put in your heart. And for the record, you're never too young either. Age is never a valid excuse.

What's unique about Washington is that no one's from here. Almost everybody came here to change the world, to make a difference.

Anybody can say 'I do' at the altar; the hard part is saying 'I do' every day thereafter. Anybody can set a life goal; the hard part is going after it every day. Anybody can say no to any addiction for a day, but you have to say it day after day after day.

The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existence. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day. Never lose a holy curiosity.6

As a child of God, you aren't just a manifestation of your biological family. You are a manifestation of your spiritual family - your true family of origin. If you let Him, the Spirit of God will manifest the Father and the Son through you.

Leaders need the courage to acknowledge when something isn't working.

The genealogy of blessing always traces back to God-ordained risk.

Why do we mistakenly think that God is offended by our prayers for the impossible? The truth is that God is offended by anything less! God is offended when we ask Him to do things we can do ourselves. It's the impossible prayers that honor God because they reveal our faith and allow God to reveal His glory.

I want to go after dreams that are destined to fail without diving intervention.

The beauty of obedience is this: it relieves us of responsibility.

Nine times out of ten, failure is resorting to Plan B when Plan A gets too risky, too costly, or too difficult. That's why most people are living their Plan B. They didn't burn the ships. Plan A people don't have a Plan B...

There are moments in life when we need to burn the ships to our past. We do so by making a defining decision that will eliminate the possibility of sailing back to the old world we left behind. You burn the ships named Past Failure and Past Success. You burn the ship named Bad Habit. You burn the ship named Regret. You burn the ship named Guilt. You burn the ship named My Old Way of Life.

Sometimes the purpose of prayer is to get us out of circumstances, but more often than not, the purpose of prayer is to get us through them.

A. W. Tozer once said, "Eternity won't be long enough to discover all that God is or praise him for all that he's done."6

Pursuing a God-ordained passion, no matter how crazy it seems, is the most responsible thing you can do.

Prayer is asking God to do something, future tense; praise is believing that God has already done it, past tense.

CONVICTIONS are lessons learned from experiences we'd never want to go through again, but wouldn't trade for anything in the world.

I've always believed in the power of prayer. One prayer can accomplish more than a thousand plans. That isn't a magic formula, but it's an idea that if you pray, keep praying and then praying some more.

Dreams without deadlines are dead in the water. Deadlines are really lifelines to achieving our goals.

...there is nothing you possess that wasn't given to you by God. It's His prerogative to give. And it's His prerogative to take away. But there is one thing that can never be taken from you, and that is Jesus Christ. And if you have Jesus, then you have everything you will ever need for all of eternity.

Everything - Jesus = Nothing
Jesus + Nothing = Everything

It's that simple.

Before you step into what if, you have to get past if only.

The healthiest, holiest, and happiest people on the planet are those who laugh at themselves the most.

In my experience, take the Holy Spirit out of the equation of your life and it spells boring. Add it into the equation of your life and you never know where you are going to go, what you are going to do, or who you are going to meet.

...one good decision can totally change the trajectory of our lives. And that one good decision will lead to better decisions. But it starts by making the right decision when no one is looking.

There is a past cause and future effect to every decision that goes way beyond what is discernible in the here and now. Decisions have long and often complex genealogies. And every decision is a genesis moment that has the potential to radically alter not just our destiny but the course of human history as well.

Even choosing to do nothing is still making a choice.

If your deepest feelings are reserved for something other than Almighty God, then that something other is an emotional idol... if you get more excited about material things than the simple yet profound fact that your sin was nailed to the cross by the sinless Son of God, then you're bowing down to Tammuz.

We pray out of our ignorance, but God answers out of His omniscience. We pray out of our impotence, but God answers out of His omnipotence. God has the ability to answer the prayers we should have prayed but lacked the knowledge or ability to even ask. During

Why do we act as though our sin disqualifies us from the grace of God? That is the only thing that qualifies us! Anything else is a self-righteous attempt to earn God's grace. You cannot trust God's grace 99 percent. It's all or nothing. The problem, as I pointed out earlier, is that we want partial credit for our salvation. We want to be 1 percent of the equation. But if we try to save ourselves, we forfeit the salvation that comes from Jesus Christ alone, by grace through faith.

Who you become is determined by how you pray.

There is no situation under the sun in which your ability to respond can be taken away from you. You may not control your circumstances, but you control your reactions to them. And that is what sets the men apart from the boys!

When Christianity turns into a noun, it becomes a turnoff. Christianity was always intended to be a verb. And, more specifically, an action verb. The title of the book of Acts says it all, doesn't it? It's not the book of Ideas or Theories or Words. It's the book of Acts. If the twenty-first-century church said less and did more, maybe we would have the same kind of impact the first-century church did.

Goal setting is good stewardship. Instead of letting things happen, goals help us make things happen. Instead of living by default, goals help us live by design. Instead of living out of memory, goals help us live out of imagination.

We will face some problems we cannot solve, some situations we cannot change. That's when we may feel like panicking, but it is the time to stand still and wait for the Lord's deliverance.

Grace is the catalyst that turns guilt into gratitude. One act of grace can turn the worst moment into the defining moment of someone's life. You can be that agent of grace.

Lion chasers are humble enough to let God call the shots and brave enough to follow where He leads.

Learning is the heart of discipleship. You can't just take up your cross daily. You need to take up the Bible every day.

Preaching may move the hearts of men, but praying moves the heart of God. And that's where revival comes from.

Don't whine. Don't complain. And don't check out. Make the most of the situation. Do little things like they are big things. Keep a good attitude. And faithfully carry out your current obligations. If your job isn't exciting, then bring some excitement to the job. One of the greatest acts of worship is keeping a good attitude in a bad situation. And doing a good job at a bad job honors God. It will also open doors of opportunity down the road. It did for Nehemiah.

All of us want to do amazing things for God, but that isn't our job; it is God's job.

Second-degree faith is resurrection faith. It's a faith that refuses to put periods at the end of disappointments. It's a faith that believes that God can reverse the irreversible.

Submission is the art of compensating for your weakness by playing to each other's strengths.

If Christians believe that God is in every person, why don't we act like that?

Death is a mirror that gives us a glimpse of who we really are.

Death is a rearview mirror that puts the past into perspective.

The spiritual tipping point is when the pain of staying the same becomes greater than the pain of change. Sadly, too many of us get comfortable with comfort. We follow Christ to the point of inconvenience, but no further. That's when we need a prophet to walk into our lives, throw a mantle around our shoulders, and wake us up to a new possibility, a new reality. We need a prophet to boldly confront Plan B and call us back to Plan A.

They thrive in the toughest circumstances because they know that impossible odds set the stage for amazing miracles.

Spontaneity is an underappreciated dimension of spirituality. In fact, spiritual maturity has less to do with long-range visions than it does with moment-by-moment sensitivity to the promptings of the Holy Spirit. And it is our moment-by-moment sensitivity to the Holy Spirit that turns life into an everyday adventure.

...faith is acting as if God has already answered. And acting as if God has answered means acting on our prayers...

Sin always overpromises and underdelivers, while righteousness pays dividends for eternity...

Nothing is more illogical than sin. It's the epitome of poor judgment. It's temporary insanity with eternal consequences. And we have no alibi, save the cross of Jesus Christ.

Jesus proclaimed the favor of God in His very first sermon. Then He sealed the deal with His death and resurrection. Favor is a function of surrender. If we don't hold out on God, God will not hold out on us.

If you can truly surrender to Him, you will do more, be more, experience more. Life will just be more.

We're the beneficiaries of prayers we know nothing about. God was working long before we arrived on the scene and He's using us to set up the next generation.

We tend to think right here, right now.

God is thinking nations and generations.

We have no idea how our lives are going to alter the course of history downstream, but there is a divine domino effect for every decision we make. Don't underestimate the potential impact of obeying God's prompts. Those are the whispers that will echo for all eternity!

Sometimes we're too focused on getting out of a situation that we don't think about what we can get out of the situation.

Faith is unlearning the senseless worries and misguided beliefs that keep us captive.

If you really want to get good at anything, you've got to work at it for ten thousand hours.

You don't need wealth or position or power to make a difference. You just need to do the best you can with what you have where you are. And if you are faithful in Babylon, God will bless you in Jerusalem.

I think faith is the small mustard seed of opportunities every day. For example, 'Am I going to love this person? Am I going to share my faith with this person? Am I going to pray that little prayer?' It really is a daily thing where you seize those little mustard seed opportunities and then see what God does.

One of my pastor friends, and a local hero, is Mike Minter. Mike is the founding pastor of Reston Bible Church, where he has served for nearly four decades.

God-ordained dreams aren't just born. They are reborn. If they become more important to you than God, you have to sacrifice them for the sake of your soul. You have to put them on the altar and raise the knife. And once the dream is dead and buried, it can be resurrected for God's glory.

Too often we pray ASAP prayers - as soon as possible. We need to start praying ALAT prayers - as long as it takes.

Those who dance are thought mad by those who hear not the music.

That old adage is certainly true of those who walk to the beat of God's drum. When you take your cues from the Holy Spirit, you'll do some things that will make people think you're crazy. So be it. Obey the whisper and see what God does.

The blessings of God will complicate your life, but unlike sin, they will complicate your life in the way it should be complicated.

Prayer is the difference between seeing with our physical eyes and seeing with our spiritual eyes.

I am a pastor so I eat and breathe the Church.

Go after a dream that is destined to fail without divine intervention.

Goals have a way of refocusing your life. They give you purpose and a target to shoot for. They are the compass of our dreams, helping us set a steady course. Goals comprise direction and progress. When we lose sight of our goals, we tend to lose sight of ourselves and who we are trying to become, who God has made us to be.

When we pray, we relieve ourselves of responsibility. We let go and let God. We take our hands off and put our concerns into the hands of Almighty God. And trust me, He can handle whatever we put in His hands.

The Bible is the place where God bears His soul.

When we are born into this world, the world revolves around us. We're spoon-fed on the front end and diaper-changed on the back end. It's as if the entire world exists to meet our every need. And that's fine if you are a two-month-old baby. If you're twenty-two, it's a problem! Newsflash:

Are your problems bigger than God, or is God bigger than your problems? Our

When you open your Bible, God opens His mouth.

The supernatural laws of prayer defy the natural laws of time and space.

The key to getting out of the boat is hearing the voice of God.

Faith is unlearning this senseless worries and misguided beliefs that keep us captive. It is far more complex than simply modifying behavior. Faith is rewiring the human brain. We are literally upgrading our minds by downloading the mind of Christ.

All of us love miracles. We just don't like being in a situation that necessitates one.

Prayer adds an element of surprise to your life that is more fun than a surprise party or surprise gift or surprise romance. In fact, prayer turns life into a party, into a gift, into a romance.

Long before God laid the foundation of the earth, He anticipated and provided for everything we'd ever need. You just need to give Him an opportunity to prove Himself faithful.

Routines are normal, natural, healthy things. Most of us take a shower and brush our teeth every day. That is a good routine. Spiritual disciplines are routines. That is a good thing. But once routines become routine you need to change your routine.

Experiences are the currency of a life well lived.

The antidote for fear of failure is not success but small doses of failure.

But what if, instead of spending all of our energy making plans for God, we spent that energy seeking God?

If the kingdom of God had departments, we'd want to work in research and development. We felt like Jesus didn't hang out at the synagogue, he hung out at wells. Coffeehouses are postmodern wells. Let's not wait for people to come to us, let's go to them.