Max Anders Quotes

The spiritual heritage of the godly lives on after they are gone.

Intimacy with God is to be preferred above material wealth.

Theological error is the most pernicious of errors; it strikes at man's center and separates him from his Creator and Redeemer. God insisted not only that Israelites should judge their own hearts and cast aside falsehood about Him but that they should also confront it wherever it emerged.

If Israel is to please the Lord fully, they will live lives that are as distinctive among the nations as their Lord is different from pagan deities.

Fear of God and love for God coexist happily in the heart of people who are rightly related to Him.

Religious truth is not false for being narrow any more than mathematical or scientific truth is false for the same reason.

Distance is no barrier to the love of God.

Before we can pray for God's blessing, we should ask ourselves if our disobedience could hinder his blessing.

There is a kind of misguided pity that deals gently with false teachers at the expense of their victims.

Although God's people find many successes in the world, they must not fall prey to a spirit of pride. We succeed not because of our moral superiority but because of the faithfulness of our divine intercessor and because of the great mercy of God.

Believers have just as much to fear from legalism as from waywardness. The first detracts from the beauty of the message, while the second mars it content.

The worship of false gods is always an outgrowth of spiritual deception.

Our identity as the people of God is marked primarily by our faithfulness in obedience to Him.

God expects believers to improve their attitude in giving as well as their giving itself.

A life that is lived without regard to God cannot be called living.

God chooses people not for what He can do for them, but for the good they can do for others.

No amount of human willfulness can overcome God's determined love.

Even the wisest people learn little from their successes; God warns His people against allowing their victories (which He will grant) to lead them into pride and spiritual indifference. Instead, they should pay close attention to God's Word.

Giving to God should come from the firstfruits of a person's labor rather than from what is left after the bills are paid.

A good memory is one of the most precious assets of spiritual living.

The task of evangelism often involves preparing an open road so offenders can find their refuge in Christ.

God never forgets a promise.

The faithfulness of God in the past fortifies believers for future challenges.

When believers neglect the revealed Word of God, they are likely to turn to silly and unprofitable methods of insight.

In God's pattern of justice, He takes the risk of the guilty going free but not the innocent being punished.

A concern for doctrinal purity should always be based on love of the Lord, not a desire to express spiritual pride.

There is no limit to what God's people can expect their God to do if they are rightly related to Him.

Intercessors constitute the greatest unseen group of spiritual heroes in world history. Their labors are not seen, but the results are. Those who pray for the spiritual needs of others do immeasurable good in the world, often preventing (at least for a time) divine judgment.

Courage is the most fundamental of all virtues.

Only people of proven character should be placed in positions of spiritual leadership.

Spiritual leadership ought to be given to those who have proven themselves under stress.

Kindness that allows barriers to one's relationship with God to spring up is self-destructive.

Giving works best when the Lord's portion is removed first and believers learn to live within the remainder.

Some believers tend to forget God's persistent faithfulness in the face of the spectacular and showy.

Mental confusion can be the product of divine discipline.

The choice of a mate is crucial because no one has a greater influence on our spiritual lives.

God is glorified when His people find satisfaction in Him and in His provisions for them.

God supplies the needs of His people according to their needs but does not ordinarily allow stockpiling.

The worship practices of the people of God are to be marked by devotion to Him and compassion to the needy.

Prosperity is often the enemy of spiritual development.

Even guilty people deserve to be treated as those made in the image of God.

Nothing should be considered outside the scope of God's authority.

Rejoicing is the essence of genuine worship. A sad face (apart from remorse for sin or regret concerning the pain of others) is an affront to a gracious and generous God.

To know God and to find one's full satisfaction in that knowledge is the ultimate goal of Christian experience. The Lord's greatest delight comes when His people discover the ultimate value lies in the knowledge of God. Nothing in the material world can complete with the delights that are present in His Person.

The concept of freedom in Scripture differs from modern notions. Freedom is not a life lived free of restraints but a life that recognizes healthy limits, those that are concern to produce prosperity and order for the person who observes them.

God's Word calls His people to adore Him exclusively and completely and to love people as themselves.

Hearing alone is less effective in learning God's truth than hearing combined with reading.

Wisdom lies in recognizing the dangers that lie within us and doing battle with them daily.

God wanted Israel, as He wants Christians, to learn to utterly abhor and detest anything that had the potential of coming between them and their God. The believer's enemies are typically internal rather than external, and they pose a powerful threat to spiritual health and progress.

Conversion is essential, but it is a beginning, not an end. The believer in Jesus Christ is not simply rescued from the penalty of his sin; he is redeemed to love God and his neighbor so that others might come to know him.

One of the greatest testimonials to God's love is His provision of His Word.

Discouragement is contagious and is easily transmitted to others.

Moses warned them [Israelites] that the leading spiritual danger they would face on entering the [promise] land would be forgetting the Lord. What adversity would not do, prosperity and satisfaction could. They were to be on their guard against spiritual lethargy.

God's commandments not only reflect His holiness, they promote our happiness.

Believers should be more concerned for God's opinion of them than for what human opponents might do to their bodies.

The believer who feels the agony caused by rebellion will grow to become the best intercessor.

Error is most painful when it is found inside the family.

The wise Christian will learn from the spiritual blunders of others.

Although the world places a premium on the latest things, some realities are discovered by looking into the past.

The generous giver, demonstrating the nature of God by his behavior, can never outgive God.

Although their parents died in the wilderness for their stubbornness, Israel could profit from the older generation's failure by remembering that God had used adversity to train them.

Demons lie behind much of the world's pagan worship systems.

In a world of constant change, God alone is the Rock upon which to build a life.

Training leaders is part of the work of discipling.

All believers can increase their commitment to God by reflecting on His faithfulness and by considering the forms such commitment should assume in their experience.

Recalling what our lives were like before Jesus Christ entered them will help keep our daily problems in perspective.

Curiosity is an enormous challenge to godly living.

Some duties exist simply because we are part of a larger family or community.

God is able to transform the hostile intentions of wicked people into blessings for His people.

While catastrophes do enter the lives of godly people, they attach themselves far more to people who reject Him.

God wants us to have love. We must be careful not to settle for sex.

Chastening is a mark of affection, not a sign of rejection.

Conversion engages the mind as well as the emotions.

God's love does not depend on the current spiritual condition of those He loves.

Those who serve God in vocational ministry must learn to trust Him for their daily needs before they can encourage others to do so.

God leads His people whether they are obedient or rebellious, but His leading is far more pleasant when they obey.

The Lord longs to exalt His people as trophies of His work in them.

Our lives will last as long as God has something for us to do.

God delights to see His people rejoice in what He has provided.

Equal justice under law is a spiritual as well as a civic principle.

God warned Israel, "And if thou wilt make me an altar of stone, thou shalt not build it of hewn stone: for if thou lift up thy tool upon it, thou hast polluted it" (Ex. 20:25). To pollute something is to make it ordinary. God insists that any approach crafted by human ingenuity will produce a worship system just like all the pagan systems in the world. In other words, it will be common or profane - just like everyone else's paganism.

Many people find spiritual growth possible only when times are hard; prosperity tends to promote complacency.

We dare not trim stones to make God an altar, for if we do we ruin everything. We would spend time bringing people to the altar and saying, "Look at those beautiful stones we trimmed!" We merely need to accept the work that God has done for us in Christ. The object of His restrictions is to help us see how wonderful He is and to spend the rest of our lives rendering true worship to Him.

God not only allowed for joyful worship but also commanded it.

God is enough like us to understand our problems and enough above us to be able to solve them.

Believers are inclined to attribute their spiritual successes to their godliness when it would be more accurate to connect them with God's faithfulness.

The heart that delights in God and longs only to see His glory advance will seldom be conscious of sacrifice. God in His wisdom asks that we first love Him and then live in keeping with that core value. He does not want His people to think of what they do as sacrificial, even though from the world's point of view it may be just that. Gratitude for grace of God will always be found near the center of the Biblical Christian's most powerful motivations.

In any spiritual undertaking, God's first order of business is to see to the spiritual health of His people.

The person who believes he must earn the right to go through the door of eternal life will miss the mark.

Celebration is best done in the company of others who can rejoice with us over God's goodness.

In Deuteronomy 11, God offers Israel a choice; either a life of productivity and enjoyment made possible by obedience to Him, or a life of difficulty and opposition made necessary by disobedience. The happiness Israel desires can only be theirs by being properly related to Him.

Worship is accomplished with the life as well as with the words and attitudes of people. Changed and transformed lives testify to the character and supernatural power of the God of heaven. Closeness to Him produces changes in character and holiness.

Since all wealth ultimately comes from God, His people ought to acknowledge His primacy by offering Him the best of their wealth, time, and abilities.

Exposure to false doctrine places a person at risk not just for theological errors but for moral failure.