17 Quotes that Have Shaped Me

The Lord blessed me early in my Christian life with friends who put good books and preaching tapes in my hands. (Yes tapes, it was the late 90’s.) During this time I have written down many quotes that stuck out to me from sermons, articles and books. This document now covers sixty-four pages. It is almost always in my recent documents as I am constantly adding to it and looking for quotes from it.

Below you will find the seventeen quotes that have had the greatest impact on me. In some cases I have been shaped by multiple quotes from an author on the same subject. In those cases I chose the one which best represents the heart of what has impacted me. Some of these have books and page numbers and others were written down listening to sermons.

“When one person says, ‘I forgive you’ to another, he promises
–    I’ll not bring this matter up to you again.
–    I’ll not bring it up to others.
–    I’ll not bring it up to myself. (i.e. dwell on it).”
Jay Adams
 Theology of Christian Counseling, 222.

“Your worst days are never so bad that you are beyond the reach of God’s grace.  Your best days are never so good that you are beyond the need of God’s grace.”
Jerry Bridges
The Discipline of Grace, 18.

“We ruefully acknowledge how self-centered we are after we have an argument with someone.  Typically, we mentally conjure up a rerun of the argument, thinking up all the things we should have said.  In such reruns, we always win.  After an argument, have you ever conjured up a rerun in which you lost?”
D.A. Carson
The Cross and Christian Ministry, 14-15.

“We want to say to people, it is okay to not be okay, but it is not okay to stay there.”
Matt Chandler

“Most gospel ministry involves ordinary people doing ordinary things with gospel intentionality.”
Tim Chester and Steve Timmis
Total Church, 63.

“Our people do not so much need their heads stored, as their hearts touched, and they stand in the greatest need of that sort of preaching, which has the greatest tendency to do this.”
Jonathan Edwards

“The fact that Jesus had to die for me humbled me out of my pride.  The fact that Jesus was glad to die for me assured me out of my fear.”
Timothy Keller
Reason for God, 200.

“God made us: invented us as a man invents an engine.  A car is made to run on gasoline, and it would not properly run on anything else.  Now God designed the human machine to run on Himself.  He Himself is the fuel our spirits were designed, or the food our spirits were to designed to feed on.  There is no other.  That is why it is just no good asking God to make us happy in our own way without about religion.  God cannot give us a happiness and a peace apart from Himself because it is not there.  There is no such thing.
C.S. Lewis
Mere Christianity, 54.

“How do you know whether a man is a Christian?  The answer is that his mouth is ‘shut’… You do not begin to be a Christian until your mouth is shut, is stopped and you are speechless and have nothing to say.”
Martyn Lloyd-Jones
Exposition of Romans 3:20-4:25, 19.

“When I preach, I regard neither doctors nor magistrates, of whom I have about forty in my congregation.  My eyes are on the servant maids and the children. And if the learned men are not well pleased with what they hear, well, the door is open.”
Martin Luther

“It is surprising how seldom books on parenting talk about prayer. We instinctively believe that if we have the right biblical principles and apply them consistently, our kids will turn out right. But that didn’t work for God in the Garden of Eden. Perfect environment. Perfect relationships. And still God’s two children went bad.”
Paul Miller

“Contrary to popular belief, the notion that God will not put on us more than we can handle is unbiblical. God always calls us to do more than we can handle, and he does this in order to bring us back to him as the source of our strength and power.  He lays supernatural tasks on us because he wants us to rely on him for supernatural strength.”
Darrin Patrick and Matt Carter
For the City, 176.

“At the heart of every pastor’s work is book work.  Call it reading, study, meditation, cogitation, reflection, exegesis or whatever you will- a large and central part of your work is to wrestle God’s meaning from a book and proclaim it in the power of the Holy Spirit.”
John Piper

“The habit of putting off is fatal to spiritual leadership… Most decisions are more difficult a day later, and you may also lose such an advantage by such details… A helpful method for overcoming procrastination is to set deadlines and never miss or postpone even one.  A lifelong reader was asked by his friends, ‘How do you get time for it?’  He replied, ‘I don’t get time for it; I make time for it.’”
J. Oswald Sanders
Spiritual Leadership, 99.

It has been said by some one that “the proper study of mankind is man.” I will not oppose the idea, but I believe it is equally true that the proper study of God’s elect is God; the proper study of a Christian is the Godhead. The highest science, the loftiest speculation, the mightiest philosophy, which can ever engage the attention of a child of God, is the name, the nature, the person, the work, the doings, and the existence of the great God whom he calls his Father. There is something exceedingly improving to the mind in a contemplation of the Divinity. It is a subject so vast, that all our thoughts are lost in its immensity; so deep, that our pride is drowned in its infinity. Other subjects we can compass and grapple with; in them we feel a kind of self-content, and go our way with the thought, “Behold I am wise.” But when we come to this master-science, finding that our plumb-line cannot sound its depth, and that our eagle eye cannot see its height, we turn away with the thought, that vain man would be wise, but he is like a wild ass’s colt; and with the solemn exclamation, “I am but of yesterday, and know nothing.” No subject of contemplation will tend more to humble the mind, than thoughts of God. We shall be obliged to feel—”Great God, how infinite art thou, What worthless worms are we!”
Charles Spurgeon
New Park Street Pulpit, 1.

“The essence of sin is we human beings substituting ourselves for God while the essence of salvation is God substituting Himself for us.  We… put ourselves where only God deserves to be; God puts Himself where we deserve to be.”
John Stott
The Cross of Christ, 99.

“The gospel makes us Christians, not ascetics. Jesus Christ did not die and rise for you so that you would stress out about whether you’re being spiritual enough. So take a nap. Go for a walk in the woods. Play with your kids. Eat some chocolate. Watch a good movie. Christian, you are free. Parents of young children know what a chore chart is. It is how we assign chores to each child and how we remind them of these chores. Sometimes we organize the chart according to a child’s age, aptitude, and interest. Different chores go in different columns. The tyranny of hyperspirituality pictures the Christian life like a chore chart. But the gospel frees you to rest. It puts the first six days in Christ’s column and the seventh in yours. Do we strive? Yes. But “let us therefore strive to enter that rest . . .” (Heb. 4:11).”
Jared Wilson
Gospel Wakefulness