Craig Groeschel Quotes

Your prayer for someone may or may not change them, but it always changes YOU.

God doesn't want us to be happy when it causes us to do something wrong or unwise

All people end up somewhere in life, but few end up there on purpose.

Most of life's battles are won or lost in the mind.

Becoming obsessed with what people think is the quickest way to forget about what God thinks.

Don’t worry when you meet opposition for obeying God. Worry when you don’t have opposition, because you’re probably not obeying God.

May God bless you with discomfort at easy answers, half truths, and superficial relationships, so that you may live deep within your heart. May God bless you with anger at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people, so that you may work for justice, freedom and peace. May God bless you with tears to shed for those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation, and war, so that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and to turn their pain in to joy. And may God bless you with enough foolishness to believe that you can make a difference in this world, so that you can do what others claim cannot be done. To bring justice and kindness to all our children and the poor. Amen.

Being in the wrong place never helps you do the right thing

Love keeps no record of wrongs, but bitterness keeps detailed accounts.

Our thoughts are either focused on what's eternal, life-changing, and true, or lost in the details of our temporary, selfish, false beliefs.

Bitterness never draws us closer to God. Bitterness is a nonproductive, toxic emotion, usually resulting from resentment over unmet needs.

Just as we are what we eat physically, we are also what we consume spiritually.

The problem is that many bitter people don't know they are bitter. since they are so convinced that they are right, they can't see their own wrong in the mirror. And the longer the root of bitterness grows, the more difficult it is to remove.

Belief overflows to behavior. First we need to change what we believe. when we truly change what we believe, we'll gladly change how we behave.

When we look at other people comparatively and competitively, we're not seeing them as our brothers and sisters. We're not loving them more than we love ourselves, and we we're definitely not seeing them as God sees them.

No matter what I feel, I hold the assurance that God never leaves me.

When happiness becomes our standard for judging truth, things that make us happy give us permission to do some things that otherwise would be considered wrong.

God can and will break the labels that have held you hostage.

When you accept the fact that your true identity includes being an overcomer, you will never settle for less than a miracle.

To be fully alive, you need time with God to recharge.

Don't settle for a normal life. Not when you can enjoy the wonderful weirdness of being who God created you to be.

If we're honest, most of us are doing okay.

Normal people live distracted, rarely fully present. Weird people silence the distractions and remain fully in the moment.

There is no sin too great for God's grace. There is no habit too big for his healing. There is no label too strong for his love.

When we live by faith, we believe that God has everything under control. But if we start to worry, how we live says the opposite.

If you don't handle the hurt properly, their sin becomes a catalyst for your own.

OUR LIVES ARE ALWAYS MOVING IN THE DIRECTION OF OUR strongest thoughts. What we think shapes who we are.

Sometimes what we think will make us happy is the opposite of what God wants for us.

If you don't know the purpose of something, all you can do is misuse it.

the strongest man is not the one who lifts the most weight but the one who has the most faith.

We reflect God's character the most when we give freely of ourselves with no strings attached, no secret motives, no hidden agenda.

Every family possesses at least one off-the-charts challenging person. If you’re tempted to tell me that yours doesn’t, then I hate to be the one to break it to you, but maybe you are the one!

...If we believe that God wants us happy above all else, rather than acknowledging that our role is to serve God, we wrongly believe that God exists to serve us. God becomes a a means to our end: happiness.

Shame usually follows a pattern—a cycle of self-recrimination and lies that claims life after life. First, we experience an intensely painful event. Second, we believe the lie that our pain and failure is who we are—not just something we’ve done, or had done to us—and we experience shame. And finally, our feelings of shame trap us into thinking that we can never recover—that, in fact, we don’t even deserve to.

Life is uncertain. Eternity is not. Unforgiveness cannot be allowed to last another day. Are you holding a grudge? You will never be more like God than when you forgive. Let it go. Kill the root of bitterness. Let the hurt go and set yourself free.

We would do well to remember that envy is clearly the flint that ignites evil in our hearts. It apparently signals "I'm available" to demons searching for a cheap date. Envy is as volatile as nitroglycerin, and we cannot carry it inside us without evil exploding.

Ask yourself this question: at the end of your life, is it really going to matter how many Likes you got?

The longer we view ourselves through a distorted lens, the more likely we are to believe a distorted truth.

If someone has been trying to show you something about yourself and you continue to fight it, maybe it’s time to acknowledge that you might be deceived.

a lie believed as truth will affect your life as if it were true.

Tragically, many people have this faithless, wishy-washy mindset, which causes them to lose the battle in their minds before they ever fight it in the world.

Sex joins two people spiritually and emotionally as well as physically. This is its purpose-to bond a couple together. Sex connects and fuses people together.

You care because God gave you this unusual blessing: a burden to make a difference.

As you’ll recall, what you believe — about who you are and who God is — determines how you behave. If you believe everybody is going to criticize you, you’ll behave cautiously. If you believe you’re probably going to fail, you’re going to venture out tentatively. If, however, you believe that the one true Lord God is calling you, empowering you, leading you, and equipping you, then you will live boldly. Why? Because boldness is behavior born of belief.

If you're not dead, you're not done.

Failure is the tuition you pay for success.

Weirdly enough, the more we give away, the richer we become.

Weird makes you truly sexy in a way the world can never know.

He knows every hair on your head, and he sees every tear you shed.

He puts us here to make an eternal difference. He puts us here to show everyone around us how much He loves them. He puts us here to be His hands and feet, His body and His heart.

My pastor used to say you’re either coming out of a tough season, in the middle of a tough season, or heading into a tough season.

To be a Christian without prayer is no more possible than to be alive without breathing. — Martin Luther King Jr.

This is God’s universe; we just live in it. He doesn’t owe us anything. We owe him everything. What did you make? Nothing. He made everything. For everything you have, you owe him.

Remember, to get what you've never had, you must do what you've never done. But to get what you once had, you must do what you once did.

If you pour everything you have into this life, this world, which is temporary and fading, you're jeopardizing your relationship with God, the only thing that's eternal.

I will do today what I can do to enable me to do tomorrow what I can’t do today.

Faith doesn’t mean you don’t get afraid. Faith means you don’t let fear stop you.

Grace. Changes. Everything. We don’t bring anything. Jesus brings everything.

But just as your body needs sleep, your soul needs time to rest in God. To learn more about Him. To talk to Him. To worship and praise Him. To fellowship with other brothers and sisters.

Good intentions center around us. We say, “Here’s what I would like to be different about my life.” Good intentions are me-centered. God intentions, on the other hand, are centered on what our Father wants for us. Our intentions tend to focus on what we think we want, but God intentions focus on what he knows we need.

Our fears matter. Because ultimately, our fears show how we’re relying on our own efforts and not trusting in our Savior. The truth is we—you and I and everyone—are always inadequate. We’re never enough. We’re always weak.

If God has done what you think he should do, trust him. If God doesn't do what you think he should do, trust him. If you pray and believe God for a miracle and he does it, trust him. If your worst nightmare comes true, believe he is sovereign. Believe he is good.

Each time you think something good, speak it. Never rob someone of the blessings of an unspoken treasure.

Because God has made us for Himself, our hearts are restless until they rest in Him. St. Augustine

No es difícil conocer a Dios, y no se trata de un conjunto de reglas. Sí, Dios quiere tu obediencia, pero más que eso desea tu corazón.

El primer paso para llegar a vencer la vergüenza consiste en aceptar lo que no podemos cambiar.

We compare our behind-the-scenes with other people’s highlight reels.

If you’re not ministering and using your gifts in the church, then something God wants done is being ignored.

God is not calling us to go to church; he is calling us to be his church, the hope of the world.

Jesus never criticized prayers that were honest, only those that were long and showy.

Someone said it’s not wrong to have things. It’s wrong when your things have you.

Freedom lies in being bold. — Robert Frost

God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. —2 TIMOTHY 1:7 NKJV

Most of us are living at a pace that is not only unsustainable; it's also unbiblical.

You have enough time to do everything God wants you to do.

I've heard it said, "If the Devil can't make us really bad, then he'll try to make us really busy.

Wherever you are, be all there.

Who do we believe in more? Ourselves or God? Our actions and decisions will reflect that.

Godliness with contentment is rare.

No matter what sin you find yourself in, turn to God. Let Him forgive, heal, and restore.

Feelings are much like waves. We can’t stop them from coming, but we can choose which one to surf. —Jonatan Mårtensson

But if we've honestly done everything we can, by definition we can't do anything more.

If you delegate tasks, you create followers, if you delegate authority , you create leaders

Enjoy what you have rather than desiring what you don’t have

Ironically, we often fail to see that whenever we compromise ourselves to please others, we tend to lose their respect.

In fact, if our kids are successful in every normal way, they can still miss God's main mark.

From the outside, everything looked good. But God doesn't look at the outside.

David cuts through all the many needs, wants, and desires that may have been bouncing around inside him and essentially says, "If I could have only one thing, I want to be with God, to be in His presence, to know that he is always with me." Whether in good times or bad times, David knew the thing he needed most: to feel God's presence close by, intimately, through worship.

When something goes wrong, what's the best course of action? To change your direction. The word repentance means to stop going one direction (your own way) and turn toward the right direction (God's way). Your past may be a part of who you are, but it certainly doesn't have to define your future. Or if you feel stuck and unable to change directions and move toward God, think of this transformation another way. The Bible says that God is the Potter and we are his clay (Jer. 18:2-6).

He is the God who loved you so much that His Son stripped Himself of all heavenly glory to live as an impoverished Jewish carpenter so He could shed His blood, suffer, and die for the forgiveness of our sins.

Contrast toxic religion with the pure gospel. Religion is all about what I do. The gospel is all about what Jesus has done. Religion is about me. The gospel is about Jesus. Religion highlights my efforts to do what is right. The gospel highlights what Christ has already done. Religion lures me to believe that if I obey God, he will love me. But the gospel shows me that because God loves me, I get to obey him. Religion puts the burden on us. We have to do what is right. A relationship with Christ puts the burden on him. And because of what he did for us, we get to do what is right. Instead of an obligation, our right living is a response to his gift. Giving Christ our whole lives is the only reasonable response to such love. There nothing more we need to do. Nothing...

We were created not for earth but for eternity. We were created not to be Liked but to show love. We were created not to draw attention to ourselves but to give glory to God. We were created not to collect followers but to follow Christ.

Rather than experiencing the richness of a dynamic, intimate relationship with the righteous One, you put God in a little box that you can check off your to-do list each week. By settling for rules and religion and feeling pretty good about how much you’re doing for the church and those less fortunate, you become blinded to legalism and self-righteousness.

God's blessings, however, aren't always bigger, better, and beautiful. In fact, I truly believe that God gifts His chosen leaders with a very unusual blessing. You might even call it a weird blessing because most of the time we call it...a burden.

It's time to get healed. It's time to confess. Falling for the bait doesn't make you the worst person in the world. You were snared. You were hooked. But you don't have to stay that way. Now is the time to deal with the shackles that keep you enslaved. Today you can leave the prison that sexual immorality has created from your past mistakes. Hear your Father's voice call out to you above the noisy clamor of our culture. He says, "I love you. You're free to go now. Sexual sin has no hold on you.

If God does what you think he should do, trust him. If God doesn’t do what you think he should do, trust him. If you pray and believe God for a miracle and he does it, trust him. If your worst nightmare comes true, believe he is sovereign. Believe he is good.

If you want your ministry to have ‘it’, more important than anything else we’ve discussed, you must have ‘it’. When it has filtered through your heart - the rare combination of passion, integrity, focus, faith, expectation, drive, hunger, and God’s anointing - God tends to infuse your ministry with ‘it’. He blesses your work. People are changed. Leaders grow. Resources flow. The ministry seems to take on a life of its own.

Will we trust that God is good even when life is not? Our response to pain and challenges determines so much about our future. If we decide to trust, we will grow in our faith, deepen in our intimacy with God, and be conformed to the image of Christ. But if we allow our hearts to drift, we’ll wake up one day drowning in doubts, buried in burdens, and feeling far from the only one who can help us heal.

In our culture, the water temperature increases daily. Without realizing it, we slowly become acclimated to a toxic environment full of poisonous influences. As the water temperature rises, we keep pretending we’re soaking in a hot tub having the time of our lives, never dreaming that we’re scalding our souls. As we become scarred and desensitized to what is right and wrong, good and evil, life-giving and life-draining, we lose sight of our first love. We move away from God one degree at a time.

our lives. First, we’ll look at practicing the power of being present. Which sounds a lot cooler, hipper, New Age, and Zen than I intend, because what I’m talking about, as you’ll see, is simply a fundamental awareness of God’s presence in each moment of our lives. The second area is one you may know but don’t practice regularly: taking a Sabbath. Notice I said “taking” instead of “observing” the Sabbath. Knowing how to rest, to unplug, to unwind is as much a spiritual discipline as prayer or fasting. As weird as it may sound, God commands us to rest. It’s not an option to keep going at the pace, intensity, and speed at which most of us live our lives. Busyness will remain the standard for many people for years to come. But we’re called to a different standard, a way of prioritizing our time that may seem weird to everyone around us. When we follow Jesus, we’re about our Father’s business, not about the world’s busyness. Check your watch. It’s time to get weird. Chapter 2 NO TIME LIKE THE PRESENT You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment. — HENRY D