Dec 12, 2012

Quotes III

"As teachers or leaders, an important question to ask ourselves is, "When someone comes to me with a problem or difficult question, do I try to answer it myself, or do I refer them to God and trust that He will answer it for them?" Leaders often have a hard time sending people to God for things, and instead see themselves as the one who must have all the answers."


"A prophetic word is from God if it happens to come from Him and not from some other source. Discerning the source is more a matter of knowing His heart, His ways and His voice than anything else."



“What nobody tells people who are beginners - and I really wish someone had told this to me . . . is that all of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, and it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not.
But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase. They quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn't have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know it’s normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I've ever met. It’s gonna take a while. It’s normal to take a while. You've just gotta fight your way through.” ~ Ira Glass


"Does God hate sinners? If you looked in the bible, you might think He does. But if you followed me around and saw Him heal and touch and love on them, you might think He rather likes them. Something must have happened to make Him see them differently. Perhaps it has something to do with that carpenter fellow."



"John's ministry seemed to be one that took place in an obscure location. Even Luke's description of how the word of the Lord first came to John is a testimony to his obscurity:
'Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, his brother Philip tetrarch of Iturea and the region of Trachonitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene, while Annas and Caiaphas were high priests, the word of God came to John in the wilderness.'
"You have a landscape littered with important political and religious leaders, but God chose to work through an obscure nobody who hung out in the wilderness eating locusts and honey. I guess my point there is - where one is found, geographically and who one is connected to relationally, has little bearing on how that person might be used by God."


"If we don't have the faith to see a particular person healed from cancer, or raised from the dead, we may still have the faith to support those who DO have faith to see them raised. Even if we don't have faith for miracles, or if we think this person can't be healed or raised, we still know how to pray encouragement, faith, passion, boldness into those who are still contending for that which we are not ready or able to contend for. 
Those people are ALWAYS more important than what I do or do not believe or understand. Jesus did not die for doctrine or understanding; he died for people. We must support people, even when we cannot support all that the people are believing or doing." ~ Northwest Prophetic


"Love is patient....so if you're struggling with patience, you're really struggling with love. The answer isn't to try being more patient. The answer is to become more loving. - Dan Mohler


"Think twice about living from revelation someone else received from God. One day you may be asked to die for it. If you didn't receive it from God, you may question it. And if it's not worth dying for, it's not worth living for. There's no confidence as great as that which we have when we live from what we know God has told us personally."



"I used to fellowship with my own kind, but now I have an 'eclectic' group that I fellowship with. In gifting & doctrine, we agree on nothing, except who is King. The more I'm accepted by them, the more I see Jesus at work. Unconditional love is like that. The eye in a box with its own kind knows familiarity. But that's not its place. The eye must find an ear and ask what he's heard, a nose and ask what he smells, a tongue and ask what he tastes, a finger and ask what he feels and tell them all what marvelous things he's seen."


"The idea that I must live for Christ puts the focus on me. The idea that He is living in me puts the focus on Him and what He can do through me."



"An all-powerful, omniscient, insomniac with ADHD?
And somehow, He has a frightful case of dementia regarding to our blunders. Can't remember a single one, no matter how well we remember them. I'm very fond of Him; perhaps more than anything else, because of his forgetfulness."


"Kindness is not random. Beauty is not senseless. An exquisite design from a loving heart lies behind both. There are no blind watchmakers."


"The removal of a demonic influence for some people is only temporary. When children of the kingdom show up, we reveal a different reality than they're used to. Our kingdom is one of light and truth. All we can do is reveal it and offer them a taste. We can't make them enter God's kingdom against their will. Some choose to enter, some do not. If they choose the kingdom of God and seek repentance and are filled with the Spirit, they begin their new life of truth. But if they choose not to, yes, the demons will return - but only because they chose that path."


"We have evangelistic strategies because we have failed to love." ~ Dan Mohler


“There are two ways of being a prophet. One is to tell the enslaved that they can be free. It is the difficult path of Moses. The second is to tell those who think they are free that they are in fact enslaved. This is the even more difficult path of Jesus.” ~ Richard Rohr


"There are leaders and there are those who lead. Leaders hold a position of power or influence. Those who lead inspire us. Whether individuals or organizations, we follow those who lead not because we have to, but because we want to. We follow those who lead not for them, but for ourselves." ~ Simon Sinek


"If you see things others can't and you're from the right side of the bell curve, they call you insane. If you see things others can't and you're from the left side, they call you a visionary. If you march to the beat of your own drum from the right side, they call you an outcast. If you march to the beat of your own drum from the left side, they call you unique or authentic." ~ Simon Sinek


"Accountability, if it has to be forced on people, will never set them free or create mature believers. Quite the opposite. It will prevent people from understanding the true nature of God. To be wholly accountable to others we need to set people free to use their will properly." ~ Graham Cooke

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