Top 86 Jefferson Bethke Quotes
#1. If getting more girls and drinking more beer meant I'd be 'cool,' then why not? But I soon discovered that lifestyle was like drinking saltwater. If you are extremely thirsty, you'll settle for it, but it just makes you thirstier.
Jefferson Bethke
#2. As Christians, God doesn't promise us an easy life, but he does promise to be with us in whatever we go through. He will never leave us or forsake us.
Jefferson Bethke
#3. Only when we humbly call on God to speak into our lives - knowing if he doesn't, we won't succeed - are we actually in a safe place.
Jefferson Bethke
#4. Too many times people portray God as the ultimate judge, waiting to sentence us for our sins. The truth is, he is a loving husband who compels us with his love and not fear.
Jefferson Bethke
#5. Having joy in God not because of circumstances but despite circumstances is what makes God look great - and it's a true joy that comes from within.
Jefferson Bethke
#6. The Bible rarely tells me to fight against someone who doesn't believe what I believe, but it frequently tells me to fight against my sin and the disease in me that's drawing me away from Jesus.
Jefferson Bethke
#7. I didn't know it then, but God broke me to fix me because he loved me.
Jefferson Bethke
#8. A grace economy is backward to most of us - those who think they qualify, don't; and those who admit they don't qualify, do.
Jefferson Bethke
#9. Relationships are not efficient; they are messy, time-consuming, and unpredictable.
Jefferson Bethke
#10. God gets glory for everything, and everyone eventually will glorify God, be it his grace or his justice.
Jefferson Bethke
#11. Even beautiful things such as forgiveness, clear conscience, joy in life, and adoption into the family of God are all benefits of being a Christian, but not the ultimate goal.
Jefferson Bethke
#13. The minute you think you have gotten on God's good side by your own behavior, you are naturally prone to demonize those who haven't.
Jefferson Bethke
#14. God should get a lot more glory for things than we give him.
Jefferson Bethke
#15. Religious people see "them" as the problem; Jesus-followers see "us" as the problem.
Jefferson Bethke
#16. The more I read, the more I felt the Bible looked a lot more like the movie 300 than the movie Pleasantville.
Jefferson Bethke
#17. As I've heard said, "Of 100 unsaved men, one might read the Bible, but the other 99 will read the Christian."1 Ouch.
Jefferson Bethke
#18. We refuse to turn off our computers, turn off our phone, log off Facebook, and just sit in silence, because in those moments we might actually have to face up to who we really are.
Jefferson Bethke
#19. The issue isn't whether someone is good or bad, but whether he is repentant or unrepentant.
Jefferson Bethke
#20. Jesus says you can read the Bible as a checklist, but if you do, you miss the whole point.
Jefferson Bethke
#22. People don't flaunt their brokenness when trying to prove themselves.
Jefferson Bethke
#23. God uniquely highlights marriage as one of the main ways we know who he is and how he relates to us.
Jefferson Bethke
#24. Trying to live without community is like trying to live without oxygen. We weren't created to do it.
Jefferson Bethke
#25. Because the truth is, no matter how ugly or how deep the scars, there is always hope.
Jefferson Bethke
#26. The most dangerous thing about the human heart is that we want to reverse the roles by making God the responder and us the initiators.
Jefferson Bethke
#27. If something is done with a thankful heart, then that is Christian behavior.
Jefferson Bethke
#29. Grace just flows. It's a one-way type of love that runs the conduit directly from God's heart to ours.
Jefferson Bethke
#30. We all come in with baggage. We all come in trying to find our way. We all come in with broken edges.
Jefferson Bethke
#31. Our job as Christians is to stick so close to Jesus that when people are around us, they sense him.
Jefferson Bethke
#32. I was just lying there, swimming in my own shame and guilt, when this still small voice whispered into the depths of my soul: I love you. I desire you. I delight in you. I saw you were going to that before I went to the cross, and I still went.
Jefferson Bethke
#33. I think too many times as Christians, we confuse benefits with essence. We pursue the benefits of a relationship rather than the essence of that relationship.
Jefferson Bethke
#34. We don't celebrate the gift of Jesus on Christmas. We celebrate the gifts we get.
Jefferson Bethke
#35. Heaven isn't a place for people who are scared of hell; it's for people who love Jesus.
Jefferson Bethke
#36. My "Christianity" was once again just the American religion of work hard, do good, feel good, and maybe God will say, "We good.
Jefferson Bethke
#37. Our lives on earth aren't just placeholders until we go to heaven. We are to create, cultivate, and redeem while we're here. The misconception, I've realized, has come from a lack of knowledge of why we were created.
Jefferson Bethke
#38. One of the most dangerous things about the Bible is that it is big enough to say whatever we want it to say if we are willing to remove the context.
Jefferson Bethke
#40. One of my favorite things about following Jesus is I get to drop the act, admit I'm not good enough, walk in freedom-and that's good news.
Jefferson Bethke
#41. Isn't that the story for many of us in America? Christianity is our default setting.
Jefferson Bethke
#43. We often miss that our "righteous acts" are "filthy" before God. Not just our bad days, but our extremely good days too!
Jefferson Bethke
#44. He came not to save people but to save his entire creation, which we are a part of.
Jefferson Bethke
#45. Persecution, like fire, burns up the weak elements (wood and hay) but actually purifies the strong ones (silver and gold). It
Jefferson Bethke
#46. When Jesus and his righteousness are ultimate, then you actually see evil as the source of evil,
Jefferson Bethke
#47. Thinking you can earn eternal life by just reading the Bible a lot is like staring at the windshield while driving, hoping you'll get where you want to go. The windshield isn't there to be looked at; it is designed to be looked through.
Jefferson Bethke
#48. Sometimes how we dialogue in today's culture is just as important as why we dialogue.
Jefferson Bethke
#49. We can be honest and transparent about our sins and failures because we aren't the ones fighting. Jesus fought for us. This is good news because it means we are free to be messed up.
Jefferson Bethke
#51. if you care more about flaunting your Christian freedom than promoting Christian unity, you're probably not free. You are actually a slave to your so-called freedom.
Jefferson Bethke
#52. God is constant. Always forgiving. Always loving. Never changing.
Jefferson Bethke
#53. New Testament Christians were most known by their love for their neighbors, but today we are most known for our segregation of the lowly.
Jefferson Bethke
#54. Be honest about your weakness, be honest that you're scared, and be honest about the fact that it's Jesus who defeats the sins that trip you up, not you. God cast us as Israel, not the hero.
Jefferson Bethke
#55. We give our entire lives on the altar of false gods - money, sex, reputation, work, etc. - and God continues to pursue us. He continues to chase us. He continues to woo us. That is the God of the Bible.
Jefferson Bethke
#56. The problem with fear-based Christianity is we only obey when the fear is there. If you only want to obey God when you feel threatened by his commands, it's not God you worship, but your fear.
Jefferson Bethke
#57. God is most glorified in our lives when we show him to be most glorious regardless of what is thrown our way.
Jefferson Bethke
#58. One of the best barometers of a true Christian's heart is to see what kind of people he attracts and what kind of people he repels.
Jefferson Bethke
#59. Many Christians don't really care about God; they just want to use him to get what they truly want - status, a nice job, a car, forgiveness - you name it.
Jefferson Bethke
#60. We know that sometimes the best place to see the stars in all their glory is the wilderness.
Jefferson Bethke
#61. That's the truth with any idol - it will rock you to your core when it leaves. When a good thing leaves you, it might make you sad. But when an ultimate thing leaves you, you feel like you can't live anymore.
Jefferson Bethke
#62. No matter how we come to Jesus - whether we are coming to him for the first time or finding our way back to him after faking it, or even if we have tried to be righteous by adding our own rules to the Bible - we are all in need of his grace and truth.
Jefferson Bethke
#63. When you concentrate on God, you can actually enjoy his gifts in a meaningful way. But when you pursue just the gifts themselves, they become the product of despair rather than joy.
Jefferson Bethke
#64. The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today is Christians, who acknowledge Jesus with their mouths and walk out the door and deny him by their lifestyle.
Jefferson Bethke
#65. When I was trying to earn Jesus by being good, I missed the real Jesus who wants us to love him and serve him not for what he gives but for who he is - dangerous, unpredictable, radical, and amazing.
Jefferson Bethke
#66. Avoiding sin isn't about us not getting in trouble; it is about us trusting that the Creator knows his creation best and has designed the world to work in a certain way.
Jefferson Bethke
#67. In a postmodern world where all religious activity is seen as what we do for God, we need to proclaim Christianity is about what God has done for us.
Jefferson Bethke
#68. We have branded Jesus beyond recognition. Church has become a business. Jesus is our marketing scheme. We create bookstores, T-shirts, bracelets, bumper stickers, and board games all in the name of Jesus.
Jefferson Bethke
#69. Even though there are few to no credible passages - properly interpreted - in Scripture that call things such as alcohol and tattoos utterly sinful, some fundamentalists insist they are.
Jefferson Bethke
#71. The biggest difference between between religious people and gospel-loving people is that religious people see certain people as the enemies, when Jesus-followers see sin as the enemy.
Jefferson Bethke
#72. When I think of whisper, I think of tenderness, gentleness, beauty. And that was God's voice. The hard part with whispers, though, is we have to be listening for them. They are just loud enough that only the people listening will hear and those who are distracted won't.
Jefferson Bethke
#73. In a weird way it seems the only qualification for us to be justified is to be ungodly. It's like God is saying the only way to qualify is to admit you don't qualify.
Jefferson Bethke
#74. But Jesus isn't rocking a cardigan, and he doesn't talk softly through his nose. He's a roaring lion.
Jefferson Bethke
#75. We can exhaust money. We can exhaust sex. We can exhaust our jobs. But we can't exhaust God. He gives us the one thing that will never run out, never get old, and never fail: himself!
Jefferson Bethke
#76. The reality is that it's harder for religious people to come to Christ than anyone else because they think they are already good to go.
Jefferson Bethke
#77. As God's children, we are to use our lives knowing they reflect back to him and bear his image. Too often, instead of acting like mirrors pointing back to Jesus, we try to act like billboards, advertising ourselves.
Jefferson Bethke
#78. Trying to be good enough to earn heaven is like trying to jump to Hawaii from the coast of California. Everyone looks like an idiot, some drown, some get three feet, some get ten feet, but no one even gets close to Hawaii.
Jefferson Bethke
#79. I think thanksgiving is the secret to a healthy Christian life.
Jefferson Bethke
#80. Both fear and love might cause obedience, but only love causes joy.
Jefferson Bethke
#81. A crooked stick can still draw a straight line, and a messed-up dude like me can still write about an awesome God.
Jefferson Bethke
#82. My generation is the most fatherless and insecure generation that's ever lived, and we are willing to sacrifice everything if we just can be told we are loved.
If only we knew just how loved we really are.
Jefferson Bethke
#83. The word worship is defined by glory and thanksgiving. We are worshiping when we give glory to something. Whatever we give glory to, we sacrifice for.
Jefferson Bethke
#84. His face, and his face alone, needs to be the driving force of our lives. If it's not, we are worshiping something else, and sooner or later that idol will be taken from us by a trial, circumstance, or death.
Jefferson Bethke
#85. True freedom is being able to give up all your rights for another out of love. Just ask Jesus. He willingly came to earth. Willingly lived life for thirty-three years. Willingly let himself be beaten, scourged, and crucified. All for others. All for us.
Jefferson Bethke
#86. It's only when we understand that in Jesus we are cleansed, washed, and renewed that we see our sin fall by the wayside.
Jefferson Bethke
Famous Authors
Popular Topics
Scroll to Top
