J Ortberg Quotes

#1. The world conspires against our souls by blinding us to the depth and glory of their God-given design and tempting us to be satisfied with immediate gratification.

John Ortberg

#2. Sin is not just the wrong stuff we do; it's the good we don't do. It's the starving children we don't want to look at, the volunteering we avoid, the poor we don't want to serve, and the money we don't want to give.

John Ortberg

#3. ...all of us are somewhere on a journey to God, and the gap between least and most advanced is infinitely smaller than the gap between the most advanced and God himself.

John Ortberg

#4. The Holy Spirit will lead you to be with people as Jesus would be with them if He were in your place.

John Ortberg

#5. Art is built on the deepest themes of human meaning: good and evil, beauty and ugliness, life and death, love and hate. No other story has incarnated those themes more than the story of Jesus.

John Ortberg

#6. We have largely traded wisdom for information, depth for breadth. We want to microwave maturity.

John Ortberg Jr.

#7. Sheldon Van Auken wrote,"The best argument for Christianity is Christians: their joy, their certainty, their completeness." Guess what he said is the best argument against it? "When Christians are sombre, joyless, self-righteous, smug, narrow, repressive - Christianity dies a thousand deaths.

John Ortberg

#8. If we want to follow someone, we can't go faster than the one who is leading.

John Ortberg

#9. sin always causes the disintegration of the soul.

John Ortberg

#10. I love reading religious authors. Especially in the sort of circle I move in, people tend to be more secular, and I love reading books by just really smart people of religious faith. It's always a really cool perspective.

Mallory Ortberg

#11. Very rarely in the Bible does God come to someone and say, "Stay." Almost never does God interrupt someone and ask them to remain in comfort, safety, and familiarity. He opens a door and calls them to come through it.

John Ortberg

#12. Someone who has a disability is not necessarily in distress. You may be embarrassing and inconveniencing someone by butting in and making assumptions.

Mallory Ortberg

#13. God never grows two people the same way. God is a hand-crafter, not a mass-producer.

John Ortberg

#14. The one pair of eyes into which you can never gaze is your own.

John Ortberg

#15. Jesus changed how the world thinks about science, medicine, human rights, education & more.

John Ortberg

#16. ...sin is often the attempt to meet a legitimate need in an illegitimate way.

John Ortberg

#17. Our ceaseless craving for more, though it can kill us when unredeemed, may be a hint of the joy that we were made for when the soul finds its center in God.

John Ortberg

#18. It's better to have the faith to embrace reality with all its pain than to cling to the false comfort of a painless fantasy.

John Ortberg

#19. Sometimes the smallest acts of sacrifice or self-denial can break up hard soil. A

John Ortberg

#20. Brilliant intellects do not matriculate to study under someone dumber than themselves. Paul recognized Jesus as master of the intellect, above him in every way.

John Ortberg

#21. My wife is one of the most extroverted people I know. She could out-talk Oprah and Joyce Meyer simultaneously.

John Ortberg

#22. I distrust those people who knew so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires. Susan D. Anthony

John Ortberg

#23. Gratitude is what we radiate when we experience grace, and the soul was made to run on grace the way a 747 runs on rocket fuel.

John Ortberg

#24. Ghettos and barrios and abusive homes and trauma wards may produce scarred souls; they can cripple more human spirits than they strengthen.

John Ortberg

#25. The more concerned you are about your own fulfillment, the less fulfilled you will be.

John Ortberg

#26. Be doers of the word, and not merely hearers. (James 1:22 NRSV)

John Ortberg

#27. When people feel they're getting to speak into what's being preached, there is high built-in motivation to participate.

John Ortberg

#28. I have a lot of faith in the power of joking to make something thoughtful.

Mallory Ortberg

#29. Not wanting to give everyone in your life one of your kidneys is not the same thing as hoping they die of kidney failure.

Mallory Ortberg

#30. The most successful Subway customers, of course, are the ones who can't keep their hands off their sandwich. Join your artist in the sandwich assembling process. That sneeze guard is a suggestion. That sneeze guard is trying to intimidate you into staying on the customer's side of the partition.

Mallory Ortberg