Top 100 Ortberg Quotes
#1. In solitude we remember we are not what anybody thinks of us - we are sheep tended to by the Shepherd.
-John Ortberg
John Ortberg
#2. When preaching is done right, it can change lives. When it's done badly, my failure goes beyond the merely human.
John Ortberg
#3. People who are servants-humbly, honestly, and joyfully-keep getting revealed as the biggest winners. People who recognize and embrace their smallness keep getting bigger and bigger in God's eyes. It's the oddest scoring system.
John Ortberg
#4. Real life, however, begins when I die to the false god that is me.
John Ortberg
#6. Sometimes in churches somebody will discover a particular vein of spirituality and seek to recruit others into it, or assume a superior position because they have found certain techniques - but no one actually wants to become like them.
John Ortberg
#7. Some leaders are not intimidated by opposition; they actually thrive on it. It wakes them up. It energizes them. It calls them to battle. It causes them to mobilize their thoughts and energy.
John Ortberg
#8. I do not have any of even the littlest hard feelings all of my feelings about you are just so soft and so normal just normal soft feelings that you're going to love
Mallory Ortberg
#9. I know that those of us who go into church work are to regard ourselves as servants, are to offer our lives as a gift.
John Ortberg
#10. I love 'Jane Eyre,' and I love the Bronte sisters. I actually didn't read any of them until I was in college, so I don't have quite the same connection with them that I think a lot of women do.
Mallory Ortberg
#11. The ministry of bearing with one another is learning to hear God speak through difficult people.
John Ortberg
#13. "Not being virulently and overtly racist against black people" and "treating gay people like human beings" are necessary conditions of greatness.
Mallory Ortberg
#14. For we are God's masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so that we can do the good things he planned for us
John Ortberg
#15. I do not think it is selfish to want to donate a kidney "only" to family members.
Mallory Ortberg
#16. Nobody lives up to the norms that God had in mind when he first created human beings.
John Ortberg
#17. If you get a dog, take care of your dog! You can just not have a dog if you don't feel like taking care of one, it's very easy to not have a dog.
Mallory Ortberg
#18. To have my mind racing and my heart beating fast over glorious possibilities is very close to the summit of life experience for me.
John Ortberg
#19. Preaching a series allows you to go into greater depth in the text, and spending several weeks on one theme allows the teaching to be absorbed more thoroughly.
John Ortberg
#20. The problem with spending your life climbing up the ladder is that you will go right past Jesus, for he's coming down.
John Ortberg
#21. Passion for our work is not usually a subterranean volcano waiting to erupt ... It is a muscle that gets strengthened a little each day as we show up - as we do what is expected of us, and then some.
John Ortberg
#22. I don't know why some prayers get yeses and some prayers get nos. I know the anguish of a no when you want a yes more than you want anything in the world. But I don't know why. I only know that in the Cross God's no to his only Son was turned into God's yes to every human being who ever lived.
John Ortberg
#23. The Bible's teaching on prayer leads overwhelmingly to one conclusion: Prayer changes things.
John Ortberg Jr.
#24. May your expectations all be frustrated, May all of your plans be thwarted, May all of your desires be withered into nothingness, That you may experience the powerlessness and poverty of a child and can sing and dance in the love of God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
John Ortberg
#25. I hate how hard spiritual transformation is and how long it takes. I hate thinking about how many people have gone to church for decades and remain joyless or judgmental or bitter or superior.
John Ortberg
#26. Our soul's problem, however, is not its neediness; it's our fallenness. Our need was meant to point us to God. Instead, we fasten our minds and bodies and wills on other sources of ultimate devotion, which the Bible calls idolatry.
John Ortberg
#27. Ironically, the more obsessed we are with our selves, the more we neglect our souls.
John Ortberg
#28. Wolterstorff gives an amazing answer: the teaching of the Scriptures, clarified and made available to all the world through Jesus, that every human being is made in the image of God, and loved by God. There
John Ortberg
#30. You don't need to hide the fact that you're in recovery, but you don't have to share your history of addiction with acquaintances at work, either.
Mallory Ortberg
#31. I'm of the belief that dating "potential" is almost always an exercise in frustration.
Mallory Ortberg
#32. If I have the courage to acknowledge my limits and embrace them, I can experience enormous freedom. If I lack this courage, I will be imprisoned by them.
John Ortberg
#33. Although the church has often been far too slow to follow his lead, Jesus' insistence that women, as well as men, bear the full image of God has had a way of sparking reform movements across the centuries.
John Ortberg
#34. As long as we have unsolved problems, unfulfilled desires, and a mustard seed of faith, we have all we need for a vibrant prayer life.
John Ortberg
#35. Prudence is not the same thing as caution. Caution is a helpful strategy when you're crossing a minefield; it's a disaster when you're in a gold rush.
John Ortberg
#36. Prudence is foresight and far-sightedness. It's the ability to make immediate decisions on the basis of their longer-range effects.
John Ortberg
#37. The most important task of your life is not what you do, but who you become.
John Ortberg
#38. The possibility of transformation is the essence of hope.
John Ortberg
#39. (Remember you always have the option of taking to the sea.)
Mallory Ortberg
#40. My parents are both pastors. In the '80s and '90s in the mainstream Christian world, it was not really common for a woman - especially a married woman and a mother - to be a pastor.
Mallory Ortberg
#41. As a preacher who is fully human, and clearly not divine, I can't speak as Jesus did. But I do seek to speak truth that carries weight and authority. All of us who preach the gospel aspire to speak under the authority of Jesus.
John Ortberg
#42. We went to church twice a week. My parents were employed in ministry; we prayed before dinner. We rollerbladed in the summer. We were allowed to watch the 'Simpsons.' I fought with my younger brother over Legos.
Mallory Ortberg
#43. In reality, each thought we have carries with it a little spiritual power, a tug toward or away from God. No thought is purely neutral.
John Ortberg
#44. I'm forgetful by nature and often ask family, friends, and co-workers the same question.
Mallory Ortberg
#45. Biblically, waiting is not just something we have to do until we get what we want. Waiting is part of the process of becoming what God wants us to be.
John Ortberg
#46. Training is essential for almost any significant endeavor in life - running a marathon, becoming a surgeon, learning how to play the piano.
John Ortberg
#47. A child is not a bargaining chip or a learning tool. Your focus, if you adopt a child of a different race, should be on nurturing and protecting your child from bigotry, not deploying him or her as an anti-racist Mr. Fix-It.
Mallory Ortberg
#48. We are not lost because we are going to wind up in the wrong place. We are going to wind up in the wrong place because we are lost.
John Ortberg
#49. God designed us so that our choices, our thoughts and desires, and our behavior would be in perfect harmony with each other and would be powered by an unbroken connection with God, in perfect harmony with him and with all of his creation. That is a well-ordered soul.
John Ortberg
#50. One of the most impressive aspects of Jesus is how he was impressed by unimpressive people.
John Ortberg
#51. I have fun going on Twitter and the Internet. I feel safe and comfortable, and I wish everyone could feel that way.
Mallory Ortberg
#52. My wife is one of the most extroverted people I know. She could out-talk Oprah and Joyce Meyer simultaneously.
John Ortberg
#53. sin always causes the disintegration of the soul.
John Ortberg
#54. 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
#55. 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
#56. 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
#57. God never grows two people the same way. God is a hand-crafter, not a mass-producer.
John Ortberg
#58. The one pair of eyes into which you can never gaze is your own.
John Ortberg
#59. Jesus changed how the world thinks about science, medicine, human rights, education & more.
John Ortberg
#60. 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
#61. 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
#62. 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
#63. Sometimes the smallest acts of sacrifice or self-denial can break up hard soil. A
John Ortberg
#64. 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
#65. If we want to follow someone, we can't go faster than the one who is leading.
John Ortberg
#66. 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
#67. 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
#68. Ghettos and barrios and abusive homes and trauma wards may produce scarred souls; they can cripple more human spirits than they strengthen.
John Ortberg
#69. The more concerned you are about your own fulfillment, the less fulfilled you will be.
John Ortberg
#70. Be doers of the word, and not merely hearers. (James 1:22 NRSV)
John Ortberg
#71. When people feel they're getting to speak into what's being preached, there is high built-in motivation to participate.
John Ortberg
#72. I have a lot of faith in the power of joking to make something thoughtful.
Mallory Ortberg
#73. 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
#74. 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
#75. Our beliefs are not just estimates of probabilities. They are also the instruments that guide our actions.
John Ortberg
#76. ...sin is often the attempt to meet a legitimate need in an illegitimate way.
John Ortberg
#77. Growth is the ability to handle larger and more interesting problems.
John Ortberg
#78. The soul without God for eternity is in an abyss.
John Ortberg
#79. If we are serious about loving God, we must begin with people, all people. And especially we must learn to love those that the world generally discards.
John Ortberg
#80. As long as you don't think he's just pretending not to mind for your sake, it sounds like he has truly accepted that blow jobs are too difficult and painful for you to perform, and he's still very satisfied with your sex life. Take him at his word.
Mallory Ortberg
#81. You're a soul made by God, made for God, and made to need God, which means you were not made to be self-sufficient.
John Ortberg
#82. Those of us who preach the Scriptures, along with being nourished by it ourselves, have to figure out along with our congregations how we can incarnate the gospel in our community, or we will preach to a religious ghetto.
John Ortberg
#83. In a contagious world,we learn to keep our distance. If we get too close to those who are suffering, we might get infected by their pain. It may not be convenient or comfortable. But only when you get close enough to catch their hurt will they be close enough to catch your love.
John Ortberg
#84. An adult woman should not be so possessive of her own birthday that she begrudges her friends the chance to get married on the same day.
Mallory Ortberg
#85. God has entrusted us with his most precious treasure - people. He asks us to shepherd and mold them into strong disciples, with brave faith and good character.
John Ortberg
#86. Grace always and only consists of what will help someone come home to the Father.
John Ortberg
#87. I don't think it's a requirement that a happy, fulfilling relationship also provide the best sex of all time.
Mallory Ortberg
#88. I'm more concerned about who you're becoming than what you're doing.
John Ortberg
#89. Usually my writing is very over the top and bombastic and very, like, 'I'm amazing! Look at me!'
Mallory Ortberg
#90. With a few exceptions, birds are not to be trusted; it is not normal to have such soft, vulnerable bodies bookended with slashing beaks and razor-sharp claws. It is as unnatural as an armed marshmallow.
Mallory Ortberg
#91. calling something 'blessed' has become the go-to term for those who want to boast about an accomplishment while pretending to be humble," observes writer Jessica Bennett.[12]
John Ortberg
#93. Authentic spiritual authority is what puts you in touch with reality.
John Ortberg
#94. As much as we complain about it, though, there's part of us that is drawn to a hurried life. It makes us feel important. It keeps the adrenaline pumping. It means I don't have to look too closely at my heart or life. It keeps us from feeling our loneliness.
John Ortberg
#95. The question isn't if someone will sign up for spiritual formation; it's just who and what our spirits will be formed by.
John Ortberg
#96. ...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
#97. The Holy Spirit will lead you to be with people as Jesus would be with them if He were in your place.
John Ortberg
#98. 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
#99. We have largely traded wisdom for information, depth for breadth. We want to microwave maturity.
John Ortberg Jr.
#100. 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
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