Mark Batterson Quotes

Why do we act as though our sin disqualifies us from the grace of God? That is the only thing that qualifies us! Anything else is a self-righteous attempt to earn God's grace. You cannot trust God's grace 99 percent. It's all or nothing. The problem, as I pointed out earlier, is that we want partial credit for our salvation. We want to be 1 percent of the equation. But if we try to save ourselves, we forfeit the salvation that comes from Jesus Christ alone, by grace through faith.

Even choosing to do nothing is still making a choice.

Going all in and all out for the All in All is both a death sentence and a life sentence. Your sinful nature, along with its selfish desires, is nailed to the cross. Then, and only then, does your true personality, your true potential, and your true purpose come alive. After all, God cannot resurrect what has not died. And that's why so many people are half alive. They haven't died to self yet.

Most God-ordained dreams die because we are not willing to do something that seems illogical

As Edison is credited with saying, "Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work." We all want to be successful, but most of us aren't willing to do what those who are successful did to attain it. We want success without sacrifice, but you can't have one without the other!

Half of learning is learning. The other half of learning is unlearning.

To the infinite, all finites are equal.

God is great not just because nothing is too big for Him. God is great but because nothing is too small for Him either.

Put your Isaac on the altar! Then, and only then, will you see what God can do. He cannot give back what you do not give up. But if you surrender yourself to Him, He will provide the ram in the thicket.

God is in the business of strategically positioning us in the right place at the right time. A sense of destiny is our birthright as followers of Christ. God is awfully good at getting us where He wants us to go. But here’s the catch: The right place often seems like the wrong place, and the right time often seems like the wrong time.

The only God-ordained fear is the fear of God, and if we fear Him, we don't have to fear anyone or anything else.

...success is when those who know you best respect you most.

If your deepest feelings are reserved for something other than Almighty God, then that something other is an emotional idol... if you get more excited about material things than the simple yet profound fact that your sin was nailed to the cross by the sinless Son of God, then you're bowing down to Tammuz.

Goal setting is good stewardship. Instead of letting things happen, goals help us make things happen. Instead of living by default, goals help us live by design. Instead of living out of memory, goals help us live out of imagination.

I want to go after dreams that are destined to fail without diving intervention.

Prayer is picking a fight with the Enemy. It's spiritual warfare. Intercession transports us from the sidelines to the front lines without going anywhere. And that is where the battle is won or lost. Prayer is the difference between us fighting for God and God fighting for us. But we can't just hit our knees. We also have to take a step, take a stand. And when we do, we never know what God will do next.

...if you give all of yourself to God, you can ask and expect that God will give all of Himself to you because that's precisely what He wants to do. We have not because we ask not, and we ask not because we're not all in!

...the true value of an offering isn't measured by how much we give. It's measured by how much we keep...By definition, a sacrifice must involve sacrifice...

We all want to spend eternity with God. We just don't want to spend time with Him. We stand and stare from a distance, satisfied with superficiality. We Facebook more than we seek His face. We text more than we study The Text. And our eyes aren't fixed on Jesus. They're fixed on our iPhones and iPads - emphasis on "i." Then we wonder why God feels so distant. It's because we're hugging the rim. We wonder why we're bored with our faith. It's because we're holding out.We want joy without sacrifice.We want character without suffering.We want success without failure.We want gain without pain.We want a testimony without the test.We want it all without going all out for it.

...we think so much about the present and so little about eternity that we turn eternity into nothing and nothing into eternity.

True spirituality is "the place where desperation meets Jesus.

Most of us will have no idea where we are going most of the time. And I know that is unsettling.But circumstantial uncertainty also goes by another name: Adventure.

You don't have to go looking for adventure. If you follow Jesus, adventure comes looking for you. Jesus didn't carry a cross to Calvary so that we could live a halfway life. He died so that we could come alive in the truest and fullest sense of the word.

Prayer adds an element of surprise to your life that is more fun than a surprise party or surprise gift or surprise romance. In fact, prayer turns life into a party, into a gift, into a romance.

The very nature of the gospel is Jesus inviting the disciples on an adventure. To do what they'd never done and go where they'd never gone. Never a dull moment! You cannot follow Jesus and be bored at the same time.

Whether we write lyrics or craft legislation, sell homes or teach classes, design spaces or open franchises, prayer is a critical part of the creative process. Don’t just brainstorm; praystorm.

When God stirs our spirit or breaks our heart, we cannot sit back. We've got to step up and step in. We've got to go all in by going all out. But if we have the courage to make the choice or take the risk, it will become the defining moment of our lives.

Self-consciousness isn't just A curse. It is part of THE curse.

...if you do the job no one wants, you might eventually get the job everybody wants. But you have to be willing to climb the ladder, starting with the bottom rung.