68 Quotes by J. D. Greear

True religion is when you serve God to get nothing else but more of God. Many people use religion as a way of getting something else from God they want-blessings, rewards, even escape from judgement. This is wearisome to us, and to God. But when God is His own reward, Christianity becomes thrilling. Sacrifice becomes joy.

Awe combined with intimacy is the essence of Christian worship.

Most people hope that they are “good enough” to earn God’s approval, to get on His “A-list.” Comparatively speaking, they think, their sins have not been that bad. So as long as God grades on the curve they’ll be fine. But this is direct defiance of “the testimony” God has given about Jesus. If we could have been “good enough,” would Jesus really have had to die? What kind of God would have done that to Jesus if there were another way?

We want a God who will restore us to peaceful equilibrium, take away our stress, and promise us a blissful afterlife. Most Christians haven’t rejected God; they have just reduced him.

Repentance is belief in action.

Likewise, we continue to follow Jesus as we struggle with sin. Repentance ushers us into a life of greater struggle, not out of one.

The gospel has done its work in us when we crave God more than we crave everything else in life.

Faith is not the absence of doubt; it is continuing to follow Jesus in the midst of doubt.

This means that when someone claims to be filled with the Spirit and yet spends most of his time talking about his own experiences with the Spirit, you have reason to doubt whether he really is filled with the Spirit. When the Holy Spirit speaks through someone, you tend to forget about the person speaking. You don’t even really think about the Holy Spirit. You find yourself thinking about Jesus.