Quotes from Jim Berg

Every trial that ever burdened a mortal man, every temptation that ever stormed a human heart, and every blessing that ever delighted a needy soul have been skillfully designed by the Creator for one purpose: to draw men to Himself.

You have to be different to make a difference. You cannot change anything by adding more of the same. The greatest spiritual impact is made upon people by someone who is different from them. Others must see someone like Christ in us –- not someone like the rest of the world –- if we are to have any godly influence on them.

Impatience is a particularly dangerous habit of the heart because everything worthwhile takes time. Good marriages take time. Spiritual maturity takes time. Financial stability takes time. Effective ministry takes time. Wisdom takes time. People who are not willing to take time cannot have any of the above.

God-loving people have no trouble loving God's law since His laws are reflections of His nature.

Our Lord did not come to this planet, live a perfect life, and become a worthy atonement for the sins of the world so that those who become His children can merely be well adjusted, live morally upright lives, and enjoy personal happiness and success. He died to redeem us from the penalty and power of a sinful heart that keeps us from being useful servants of the living God.

Meditation is not hard to understand. Anyone who knows how to worry knows how to meditate. Worriers are skilled in the meditation process but are meditating on the wrong kind of thoughts.

Modern culture anesthetizes the mind while mainlining the soul with emotional experiences that keep the worldling believing he is really living.

This is the real world, and only a believer walking in fellowship with His Creator and Redeemer can understand it. Everyone else is the world is experiencing a 'break with reality'.

God has created in man the desire for Himself and has offered Himself as the object of man's desire. He is the only One sufficient to fill the God-shaped hole within man's soul.

Wisdom is not having God's perspective of the whole matter before us, but having God's perspective about what next response will honor Him while keeping us still usable to Him.

The unbelieving world increasingly rejects the truth about God, while the believing world increasingly ignores the truth about God.

The fact is that if the Christian home, church, and school have done their job well and the student has learned well, he may be one of the few on the earth who understand the real world.

The Christopher Columbus Aware: This award goes to those who, like good old Chris, when they set out to do something, don't know where they are going; neither do they know how to get there. When they arrive, they don't know where they are, and when they return, they don't know where they've been.

She meditated upon a lie. This is the essence of temptation.

The important lesson here is that wisdom is not having God's perspective of the whole matter before us, but having God's perspective about what next response will honor Him while keeping us still usable to Him.

A believer who has been giving in to the pull of his sinful heart never learns the extent of its power over him until he begins to do right. It is very much like the experience of one who is rowing a canoe. As long as he is going with the current, he has no idea how strong the current really is. Only when he decides to turn his canoe around and start rowing against the current does he experience its true strength.

Wrong thinking leads to wrong emotions—discouragement and despair—and wrong thinking consequently leads to giving up.

Don't miss the heart issues when dealing with the surface problems!

Strong Christian homes cannot be built out of weak Christians.

Without a passion to disciple believers to Christlikeness through the ministries of the church, the church will focus merely on perpetuating its programs, and the sheep will grow sickly and unfruitful.

Incidentally, that is why complaints against the weather are complaints against God Himself—He purposefully controls it just as it is happening. This is also why natural "disasters" are called "acts of God.

Any attempt to produce love, joy, peace, endurance, and so forth apart from the Spirit of God is reliance upon strategies that are in competition with God. Management

We must learn to interpret our experiences by what we know about God through His Word instead of interpreting what God is like by our experiences. If we do not ground our belief about the nature of God and His disposition to us in the Scriptures, we will reject much of what He says about Himself when we face difficulty.

For the illuminated believer, however, the unifying and satisfying element in every circumstance is always the glory of God, not some sentimental, rose-colored view of the situation that makes him feel better about it.