Quotes from John Ortberg Jr.

Bitterness is like drinking rat poison and waiting for the rat to die.

What makes a man's 80 year-old Irish uncle skip like a little boy? "Me Father is very fond of me!

Failure does not shape you; the way you respond to failure shapes you.

As frustrating as people can be, it's hard to find a good substitute.

No matter how little money we have, no matter what rung we occupy on anybody's corporate ladder of success, in the end what everybody discovers is that what matters is other people. Human beings who give themselves to relational greatness—who have friends they laugh with, cry with, learn with, fight with, dance with, live and love and grow old and die with—these are the human beings who lead magnificent lives.

One of the great illusions of our day is that hurrying will buy us more time.

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

Ever console or scold people hurt in human relationships that satisfaction comes from God alone? Stop. Adam's fellowship with God was perfect, and God Himself declared Adam needed other humans.

The decision to grow always involves a choice between risk and comfort. This means that to be a follower of Jesus you must renounce comfort as the ultimate value of your life. And

Those who believe they believe in God but without passion in the heart, without anguish of mind, without uncertainty, without doubt, and even at times without despair, believe only in the idea of God, and not in God himself. MADELEINE L'ENGLE

Jesus put it like this: You are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world. Others have come before you. Others will come after you. But this is your day. If God's kingdom is to manifest itself right now, it will have to be through you. God himself will not come to take your place. You are on a mission from God.

we owe love to all people, but only to a proven friend are we to entrust "the secrets of the heart.

When asked to identify what the law is about, Jesus' response was simply "Love God, love people." He named a fundamentally different way of identifying who are the children of God: "Do they love God, and do they love the people who mean so much to him?

Christianity without discipleship is always Christianity without Christ. DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Spiritual discipline: Any activity that can help me gain power to live life as Jesus taught and modeled it.

None of us may ever know the true effects of our prayers this side of death. But we do know this: History belongs to the intercessors.

But to grow spiritually means to live increasingly as Jesus would in our unique place—to perceive what Jesus would perceive if he looked through our eyes, to think what he would think, to feel what he would feel, and therefore to do what he would do.

A career may end with retirement and lots of "toys." A calling isn't over until the day you die.

We are all worms. But I do believe that I am a glowworm. WINSTON CHURCHILL

If you want to be your own god, you have to settle for living in a tiny universe where there is room for only one person.

Pride moves us to bow down before a mirror rather than before God.

One of the hardest things in the world is to stop being the prodigal son without turning into the elder brother.

ordinary becomes extraordinary when filled with

The story of the Bible isn't primarily about the desire of people to be with God; it's the desire of God to be with people.