Quotes from James MacDonald

We must evaluate every person, place, product, perspective, position, or pleasure we have looked to in place of the promises of God, and turn away from those things accordingly.

Repentance is shockingly beautiful when we see it not as "I sinned again, I need to repent," but as "I sinned against my God again, but He is calling me back so He can lavish me with His love and forgiveness.

The biblical counselor must always remember that the ROOT problem is deeper than skin; it is sin. The ultimate cure is not culture, but Christ.

In healthy churches, the pastors life, not just his words, sets the tone for the church.

Gratitude is the attitude that sets the altitude for living!

The people sang to the Lord, not about Him.

If we believe God is present in our worship as He promises to be,20 then we must frame all language of worship as to Him and not merely about Him.

Churches closing at a rate of six thousand per year in North America are not doing so because of worship style or form of government or methodology. They are failing because regardless of your preference on those points, it's pointless to deny the true cause behind debates and divisions—a failure to love.

If counseling is to be restored to the church, affection must be restored to reflection. If counseling is to be restored to the church, delight in God must be restored to doctrines about God. Savoring Christ must be restored to seeing Christ. Tender contrition must be restored to tough conviction. Communication with God must be restored to contending for God.

Church was never intended to be a place where we serve God to the exclusion of meeting with Him.

Like David we have a number of self-destructive options we use to avoid repenting and admitting sin. I'll list them and let you come up with personal examples for each: deny, avoid, blame shift, rationalize, and give excuses. If you can't think of how you've used these, you may be stuck in denial!

Where is there a systematic theology class that helps students realize that when you unpack the inclination or the nature of the Trinity or the two natures of Christ or the substitutionary atonement, you commune with the Lord as you defend and contend for the doctrine, or else you are not doing it right? No wonder people often don't want to be around doctrinally driven individuals! They are not doing doctrine right. They are not emotionally in touch with the truths they are teaching.

Given the impossibility of not failing one another, when the Bible says, "We all stumble in many ways,"7 the only way forward in loving community with one another is forgiveness.

But extraordinary life is possible—find it. There's a better, higher, eternal life that can begin during this earthly life. It is an awesome life found in Christ! And we can live it now!

in spite of how we know the story unfolded, God included mankind in His conclusion that all He created was good.

Ed Welch says that all counseling is a variation on a single theme: knowing and praying for the counselee. Of all the questions the counselor might ask, then, the central guiding question in the counselor's mind is, "How can I pray for you?

Jesus said, "I am the vine; you are the branches."3 All you gotta do is let the life that flows through the vine, flow into the branch—you. You don't have to do anything. You've just got to get out of the way and stop doing all the things that keep God from doing what He wants to do in your life. What Paul means by "walk by the Spirit" is essentially "live in dependence on God's Spirit.

All the stories and poems and letters and oracles and wisdom verses of God's Word, like individual instruments in a great orchestra, serve THE WHOLE story.

I'll take a bath and then I'll return." No, God is the bath.

When an artist captures a mountain or an ocean on a canvas with color and we wonder where such talent could come from, he or she is declaring His glory.

John 8:44 says Satan is a liar and the father of lies. He captures and conquers men's lives through his convincing lies, often nullifying good intentions with wrongful actions that seemed manly in the moment but in the end lacked the balancing power of clarity.

Men who are cut off, careful, and closed are also lonely and just as vulnerable in a different way as their wives alone in a dark alley after midnight.

While the United States is becoming the most culturally diverse nation in the world, less than 5.5% of Christian congregations are multiethnic.

Attentive reading of God's Word will set you up for frequent Holy Spirit warnings as He uses Scripture to set off alarms of danger in your life. As you grow spiritually, you may discover direct "prompts" God's Spirit gives, but they will always be in harmony with what God says in His Word.