Quotes from James MacDonald

When we wait on the Lord, we invite Him to root out the dissonance in a divided heart and bring to us the integrity of full surrender to His will. In that we experience His strength.

We preach so that people can hear the voice of God, period.

God will call; they won't answer. Stubbornness of the heart is a terminal sickness. There is no solution for that condition apart from repentance and God's work of grace to break the heart.

Christians have a way of crouching in their own culture instead of penetrating the one they live in with the gospel. Too many migrate to a faith that elevates issue debate and substitutes a set of personal preferences for the glorious gospel.

Our job is to get people to Jesus Christ and to get them back to Him in profound, life-altering ways every week.

Strong men serving together thrive in the strength their friendship provides.

No personal quiet time, no Christian book, no community or small group or service can substitute for the absence of God coming down to meet with His church corporately.

Eventually everyone vacates church where God is not obviously present and working. Getting people back to church is pointless unless God comes back first—that's what Vertical Church is all about! Ritual church, tradition church, felt-need church, emotional-hype church, rules church, Bible-boredom church, relevant church, and many other iterations are all horizontal substitutes for God come down, we all get rocked and radically altered, Vertical Church.

Let's embrace the expectation that we will not be treated better than the early disciples when we share Christ the way they did.

Instead of seeing ourselves as people trying to connect with people, let's see the church as people trying to connect with God and help others do the same.

The counselee should be aware that you are not God. Better yet, she should be aware that you are aware that you are not God.

When you worship, you are saying, "This one is worth more." At the same time you are implying, "I am worth less." Worship is the magnification of God and the minimization of self. One of the most succinct expressions of a worshipper's heart in all the New Testament came from John the Baptist: "He must increase, but I must decrease."5

Scripture is so clear that love for God must translate into love for those closest to us.2

Worship is the actual act of ascribing worth directly to God. Worshipful actions may do this indirectly, but when the Bible commands and commends worship as our highest expression, it is not talking about anything other than direct, intentional, Vertical outpouring of adoration.

Many pastors would rather preach God's Word and keep their distance than invest in a personal one-on-one counseling ministry. Most pastors counsel because they have to, not because they want to.

When we worry, we are telling God, "You are neither trustworthy nor in control, so I need to worry and scheme as I take matters into my own hands." In this way unbelief drives worry, for it is impossible to worry when we are trusting in the provision of our sovereign God.

God shows up powerfully when our worship is sincere and fervent in spite of whatever difficult circumstance we might be experiencing.

We don't worship so that preaching will be more impactful for us; we preach so that worship will be more impactful for God.

In our humanness we can't handle all His holiness; so God, in mercy, raises the veil and dwells in mystery.

An overemphasis upon imminence in preaching has banished transcendence and tended to a theology of God being technically present as an observer but effectively absent as a participant. When

If spiritual formation is the purpose of the church, then personal transformation should intentionally be the purpose of the small group ministry. Bible study is great. Fellowship is wonderful. Evangelism is essential. But changing and growing to be more like Christ should be the purpose of the small group ministry.

Tell them," God said through Isaiah, "hard times are coming, but don't give up—now or ever. Don't let them underestimate My power to reorder the universe. Tell them to keep trusting Me and living the way I told them to in spite of what's coming.

John 5:44, Jesus continued, "How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God?

If God really did write a book, we ought to be reading it, studying it, memorizing it, and letting it guide our lives.