Quotes from Vance Havner

Life is like a grain of wheat: to plant it is to recognize its value; to keep it is to destroy its value. The 'planted' Christian counts life dear not unto himself but unto God.

The man who sets out to live the life worthwhile-to follow his vision and speak his heart-need not look for position, honors, prosperity.

Don't ever come to church without coming as though it were the first time, as though it could be the best time, and as though it could be the last time.

We are not bearing our crosses every time we have a headache; an aspirin tablet will take care of that. What is meant is the trouble we would not have if we were not Christians.

You haven't lost anything when you know were it is. Death can hide but not divide.

It is one of the ironies of the ministry that the very man who works in God's name is often hardest put to find time for God. The parents of Jesus lost Him at church, and they were not the last ones to lose Him there.

I would say to today's young minister, 'Be not afraid to give much time to solitary walks and meditation'.

The primary qualification for a missionary is not love for souls, as we so often hear, but love for Christ.

Christians, like snowflakes, are frail, but when they stick together they can stop traffic.

What we love usually manages to get into our conversation. What is down in the well of the heart will come up in the bucket of the speech.

Nothing is needed so much as a holy indignation against sin. It is true that there is not enough love for God, and one sign of it is that there is not enough hatred for sin.

Adam tried to hide behind the trees in the garden. There is only one tree that can hide us from Him and that is the tree of the cross.

I wouldn't cross the street to hear Ingersoll preach on the mistakes of Moses, but I'd love to hear Moses preach on the mistakes of Ingersoll!

I'm tired of hearing sin called sickness and alcoholism a disease. It is the only disease I know of that we're spending hundreds of millions of dollars a year to spread.

It is one thing to say Jesus is all you want; until He is all you have and you discover He is all you ever needed.

Most people would not want to live where there are no churches but many people live as though there were no churches.

Jesus is all we have; he is all we need and all we want. We are shipwrecked on God and stranded on omnipotence!

It is a matter of whether one wants to get rich or be rich. We can be rich in Christ Jesus or perhaps get rich in Egypt, but we cannot do both.

Too many church services start at eleven sharp and end at twelve dull.

If they had a social gospel in the days of the prodigal son, somebody would have given him a bed and a sandwich and he never would have gone home.

When a man makes alliance with the Almighty, giants look like grasshoppers.

The gospel is for lifeboats, not showboats, and a man must make up his mind which boat he is going to operate.

Men love everything but righteousness and fear everything but God.

God is on the lookout today for a man who will be quiet enough to get a message from Him, brave enough to preach it, and honest enough to live it.