Quotes from Larry Crabb

nos importa más la curación de nuestros sufrimientos que el perdón de nuestros pecados; consideramos que la bondad de Dios se da por sentado y no nos maravillamos de la sorpresa de la gracia; pensamos que su objetivo es ayudarnos en el presente más que desarrollar en nosotros una mayor humildad.

A man looks at a "sex goddess" and lusts. A man looks at a feminine woman and worships.

Counseling that attempts to logically teach new truth without concern for the emotional threat involved in changing one's approach to meeting personal needs will plow headlong into resistance.

By cutting God off (what a staggering concept of freedom—mere humans can cut God off from their lives), you cut off the only source of true significance and security.

Sin has corrupted not only what we do, but also how we think, what goals we set, and how we feel about ourselves and others. Merely changing what we do will not change who we are. The cure for the selfishness and fear that control so much of what we do cannot be reduced to shallow solutions; we need to learn how our minds deceive us.

Nobody moves toward real Christlikeness without humility. Humility is not a bad self-image or a nonassertive personality. Humility is an eager willingness to see where you are wrong in order to experience the power of God that has already made you fit for His presence.

Everything you were designed to experience and enjoy is found in God. Knowing God is your life and your highest joy. You either believe that or you don't. Believe it and you will experience and enjoy life, real life, eventually. Guaranteed. Disbelieve it and, at best, you will experience counterfeit life and enjoy it only for a season.

Churches that never deal with the real fight that following My Son requires often grow large but mostly with small Christians.

Like the seminarian relying more on his knowledge of Hebrew than on the Spirit to hear God's voice in the text, we're more prone to carefully maneuvering our way through life than to abandoning ourselves to divine providence.

Working diligently to straighten up our actions without understanding either what it means to deeply repent or what it is that needs to be scrubbed away by repentance will make us more smug than penetrating. We'll pressure others to do right rather than draw them to want to do right. P195

The choice before us is rather stark: either live to be comfortable (both internally and externally, but especially internally), or live to know God. We can't have it both ways. One choice excludes the other. P91

Maturity involves two elements: 1) immediate obedience in specific situations and 2) long-range character growth.

The problem sincere Christians have with God often comes down to a wrong understanding of what this life is meant to provide.

The goal of our sanctification is that we place Christ on display in the way we love others.

Certainly we struggle as victims of other people's unkindness. We have been sinned against. But we cannot excuse our sinful responses to others on the grounds of their mistreatment of us. We are responsible for what we do. We are both strugglers and sinners, victims and agents, people who hurt and people who harm.

I find it much easier to counsel than to be counseled, to reach out to a friend in my small group who is feeling insercure than to reveal my own inseurity. The truth is we don't much like being dependent. We don't enjoy admitting how depeately we long for someone's kindness and involvement. It's so humbling.

I hear Jesus telling us to stop negotiating with Him, to stop offering something we think we have in exchange for His blessings.

The problem sincere Christians have with God often comes down to a wrong understanding of what this life is meant to provide.

Change from the inside out involves a steadfast gaze upon our Lord that's life changing because it reflects a deep turning from a commitment to self-sufficiency. Without repentance, a look at Christ provides only the illusion of comfort.

If we look for ways to get rid of necessary pain, we'll be disillusioned or misled. For people who define real change as the elimination of inevitable struggle, the final chapters will be terribly disappointing.

When spiritual friends share their stories, the others listen without working. They rest. There's nothing to fix, nothing to improve. A spiritual community feels undisturbed quiet as they listen, certainly burdened . . . but still resting in the knowledge that the life within, the passion for holiness, is indestructible. It needs only to be nourished and released.

I assume the Spirit is always whispering, "Abba", to God's children, assuring them that they are safe in His care. And he is continually calling them to become what God saved them to be, solid people, indestructibly alive, hurting perhaps, but consumed with pleasing the Father.

There's never a moment in all our lives, from the day we trusted Christ till the day we see Him, when God is not longing to bless us. At every moment, in every circumstance, God is doing us good. He never stops. It gives Him too much pleasure. God is not waiting to bless us after our troubles end. He is blessing us right now, in and through those troubles. At this exact moment, He is giving us what He thinks is good.

Evangelicals sometimes expect too much or, to put it more precisely, we look for a kind of change God hasn't promised. It's possible to expect too little, but under-expectation is usually a cynical reaction to dashed hopes for too much. We manage to interpret biblical teaching to support our longing for perfection. As a result, we measure our progress by standards we will never meet until heaven.