Rick Warren
55 quotes
Biography
Richard Duane Warren is an American evangelical Christian pastor and author. He is the founder of Saddleback Church, an evangelical Baptist megachurch in Lake Forest, California.
"Transformation is a process, and as life happens there are tons of ups and downs. It's a journey of discovery - there are moments on mountaintops and moments in deep valleys of despair."
"What gives me the most hope every day is God's grace; knowing that his grace is going to give me the strength for whatever I face, knowing that nothing is a surprise to God."
"We are products of our past, but we don't have to be prisoners of it."
"You were made by God and for God and until you understand that, life will never make sense."
"The best use of life is love. The best expression of love is time. The best time to love is now."
"Without God, life has no purpose, and without purpose, life has no meaning. Without meaning, life has no significance or hope."
"The purpose of influence is to "speak up for those who have no influence."(Pr.31:8) It's not about you."
"You cannot exalt God and yourself at the same time."
"As long as you do things for God, you are a Hall of Famer in heaven's list."
"In all my travels, I've never seen a country's population more determined to forgive, and to build and succeed than in Rwanda."
"Being reminded about the incredible power of God's love, and living as He intended, is the most powerful motivation to change."
"Be willing to let people leave the church. And I told you earlier the fact that people are gonna leave the church no matter what you do. But when you define the vision, you're choosing who leaves. You say, "But Rick, yes, they're the pillars of the church." Now, you know what pillars are. Pillars are people who hold things up … And in your church, you may have to have some blessed subtractions before you have any real additions."
"In 1939, in a stadium much like this, in Munich Germany, they packed it out with young men and women in brown shirts, for a fanatical man standing behind a podium named Adolf Hitler, the personification of evil. And in that stadium, those in brown shirts formed with their bodies a sign that said, in the whole stadium, "Hitler, we are yours." And they nearly took the world. Lenin once said, "give me 100 committed, totally committed men and I'll change the world." And, he nearly did. A few years ago, they took the sayings of Chairman Mao, in China, put them in a little red book, and a group of young people committed them to memory and put it in their minds and they took that nation, the largest nation in the world by storm because they committed to memory the sayings of the Chairman Mao. When I hear those kinds of stories, I think 'what would happen if American Christians, if world Christians, if just the Christians in this stadium, followers of Christ, would say 'Jesus, we are yours'? What kind of spiritual awakening would we have?"
"Today there really aren't that many Fundamentalists left; I don't know if you know that or not, but they are such a minority; there aren't that many Fundamentalists left in America. … Now the word "fundamentalist" actually comes from a document in the 1920s called the Five Fundamentals of the Faith. And it is a very legalistic, narrow view of Christianity, and when I say there are very few fundamentalists, I mean in the sense that they are all actually called fundamentalist churches, and those would be quite small. There are no large ones."
"I am not an anti-gay or anti-marriage activist. Never have been, never will be. The whole Proposition 8 thing, I never once went to a meeting, never once issued a statement. Never once even gave an endorsement in the two years Prop 8 was going — the week before the vote, somebody in my church said, "Pastor Rick, what do you think about this?" And I sent a note to my own members that said, I actually believe that marriage is really, should be defined. If that definition should be saved between a man and a woman and then all of a suddenly out of it they made me, you know something that I really wasn't."
"Worry is really just a form of atheism. Every time you worry, you’re acting like an atheist. You’re saying, “It all depends on me.” That’s just not in the Bible."
"HALF of America pays NO taxes. Zero. So they’re happy for tax rates to be raised on the other half that DOES pay any taxes."
"The Bible is clear that God considers 40 days a spiritually significant time period. Whenever God wanted to prepare someone for his purposes, he took 40 days..."
"The smile of God is the goal of your life. Since pleasing God is the first purpose of your life, your most important task is to discover how to do that. The Bible says, "Figure out what will please Christ, then do it." Fortunately, the Bible gives us a clear example of a life that gives pleasure to God. The man's name was Noah."
"We're a nation of laws, but the good thing about America, is that laws reside in the people and people can change the laws."
"I happen to agree with many of the liberal emphasis on compassion, justice and equality. I just disagree that it's the government's role to provide everything."
"God is looking for people to use, and if you can get usable, he will wear you out. The most dangerous prayer you can pray is this: 'Use me.'"
"Faithful servants never retire. You can retire from your career, but you will never retire from serving God."
"You never know God is all you need until God is all you have."
"If God only used perfect people, nothing would get done. God will use anybody if you're available."