Mark Batterson Quotes

As I look back on my own life, I recognize this simple truth: The greatest opportunities were the scariest lions. Part of me has wanted to play it safe, but I’ve learned that taking no risks is the greatest risk of all.

~ Mark Batterson

Embrace relational uncertainty. It's called romance. Embrace spiritual uncertainty. It's called mystery. Embrace occupational uncertainty. It's called destiny. Embrace emotional uncertainty. It's called joy. Embrace intellectual uncertainty. It's called revelation.

~ Mark Batterson

When God blesses you financially, don't raise your standard of living. Raise your standard of giving.

~ Mark Batterson

Throwing down your staff is letting go and letting God. And that's counterintuitive for those of us who are control freaks. As our executive pastor Joel Schmidgall likes to say, You can have faith or you can have control, but you cannot have both. If you want God to do something off the chart, you have to take your hands off the controls.

~ Mark Batterson

If you let fear dictate your decisions, you will live defensively, reactively, cautiously. Living by faith is playing offense with your life.

~ Mark Batterson

We all want to spend eternity with God. We just don't want to spend time with Him. We stand and stare from a distance, satisfied with superficiality. We Facebook more than we seek His face. We text more than we study The Text. And our eyes aren't fixed on Jesus. They're fixed on our iPhones and iPads - emphasis on i. Then we wonder why God feels so distant. It's because we're hugging the rim. We wonder why we're bored with our faith. It's because we're holding out.We want joy without sacrifice.We want character without suffering.We want success without failure.We want gain without pain.We want a testimony without the test.We want it all without going all out for it.

~ Mark Batterson

God will never tempt you. It's not in His nature. In fact, He promises to provide an escape route for every tempting situation. But I can promise you this: God will test your faith. And those tests won't get easier. They will get progressively harder as the stakes get higher. And those tests will undoubtedly revolve around what is most important to you...God will test you to make sure your identity and your security are found in the cross of Jesus Christ. And God will go after anything you trust in more than Him until you put it on the altar.

~ Mark Batterson

There are spiritual gifts like mercy, faith, or generosity that enable people to set the standard, so to speak. But just because you don't have that spiritual gift doesn't mean you aren't held to any standard at all. Even if you aren't gifted in that way, you're still called to live mercifully, faithfully, and generously. You might not set the standard, but you need to meet the standard. There is a baseline that all of us are called to. When the opportunity presents itself, we need to show mercy, exercise faith, and give generously. In the same sense, all of us are called to take risks. If it doesn't involve risk, it doesn't exercise faith.

~ Mark Batterson

I don't know about you, but I want God to reveal the second step before I take the first step of faith. But I've discovered that if I don't take the first step, God generally won't reveal the next step...Most of us will only follow Christ to the point of precedence -- the place where we have been before. But ...If you want God to do something new, you cannot keep doing what you've always done. You've got to push past the fear of the unknown. You've got to do something different.

~ Mark Batterson

We want a money-back guarantee before we take a step of obedience, but that eliminates faith from the equation. Sometimes we need to take a flying leap of faith.We need to step into the conflict without knowing if we can resolve it. We need to share our faith without knowing how our friends will react to it. We need to pray for a miracle without knowing how God will answer. We need to put ourselves in a situation that activates a spiritual gift we've never exercised before. And we need to go after a dream that is destined to fail without divine intervention.If we want to discover new lands, we've got to lose sight of the shore. We've got to leave the Land of Familiarity behind. We've got to sail past the predictable. And when we do, we develop a spiritual hunger for the unprecedented and lose our appetite for the habitual. We also get a taste of God's favor.

~ Mark Batterson

...faith is acting as if God has already answered. And acting as if God has answered means acting on our prayers...

~ Mark Batterson

In the Hebrew language, there is no distinction between knowing and doing. Knowing is doing and doing is knowing. In other words, if you aren't doing it, then you don't really know it...The phrase all out literally means maximum effort.It's giving God everything you've got -- 100 percent. It's loving God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. It's not just worshiping God with your words. It's worshiping God with blood, sweat, and tears. It's more than sincere sentiments. It's sweat equity in kingdom causes.You cannot be the hands and feet of Jesus if you're sitting on your butt.

~ Mark Batterson

Nine times out of ten, failure is resorting to Plan B when Plan A gets too risky, too costly, or too difficult. That's why most people are living their Plan B. They didn't burn the ships. Plan A people don't have a Plan B...There are moments in life when we need to burn the ships to our past. We do so by making a defining decision that will eliminate the possibility of sailing back to the old world we left behind. You burn the ships named Past Failure and Past Success. You burn the ship named Bad Habit. You burn the ship named Regret. You burn the ship named Guilt. You burn the ship named My Old Way of Life.

~ Mark Batterson

If you aren't willing to look foolish, you're foolish. And that's why so many people have never built an ark, killed a giant, or walked on water.

~ Mark Batterson

True spirituality is the place where desperation meets Jesus.

~ Mark Batterson

In every dream journey, there comes a moment when you have to quit living as if the purpose of life is to arrive safely at death.

~ Mark Batterson

Dreams without deadlines are dead in the water. Deadlines are really lifelines to achieving our goals.

~ Mark Batterson

God-ordained dreams aren't just born. They are reborn. If they become more important to you than God, you have to sacrifice them for the sake of your soul. You have to put them on the altar and raise the knife. And once the dream is dead and buried, it can be resurrected for God's glory.

~ Mark Batterson

There is nothing God loves more that keeping promises, answering prayers, performing miracles, and fulfilling dreams.

~ Mark Batterson

I just don't think pastors should turn their pulpits into public policy platforms. It cheapens the gospel. Our congregation doesn't need another political opinion. They need spiritual revelation. They don't need to think about politics on the weekend. They need to be reminded to seek first the kingdom of God.

~ Mark Batterson

We give people political labels, sexual labels, and religious labels. But in the process, we strip them of their individuality and complexity. Prejudice is pre-judging. It's assuming that bad stories end badly, but Jesus is in the business of turning bad beginnings into happily ever afters....God cannot give up on you. It's not in His nature. His goodness and mercy will follow you all the days of your life. All you have to do is turn around. All you have to do is crash the party!

~ Mark Batterson

The spiritual tipping point is when the pain of staying the same becomes greater than the pain of change. Sadly, too many of us get comfortable with comfort. We follow Christ to the point of inconvenience, but no further. That's when we need a prophet to walk into our lives, throw a mantle around our shoulders, and wake us up to a new possibility, a new reality. We need a prophet to boldly confront Plan B and call us back to Plan A.

~ Mark Batterson

...if you do the job no one wants, you might eventually get the job everybody wants. But you have to be willing to climb the ladder, starting with the bottom rung.

~ Mark Batterson

...opportunities typically come disguised as impossible problems. And while most people run away from their problems, Shamgars run at them with their oxgoads.

~ Mark Batterson

Courage doesn't wait until situational factors turn in one's favor. It doesn't wait until a plan is perfectly formed. It doesn't wait until the tide of popular opinion is turned. Courage only waits for one thing: a green light from God. And when God gives the go, it's full steam ahead, no questions asked.

~ Mark Batterson

When God stirs our spirit or breaks our heart, we cannot sit back. We've got to step up and step in. We've got to go all in by going all out. But if we have the courage to make the choice or take the risk, it will become the defining moment of our lives.

~ Mark Batterson

Most of us will have no idea where we are going most of the time. And I know that is unsettling.But circumstantial uncertainty also goes by another name: Adventure.

~ Mark Batterson

Society's goal is to make us less foolish. From the cradle to grave the pressure is on: Be normal! Our inner fool may be shackled and caged by a world made to suppress it, but Jesus came to free the fool.

~ Mark Batterson

Nolan Bushnell, the creator of the Atari video game system, once stated, ‘Everyone who’s ever taken a shower has had an idea, It’s the person who gets out of the shower, dries off, and does something about it who makes a difference.

~ Mark Batterson

The only way to predict the future is to create it. You don't let it happen. You make it happen. How? Stop regretting the past and start learning from it. Let go of guilt by leaning into God's grace. Quit beating yourself up and let the Spirit of God heal your heart. You cannot divorce yourself from the past. You are married to it forever. But God wants to reconcile your past by redeeming it. God is in the recycling business, He makes recycled goods out of wasted lives.

~ Mark Batterson

Prayer is picking a fight with the Enemy. It's spiritual warfare. Intercession transports us from the sidelines to the front lines without going anywhere. And that is where the battle is won or lost. Prayer is the difference between us fighting for God and God fighting for us. But we can't just hit our knees. We also have to take a step, take a stand. And when we do, we never know what God will do next.

~ Mark Batterson

Anytime I'm not reading my Bible or praying, I feel like I'm wasting my time. [Mark's brother-in-law, Matt ________, speaking]

~ Mark Batterson

If you are not open to the unprecedented, you will repeat history. If you are open to the unprecedented, you will change history. The difference is prayer.

~ Mark Batterson

Everybody wants a miracle, we just don't want to be in a situation where we need one. You can't have one without the other. Sometimes what we perceive as our problem is really God setting us up to do something miraculous in our lives. It's about training ourselves to see those problems as opportunities so God can intervene.

~ Mark Batterson

Imagination is the road less taken, but it is the pathway of prayer.

~ Mark Batterson

God is great not just because nothing is too big for Him. God is great because nothing is too small for Him, either.

~ Mark Batterson

To the infinite, all finites are equal.

~ Mark Batterson

Whether we write lyrics or craft legislation, sell homes or teach classes, design spaces or open franchises, prayer is a critical part of the creative process. Don’t just brainstorm; praystorm.

~ Mark Batterson

Each prayer is like a seed that gets planted in the ground. It disappears for a season, but it eventually bears fruit that blesses future generations. In fact, our prayers bear fruit forever.

~ Mark Batterson

I have a handful of prayers that I pray all the time... One is that God will put my books into the right hands at the right times. I've prayed this prayer thousands of times, and God has answered it in dramatic fashion countless times. The right book in the right hands at the right time can save a marriage, avert a mistake, demand a decision, plant a seed, conceive a dream, solve a problem, and prompt a prayer. That is why I write. And that's why, for me, a book sold is not a book sold; a book sold is a prayer answered. I don't know the name and situation of every reader, but God does, and that's all that matters.

~ Mark Batterson