Mark Batterson Quotes

Prayer adds an element of surprise to your life that is more fun than a surprise party or surprise gift or surprise romance. In fact, prayer turns life into a party, into a gift, into a romance.

~ Mark Batterson

Prayer is the difference between seeing with our physical eyes and seeing with our spiritual eyes.

~ Mark Batterson

Learning is the heart of discipleship. You can't just take up your cross daily. You need to take up the Bible every day.

~ Mark Batterson

Half of learning is learning. The other half of learning is unlearning.

~ Mark Batterson

...people can go to church every week of their lives and never go all in with Jesus Christ. I'm afraid we've cheapened the gospel by allowing people to buy in without selling out. We've made it too convenient, too comfortable. We've given people just enough Jesus to be bored but not enough to feel the surge of holy adrenaline that courses through your veins when you decide to follow Him no matter what, no matter where, no matter when.

~ Mark Batterson

...love people when they least expect it and least deserve it. That is the kind of love Jesus shows to us.

~ Mark Batterson

...if you can truly surrender to Him, you will do more, be more, experience more. Life will just be more.

~ Mark Batterson

...if you're walking with Jesus and you invite someone to walk with you, there is a good chance they'll get to know Jesus somewhere along the way.

~ Mark Batterson

Following Jesus is a verb.

~ Mark Batterson

We are living in a time where the hearing from God is bombarded by many frequencies and voices. This noise, corrosive in nature, makes it difficult to hear God’s voice...living with more noise means we live less like a disciple. We need a prism. Eric Samuel Timm is a prism.

~ Mark Batterson

Goal setting is good stewardship. Instead of letting things happen, goals help us make things happen. Instead of living by default, goals help us live by design. Instead of living out of memory, goals help us live out of imagination.

~ Mark Batterson

Going all in and all out for the All in All is both a death sentence and a life sentence. Your sinful nature, along with its selfish desires, is nailed to the cross. Then, and only then, does your true personality, your true potential, and your true purpose come alive. After all, God cannot resurrect what has not died. And that's why so many people are half alive. They haven't died to self yet.

~ Mark Batterson

In God's kingdom, calling trumps credentials every time! God does not call the qualified. He qualifies the called. And the litmus test isn't experience or expertise. It's availability and teachability. If you are willing to go when God gives you a green light, He will take you to inaccessible places to do impossible things.

~ Mark Batterson

You can be saved without suffering, but you cannot be sanctified without suffering. That doesn't mean you seek it out, but it does mean you see it for what it is. It's an opportunity to glorify God.

~ Mark Batterson

Your ability to see failure as a necessary stepping stone directly correlates with your ability to dream bigger and dream better.

~ Mark Batterson

I want to go after dreams that are destined to fail without diving intervention.

~ Mark Batterson

The very nature of the gospel is Jesus inviting the disciples on an adventure. To do what they'd never done and go where they'd never gone. Never a dull moment! You cannot follow Jesus and be bored at the same time.

~ Mark Batterson

Part of discovering the adventure God has designed you for is learning how to frame it or reframe it.

~ Mark Batterson

You don't have to go looking for adventure. If you follow Jesus, adventure comes looking for you. Jesus didn't carry a cross to Calvary so that we could live a halfway life. He died so that we could come alive in the truest and fullest sense of the word.

~ Mark Batterson

Grace is loving people for who they are, where they are. It's loving people *before* they change, not just *after* they change. And that grace is the difference between holy and holier-than-thou. Holiness, in its purest form, is irresistible. That's why sinners couldn't be kept away from Jesus. Hypocrisy has the opposite effect. It's as repulsive to the irreligious as the Pharisees' religiosity was to Jesus.

~ Mark Batterson

...each of us has an explanatory style... And our explanation is more important than the experience itself. In the words of Aldous Huxley, Experience is not what happens to a man; it is what a man does with what happens to him.

~ Mark Batterson

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

~ Mark Batterson

When we do what's right, regardless of circumstances or consequences, we set the table for God to turn the tables. All we need to do is stand up, step in, or step out.

~ Mark Batterson

Even choosing to do nothing is still making a choice.

~ Mark Batterson

The distance between your head and your heart is only twelve inches, but it's the difference between information and transformation. It's not enough to invite Jesus into your mind. You have to open the door to your heart of hearts. No door can remain locked. Even the door to your hidden room.Nothing entangles the emotions like sin. And if you sin long enough, it feels like a Gordian knot that seems impossible to untangle. But Jesus Christ went to the cross to undo what you have done. He broke the curse of sin so you can break the cycle of sin.

~ Mark Batterson

Why do we act as though our sin disqualifies us from the grace of God? That is the only thing that qualifies us! Anything else is a self-righteous attempt to earn God's grace. You cannot trust God's grace 99 percent. It's all or nothing. The problem, as I pointed out earlier, is that we want partial credit for our salvation. We want to be 1 percent of the equation. But if we try to save ourselves, we forfeit the salvation that comes from Jesus Christ alone, by grace through faith.

~ Mark Batterson

We live in a culture that celebrates talent more than integrity, but we've got it backward. Talent depreciates over time. So do intellect and appearance. You will eventually lose your strength and lose your looks. You may even lose your mind. But you don't have to lose your integrity. Integrity is the only thing that doesn't depreciate over time. Nothing takes longer to build than a godly reputation. And nothing is destroyed more quickly by one stroke of sin. That's why it must be celebrated and protected above all else.

~ Mark Batterson

Sin always overpromises and underdelivers, while righteousness pays dividends for eternity...Nothing is more illogical than sin. It's the epitome of poor judgment. It's temporary insanity with eternal consequences. And we have no alibi, save the cross of Jesus Christ.

~ Mark Batterson

Confession breaks the power of canceled sin. It also heals the broken heart.

~ Mark Batterson

If your deepest feelings are reserved for something other than Almighty God, then that something other is an emotional idol... if you get more excited about material things than the simple yet profound fact that your sin was nailed to the cross by the sinless Son of God, then you're bowing down to Tammuz.

~ Mark Batterson

True knowledge should not produce pride; it should produce humility...Because the more you know, the more you know how much you don't know.

~ Mark Batterson

Self-consciousness isn't just A curse. It is part of THE curse.

~ Mark Batterson

We don't see the world as it is; we see the world as we are...if someone has a critical eye, they will always find something to be critical about. And if they have a grateful eye, they will find something to celebrate even in the worst of circumstances...Having a good eye in life changes how you see yourself and everything around you... your focus determines your reality.

~ Mark Batterson

we take some big miracles for granted. We're on a planet that's spinning at a thousand miles per hour, traveling through space and we don't worry about God keeping our planet in orbit. We already trust God for the big miracles like our heart beating and today alone, we'll take a thousand breaths, but can we trust Him in the smaller things?

~ Mark Batterson

Death is a mirror that gives us a glimpse of who we really are.Death is a rearview mirror that puts the past into perspective.

~ Mark Batterson

...we think so much about the present and so little about eternity that we turn eternity into nothing and nothing into eternity.

~ Mark Batterson

...success is when those who know you best respect you most.

~ Mark Batterson

Pride is a by-product of insecurity. And the more insecure a person is, the more monuments they need to build.There is a fine line between 'Thy kingdom come' and 'my kingdom come.' If you cross the line, your relationship with God is self-serving.You aren't serving God. You are using God.You aren't building altars to God. You are building monuments to yourself.

~ Mark Batterson

Whatever you don't turn into praise turns into pride.

~ Mark Batterson

As Edison is credited with saying, Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work. We all want to be successful, but most of us aren't willing to do what those who are successful did to attain it. We want success without sacrifice, but you can't have one without the other!

~ Mark Batterson