Paul David Tripp Quotes

Embedded in the larger story of redemption is a principle we must not miss: God uses ordinary people to do extraordinary things in the lives of others.

~ Paul David Tripp

The church is not a theological classroom. It is a conversion, confession, repentance, reconciliation, forgiveness and sanctification center, where flawed people place their faith in Christ, gather to know and love him better, and learn to love others as he designed.

~ Paul David Tripp

We must not offer people a system of redemption, a set of insights and principles. We offer people a Redeemer.

~ Paul David Tripp

People struggling with life in a fallen world often want explanations when what they really need is imagination.

~ Paul David Tripp

We forget that God's primary goal ia not changing our situations or relationships so that we can be happy, but changing us through our situations and relationships so that we will be holy.

~ Paul David Tripp

Personal ministry is not about always knowing what to say. It is not about fixing everything in sight that is broken. Personal ministry is about connecting people with Christ so that they are able to think as he would have them think, desire what he says is best, and do what he calls them to do even if their circumstances never get fixed. It involves exposing hurt, lost, and confused people to God's glory, so that they give up their pursuit of their own glory and live for his.

~ Paul David Tripp

Harboring bitterness against people is actually confessing their sin to myself, over and over again. Anger is akin to confessing their sin to God, dissatisfied that he hasn't done something and placing myself in his position as judge.

~ Paul David Tripp

The good news of the kingdom is not freedom from hardship, suffering, and loss. It is the news of a Redeemer who has come to scue me from myself. 

~ Paul David Tripp

An instrument s a tool that is actively used to change something, and God has called all of his people to be instruments of change in his redemptive hands

~ Paul David Tripp

Real comfort is found when I understand that I am held in the hollow of the hand of the One who created and rules all things. The most valuable thing in my life is God's love, a love that no one can take away. When my identity is rooted in him, the storms of trouble will not blow me away. This is the comfort we offer people. We don't comfort them by saying things will work out. They may not. The people around them may change, but they may not. The Bible tells us again and again that everything around us is in the process of being taken away. God and his love are all that remain as cultures and kingdoms rise and fall. Comfort is found by sinking our roots into the unseen reality of God's ever-faithful love.

~ Paul David Tripp

God’s grace invites you to be part of something that is far greater than your boldest and most expansive dream. His grace cuts a hole in your self-built prison and invites you to step into something so huge, so significant that only one word in the Bible can adequately capture it. That word is glory.

~ Paul David Tripp

Every time you ask for forgiveness, you recognize that the biggest problems you face in life exist inside of you, not outside of you.

~ Paul David Tripp

Every time you ask for forgiveness, you declare that your life does not belong to you, but has been created for the purpose of Another.

~ Paul David Tripp

Could it be that desire for a good thing has become a bad thing because that desire has become a ruling thing?

~ Paul David Tripp

Today you will envy the blessings of another, or you will bask in the wonder of the amazing grace you have been given.

~ Paul David Tripp

. . .most people who are angry with God are angry with him for being God. They're not angry because he has failed to deliver what he promised, They're angry because he has failed to deliver what they have craved, expected or demanded.

~ Paul David Tripp

The Bible says that our core problem, the fundamental reason we do what we do, is sin.

~ Paul David Tripp

For students who have not been required to confess that it is easier to learn theology then live it, it is tempting to think maturity is more a matter of knowing in a matter of living

~ Paul David Tripp

But it must be said that maturity is not merely something you do with your mind. No, maturity is about how you live your life. It is possible to be theologically astute in yet very immature. It is possible be biblically literate and in need of significant spiritual growth.

~ Paul David Tripp

It is a sweet thing that we serve a dissatisfied God who has destinations in mind for us that we would never choose for ourselves. It really is a good thing that he will not be satisfied until he has gotten us exactly where he created us and re-created us to be. Most of us would have been satisfied to stay at home, and many of us would have quit the journey long before it was completed. But our heavenly Father won't give up until each one of his children has completed the journey.

~ Paul David Tripp

Weakness is not the problem, but my delusion of my strengths is.

~ Paul David Tripp

Foolishness is more than being stupid, that deadly combination of arrogance and ignorance.

~ Paul David Tripp

Your theology won't always work toward your obedience, because your use of theology is dictated by the condition of your heart. If your heart is not submitting to the plan of God, you will actually use your theology to justify things that should not be justified.

~ Paul David Tripp

Human beings by their very nature are worshipers. Worship is not something we do; it defines who we are. You cannot divide human beings into those who worship and those who don’t. Everybody worships; it’s just a matter of what, or whom, we serve.

~ Paul David Tripp

We are hardwired for glory because we are hardwired for God.

~ Paul David Tripp

Love calls you to be silent when you want to speak, and to speak when you would like to be silent. Love calls you to act when you would really like to wait, and to wait when you would really like to act. Love calls you to stop when you really want to continue and it calls you to continue when you feel like stopping. Love requires you to lead when you really would like to follow, and to follow when you really want to lead. Love again and again calls you away from your instincts and your comfort. Love always requires personal sacrifice. Love calls you to give up your life.

~ Paul David Tripp

If your hope disappoints you, it is the wrong kind of hope. You see, hope in God never disappoints, precisely because it is hope *in God.* This means that hope placed in any other thing will always end up disappointing.

~ Paul David Tripp

The minute you hear a sermon on materialism, you're glad somebody else is there to hear it.

~ Paul David Tripp

This is what grace does. It rescues us from our spiritual blindness. It releases us from our bondage to our rationalism and materialism. Grace gives us the faith to be utterly assured of what we cannot see. It frees us from refusing to believe in anything we cannot experience with our physical senses. But grace does more. It connects us to the invisible One in an eternal love relationship that fills us with joy we have never known before and gives us rest of heart that we would have though impossible. And that grace is still rescuing us, because we still tend to forget what is important, real, and true. We still tend to look to the physical world for our comfort. We still fail to remember in given moments that we really do have a heavenly Father. Grace has done a wonderful thing for us and continues to do more and more.

~ Paul David Tripp

When your ears hear and your eyes see the sin, weakness, or failure of your husband or wife, it is never an accident; it is always grace. God loves your spouse, and he is committed to transforming him or her by his grace, and he has chosen you to be one of his regular tools of change.

~ Paul David Tripp