Erwin McManus famous quotes

We are all hypocrites in transition. I am not who I want to be, but I am on the journey there, and thankfully I am not whom I used to be.
-- Erwin McManus

#Hypocrite #Journey #Transition

The more isolated and disconnected we are, the more shattered and distorted our self-identity. We are not healthy when we are alone. We find ourselves when we connect to others. Without community we don't know who we are... When we live outside of healthy community, we not only lose others. We lose ourselves...Who we understand ourselves to be is dramatically affected for better or worse by those we hold closest to us.
-- Erwin McManus

#Self #Community #Healthy

It is amazing where God will take you when you are willing to follow. Life is full of surprises when we choose mystery over security.
-- Erwin McManus

#Mystery #Life Is #Surprise

Deeper than our instinct to live is our longing to be alive.
-- Erwin McManus

#Alive #Longing #Instinct

You need to remember who God is, forget the painful wounds and let Him renew you.
-- Erwin McManus

#Needs #Who God Is #Remember

Jesus did not have a value for prayer for prayer's sake. He had a value for the intimate communion between God and man.
-- Erwin McManus

#Jesus #Prayer #Men

It is amazing how much we can endure when we are convinced there is a purpose to our struggle.
-- Erwin McManus

#Struggle #Purpose #Endure

I have so much confidence in the reality of Jesus that I feel no pressure to try to make people act or be a certain way. I'm banking everything on the fact that God actually changes people.
-- Erwin McManus

#Jesus #Reality #People

The most important moments rarely come at a convenient time
-- Erwin McManus

#Important #Moments

The church does not exist for us. We are the church, and we exist for the world.
-- Erwin McManus

#Church #Doe #World

Your dreams are the product of your longings, a portrait of your potential, and a promise of your future.
-- Erwin McManus

#Dream #Promise #Portraits

When we lack integrity, we use power to control. When we lead with integrity, we use power to bless.
-- Erwin McManus

#Integrity #Use #Bless

The world doesn't need more great leaders, it needs more great people who lead.
-- Erwin McManus

#People #Leader #Needs

When the church becomes an institution, people are nothing more than volunteers to be recruited. When the church is a movement, our stewardship becomes the unleashing of our God-given gifts, talents, and passions.
-- Erwin McManus

#Passion #People #Volunteer

If you were meant to fly, not even running really fast is that impressive.
-- Erwin McManus

#Running #Impressive

You're not supposed to die with your potential. A life well lived squeezes all the potential placed within and does something with it.
-- Erwin McManus

#Doe #Life Well Lived #Wells

A person God himself deems as wise is one who not only hears His voice, but immediately begins to act upon His instruction.
-- Erwin McManus

#Wise #Voice #Instruction

The real measure of our power is the freedom and opportunity we create for others.
-- Erwin McManus

#Real #Opportunity

God gives God-sized dreams to people with God-shaped hearts.
-- Erwin McManus

#Dream #Heart #People

It is insanity to run from God and search for love.
-- Erwin McManus

#Running #Insanity #Searching For Love

I refused to let go of what I had.
-- Erwin McManus

#Letting Go

You cannot wash the feet of a dirty world if you refuse to touch it
-- Erwin McManus

#Dirty #Feet #World

If our children are going to walk away from Christ, we need to raise them in such a way that they understand that to walk away from Jesus is to walk away from a life of faith, risk and adventure and to choose a life that boring, mundane and ordinary
-- Erwin McManus

#Jesus #Children #Adventure

You are an artist. What work of art will you leave behind?
-- Erwin McManus

#Art #Artist #Works Of Art

Courage is not the absence of fear; it is the absence of self.
-- Erwin McManus

#Inspirational #Courage #Self

To live outside of God's will puts us in danger; to live in his will makes us dangerous.
-- Erwin McManus

#Danger #Dangerous

The church is not here to meet our needs. We are the church here to meet the needs of the world.
-- Erwin McManus

#Church #Needs #World

We were created to be expressions of the goodness and wholeness of God.
-- Erwin McManus

#Expression #Goodness #Wholeness

Problems, obstacles, and challenges can either become the markers of our limits and limitations, or they can become the springboard into a whole new world.
-- Erwin McManus

#Challenges #World #Limits

Is it possible that the creative act is simply the materialization of the future- making the invisible, visible?
-- Erwin McManus

#Creative #Invisible

The history of God's people is not a record of God searching for courageous men and women who could handle the task, but God transforming the hearts of cowards and calling them to live courageous lives.
-- Erwin McManus

#Heart #Men #People

Attitude is an accurate monitor of where we fall on the spectrum of pride and humility.
-- Erwin McManus

#Attitude #Fall #Humility

The shape of your character is the shape of your future.
-- Erwin McManus

#Character #Shapes #Your Future

My goal is to destroy Christianity as a world religion and be a recatalyst for the movement of Jesus Christ ... Some people are upset with me because it sounds like I'm anti-Christian. I think they might be right.
-- Erwin McManus

#Christian #Jesus #Thinking

The person who loves the process has a much greater chance of success than the person who loves the outcome.
-- Erwin McManus

#Outcomes #Chance #Process

Love, no matter how you come at it, is a huge risk. It makes it easier for me to remember that God will never reject me because I am not good enough and that any community that has His heart will embrace me as I am. Jesus invites us into a community where imperfect people can find acceptance, love, forgiveness, and a new beginning.
-- Erwin McManus

#Jesus #Heart #New Beginnings

Jesus' death wasn't to free us from dying, but to free us from the fear of death. Jesus came to liberate us so that we could die up front and then live. Jesus Christ wants to take us to places where only dead men and women can go.
-- Erwin McManus

#Jesus #Men #Dying

Your soul craves truth, beauty, wonder, love. Your soul craves to dream, to imagine, and even simply to understand. Your soul craves to connect, to commune, to create.
-- Erwin McManus

#Dream #Love You #Soul

God allows and at times causes us to go through the kinds of circumstances that strip away all falsehood and leave us with our real selves. God's ultimate intent is not to leave us faithless, but to leave us faith-full. There are few things as exhilarating as going through the fire and finding that you had the resilience to make it through. All of us wonder at times whether we have what it takes. God wants to bring us to a place where we have no doubt of the work He has done within us.
-- Erwin McManus

#Real #Fire #Self

Churches all over the country have decided they love their traditions more than their children.
-- Erwin McManus

#Country #Children #Church

True religion always moves us to serve others and to give our lives to see those oppressed find freedom.
-- Erwin McManus

#Moving #Giving #True Religion

How is it, that for many of us, being a good Christian is nothing more than being a good person? The entire focus of our faith has been the elimination of sin, which is important but inadequate; rather than the unleashing of a unique, original, extraordinary, wonderfully untamed, faith.
-- Erwin McManus

#Christian #Unique #Focus

I guess when I really think about it, God's voice sounds a lot like my voice.
-- Erwin McManus

#Thinking #Voice #Sound

Our citizenship is in eternity; history is our temporary residence.
-- Erwin McManus

#Citizenship #Eternity #Temporary

When calling for authenticity, we need to take seriously the brokenness and sinfulness of the human heart. If to be authentic means to be who we really are or to express what we really feel, then in most cases I’m going to vote for hypocrisy. Our prisons are filled with men and women who acted on their feelings and impulses. If authenticity is about being true to yourself, these individuals should be our models of inspiration.
-- Erwin McManus

#Inspiration #Mean #Heart

The fuel of ambition is not the problem; it is the focus of ambition that frees or betrays us.
-- Erwin McManus

#Ambition #Focus #Fuel

Whoever tells the best story shapes the culture.
-- Erwin McManus

#Culture #Stories #Shapes

Would you be willing to give your life to save the world if no one ever knew your name? If anonymity was the price you would have to pay for significance, would it be too great a price? To live a life of courage is not a guarantee of prestige or adulation. It only matters if you live and die fulfilling the mission you were born for.
-- Erwin McManus

#Names #Giving #Guarantees

In some sense we are all hypocrites in transition.
-- Erwin McManus

#Hypocrite #Humility #Transition

For years I have made it my mission to destroy the influence of the Christian clich, 'the safest place to be is in the center of the will of God.' God would never choose for us safety at the cost of significance. God created you so that your life would count, not so that you could count the days of your life,
-- Erwin McManus

#Christian #Years #Safety

I think a lot of us are not on a path; we're in a rut. We have confused comfort with peace, belief with faith, safety with wisdom, wealth with blessing, and existence with life.
-- Erwin McManus

#Hate #Confused #Blessing

Truth should never travel faster than love.
-- Erwin McManus

#Should #Faster

How in the world could you ever imagine a life of faith that does not require risk? Faith and risk are inseparable.
-- Erwin McManus

#Risk #Doe #World

When we dwell on the past, we tend to want to live there. When we dream of the future, we want to go there. Our dreams are where God paints a picture of a life waiting to be created.
-- Erwin McManus

#Life #Dream #Past

To be apathetic is literally to be without passion.
-- Erwin McManus

#Passion #Apathetic

It’s a wonderful thing when you look inside your own heart and like what you see.
-- Erwin McManus

#Heart #Looks #Wonderful

God clarifies in the midst of obedience, not beforehand.
-- Erwin McManus

#Obedience #Midst

A life well lived is the most exquisite work of art.
-- Erwin McManus

#Art #Life Well Lived #Wells

We can’t change history, but we can create the future.
-- Erwin McManus

You can plant a church and grow a church. That's not that hard to do, but it's harder to be a viable source of transformation in a city or your time or space.
-- Erwin McManus

#Cities #Space #Church

I realize that I live on the bubble of insanity. I feel the weight of human suffering, loneliness and despair on me all the time. It's not getting easier; if anything, it's always right on the edge of my skin.
-- Erwin McManus

#Loneliness #Insanity #Suffering

Religion as a whole specializes in sin management. It's all about organizing humanity in such a way that we cause as little damage as possible.
-- Erwin McManus

#Humanity #Littles #Way

Within a moment there is monumental potential. That is the mystery of a moment. It is small enough to ignore and big enough to change your life forever
-- Erwin McManus

#Forever #Mystery #Changing Your Life

Jesus beckons his followers to a path that's far from the easy road. It's a path filled with adventure, uncertainty, and unlimited possibilities - the only path that can fulfill the deepest longings and desires of your heart.
-- Erwin McManus

#Jesus #Heart #Adventure

The first and most important step in the process of becoming genuinely is to be once again authenticated by the original designer.
-- Erwin McManus

#Important #Firsts #Becoming

You are both a work of art and an artist at work.
-- Erwin McManus

#Art #Artist #Works Of Art

The future awaits those with the courage to create it.
-- Erwin McManus

The limitations you are willing to accept establish the boundaries of your existence.
-- Erwin McManus

#Boundaries #Accepting #Existence

Greatness comes with discipline.
-- Erwin McManus

#Greatness #Discipline

I think Christianity is the same as Buddhism and Hinduism - whenever a religion begins to say that these are the things you have to do to be loved by God, you have a religion.
-- Erwin McManus

#Buddhism #Thinking #Christianity

Behind real freedom, there lies discipline.
-- Erwin McManus

#Real #Lying #Discipline

The journey to freedom is paved by the substance of our character.
-- Erwin McManus

#Character #Journey #Substance

The greatest enemy to the movement of Jesus Christ is Christianity.
-- Erwin McManus

#Jesus #Enemy #Movement

Far too often, when we think we are frightened by mystery, the fact is that we are haunted by history.
-- Erwin McManus

#Thinking #Facts #Mystery

Sin creates the illusion of freedom. In the end it fools us into seeking freedom from God rather than finding freedom in God.
-- Erwin McManus

#Fool #Sin #Illusion

Love never comes without wounds; faith never comes without failure.
-- Erwin McManus

#Wounds

Humility is not about having a low self-image or poor self-esteem. Humility is about self-awareness.
-- Erwin McManus

#Self Esteem #Humility #Awareness

A world without God cannot wait for us to choose the safe path. If we wait for someone else to take the risk, we risk that no one will ever act and that nothing will ever be accomplished.
-- Erwin McManus

#Waiting #Risk #World

Faith is the determination to create with our lives what only our hearts can conceive.
-- Erwin McManus

#Determination #Heart

What is the future you're creating right now?
-- Erwin McManus

#Creating

It's not your freedom to choose that makes you free. It's what you choose in that freedom that makes you free.
-- Erwin McManus

#Freedom To Choose #You Choose

We need both to aspire and accomplish. Without a vision for your life, without a sense of purpose, you will begin to die a slow death.
-- Erwin McManus

#Vision #Needs #Purpose

Home is ultimately not about a place to live but about the people with whom you are most fully alive. Home is about love, relationship, community, and belonging, and we are all searching for home.
-- Erwin McManus

#Home #People #Community

So many of us have abdicated our passions for obligations, as if passion is a luxury for the young, and we must all grow up one day. We, even if reluctantly, fall into place to live a life of conformity that we describe as ‘maturity.’ We’ve made acting like an adult synonymous with living apathetic lives.
-- Erwin McManus

#Growing Up #Fall #Passion

Jesus is being lost in a religion bearing his name.
-- Erwin McManus

#Jesus #Names #Lost

It is not balance you need but adaptability.
-- Erwin McManus

#Balance #Needs #Adaptability

We are all time voyagers leaving history in our wake, pioneering into the future.
-- Erwin McManus

#Leaving #All Time

All the evidence you need to prove God is waiting within you to be discovered.
-- Erwin McManus

#Waiting #Needs #Evidence

I"m often accused of being irreligious, and I suppose it's for this very reason. Whether it's Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Catholicism, Hinduism, Judaism, or any other ism, when a religioin is created on the subtle premise that God withholds his love and you must submit to the system to earn that love, I consider it the worst of corruptions... For centuries, the church has been telling us that if we want God to love us, we need to follow the rules. It's been far more important to focus on the sin problem than the love problem.
-- Erwin McManus

#Buddhism #Focus #Islam

This thing that haunts you, that never seems satisfied, the cravings in your soul that you are unable to satiate through all the success that the world can bring this is your soul screaming for God.
-- Erwin McManus

#Soul #World #Satisfied

When you're passionate about God, you can trust your passions.
-- Erwin McManus

#Passion #Passionate