Matt Chandler famous quotes

The more you make this world about you, the more miserable you will be.
-- Matt Chandler

#World #Miserable #This World

I learned very early that people need to have a good grasp of God's goodness and God's sovereignty.
-- Matt Chandler

#People #Needs #Goodness

This avoidance of the difficult things of Scripture — of sinfulness and hell and God’s notable severity — is idolatrous and cowardly. If a man or a woman who teaches the Scriptures is afraid to explain to you the severity of God, they have betrayed you, and they love their ego more than they love you.
-- Matt Chandler

#Love You #Men #Ego

I don't believe in the end that God gave me cancer, but He certainly could have stopped it and didn't.
-- Matt Chandler

#Cancer #Believe #Ends

Thanksgiving is worry's kryptonite.
-- Matt Chandler

#Kryptonite #Worry

If you’re a church person and not a Jesus person, my heart hurts for you. It’s like being engaged and never getting married. It’s miserable.
-- Matt Chandler

#Hurt #Jesus #Heart

Find the things that stir your affections for Christ and saturate your life in them. Find the things that rob you of that affection and walk away from them. That's the Christian life as easy as I can explain it for you.
-- Matt Chandler

#Christian #Affection #Easy

Love says: I’ve seen the ugly parts of you, and I’m staying.
-- Matt Chandler

#Ugly

I've discovered most Christians don't know what to do with difficult situations because they have bought into the lie that God owes us (for our good behaviour). The reality of life is that if you live long enough you are going to bleed, cry and hurt. AND God is still God IN that.
-- Matt Chandler

#Christian #Hurt #Lying

It's OK to not be OK - just don't stay there.
-- Matt Chandler

If you add to or subtract from the cross, even if it is to factor in biblically mandated religious practices like prayer and evangelism, you rob God of His glory and Christ of His sufficiency.
-- Matt Chandler

#Religious #Prayer #Practice

God is awesome; he doesn’t need you to be awesome. He wants you to be obedient.
-- Matt Chandler

#Want #Needs #Need You

My sin in the past: forgiven.  My current struggles: covered.  My future failures: paid in full all by the marvelous, infinite, matchless grace found in the atoning work of the cross of Jesus Christ.
-- Matt Chandler

#Jesus #Struggle #Past

Lots of neat Christian boys, not a lot of Godly men. And we are working our tails off for you to try to develop some into that. But do not settle, because it's better that you be lonely now than you be married and lonely later. Are you tracking me? It is better that you be lonely now than for you to get married to a man that will teach your kids everything but the way of Jesus.
-- Matt Chandler

#Christian #Lonely #Jesus

So relational evangelism?  Go for it, as long as it turns into real evangelism.  You hanging out having a beer with your buddy so he can see that Christians are cool is not what we’re called to do.  You’re eventually going to have to open up your mouth and share the gospel.  When the pure gospel is shared, people respond.
-- Matt Chandler

#Christian #Real #Beer

Truth is to be used as a scalpel, not a club.
-- Matt Chandler

#Clubs #Truth Is #Scalpels

When you blow it, God still celebrates His Son in you. The litmus test of whether or not you understand the gospel is what you do when  you fail. Do you run from Him and go clean yourself up a little bit before you come back into the throne room? Or do you approach the throne of grace with confidence? If you don't approach the throne of grace with confidence, you don't understand the gospel.
-- Matt Chandler

#Running #Son #Blow

No change of job, no increased income, no new home, no new electronic device, or no new spouse is going to make things better inside of you.
-- Matt Chandler

#Jobs #Home #Income

Heaven is not a place for those who are afraid of hell; it’s a place for those who love God. You can scare people into coming to your church, you can scare people into trying to be good, you can scare people into giving money, you can even scare them into walking down an aisle and praying a certain prayer, but you cannot scare people into loving God. You just can’t do it.
-- Matt Chandler

#Prayer #People #Giving

Prayer does two things. It shows the complete sufficiency of God and the complete helplessness of man. It shows that God is not lacking, that He is in need of no thing, that He is infinitely and gloriously wealthy, that He can give to, He can bless and He can answer without the need of help from anyone or anything else. And it also shows that we are in desperate need of that kind of sufficiency.
-- Matt Chandler

#Prayer #Men #Two

Without a heart transformed by the grace of Christ, we just continue to manage external and internal darkness.
-- Matt Chandler

#Heart #Darkness #Grace

The context of the gospel message is not our benefit or our salvation; the context of the gospel is the supremacy of Christ and the glory of God.
-- Matt Chandler

#Benefits #Messages #Christ

The depth, width, ferocity, and immensity of God is seen most spectacularly in the gospel of Jesus Christ.
-- Matt Chandler

#Jesus #Depth #Christ

Faith doesn’t mean an absence of fear. It means facing fear and trusting that God’s goodness is greater.
-- Matt Chandler

#Mean #Absence #Goodness

Grace-driven effort wants to get to the bottom of behavior, not just manage behavior. If you're simply managing behavior but not removing the roots of that behavior, then the weeds simply sprout up in another place.
-- Matt Chandler

#Weed #Roots #Effort

Our senses are never more awakened to our need for His love than when our need is most exposed.
-- Matt Chandler

#Needs #His Love #Exposed

In 10,000 years you will not regret anything you didn’t have or do in this life.
-- Matt Chandler

#Regret #Years #This Life

Your approval before God is woven into the life and sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross, not what other men and women think about you.
-- Matt Chandler

#Jesus #Sacrifice #Men

When God saves you, he doesn’t do it because you gave him permission. He did it because he’s God.
-- Matt Chandler

#Permission

While we lament the apparent injustice of pain and suffering, how often do we forget that every good thing in a fallen world is wholly a gift of God's mercy and grace.
-- Matt Chandler

#Pain #Grace #Suffering

God does not regret saving you. There is no sin which you commit which is beyond the cross of Christ.
-- Matt Chandler

#Regret #Doe #Saving

Why do we try so hard to make Jesus cool?! He doesn’t need a makeover.
-- Matt Chandler

#Jesus #Trying #Needs

God is at work in the mess. That's the message of the Bible. That's why the Bible is not pretty. That's why it's grimy, because God is working in the mess. He's working in the tears.
-- Matt Chandler

#Tears #Messages #Mess

The universe shudders in horror that we have this infinitely valuable, infinitely deep, infinitely rich, infinitely wise, infinitely loving God, and instead of pursuing him with steadfast passion and enthralled fury — instead of loving him with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength; instead of attributing to him glory and honor and praise and power and wisdom and strength — we just try to take his toys and run. It is still idolatry to want God for his benefits but not for himself.
-- Matt Chandler

#Wise #Running #Heart

So what does it look like to live a life worthy of the gospel of Jesus Christ? It looks like walking with, loving with, and doing life with those who are different from you. What binds you together is Christ. It looks like striving together to make Christ known. What motivates you is Christ. And it looks like standing with courage against all oppressors, natural or supernatural. What secures you is Christ.
-- Matt Chandler

#Jesus #Together #Doe

The idolatry the exists in a man's heart always wants to lead him away from his Savior and back to self-reliance no matter how pitiful that self-reliance is or how many times it has betrayed him.
-- Matt Chandler

#Heart #Men #Self

The cross of Christ exists because mankind-loved by God, created by God, set in motion by God-betrayed God and prefers his stuff to him.
-- Matt Chandler

#Betrayed #Stuff #Christ

We’ve got to get past this idea that God is most glorified when we’re rich, healthy and wealthy and we go, “Isn’t God grand? Look at all He gave me.” Because if anybody joins us in that and says, “Oh, if you love Jesus, you get a house and health and cars? Then I love Jesus too.” Because then all of a sudden you’ve got a different religion. You have the religion of cars and houses, not God.
-- Matt Chandler

#Jesus #Past #Ideas

Our goal is transformed hearts that lead to transformed lives. Transformed lives do not lead to transformed hearts. Are you trackin' with that?
-- Matt Chandler

#Heart #Goal

I was used to being the smartest guy in the room, and then God dropped me in a place that was well beyond me. It was painfully awesome.
-- Matt Chandler

#Guy #Rooms #Used

We are supernaturalists first, not naturalists. The only reason we feel compelled to accommodate science is that science says we ought to. But it is science that should accommodate revelation. Revelation has been around much longer.
-- Matt Chandler

#Firsts #Reason #Revelations

God is not in love with some future version of you. It’s not you tomorrow that He loves and delights in. It’s not you when you get your act together....If you believe that Christ’s love for you is a future love for you, then you dismiss the cross of Christ.
-- Matt Chandler

#Believe #Together #Delight

The commands of God are given, not to rob me of joy, but lead me into the fullness of joy.
-- Matt Chandler

#Joy #Fullness #Given

Heaven is not a place for those who are afraid of hell; it’s a place for those who love God.
-- Matt Chandler

#Heaven #God Love #Hell

If you're not confident in the authority of the Scriptures, you will be a slave to what sounds right.
-- Matt Chandler

#Scripture #Sound #Slave

God is more interested in declaring than explaining.
-- Matt Chandler

#Explaining

Trying to figure out God is like trying to catch a fish in the Pacific Ocean with an inch of dental floss.
-- Matt Chandler

#Ocean #Trying #Dental

God ultimately raises up leaders for one primary reason: His glory. He shows His power in our weakness. He demonstrates His wisdom in our folly. We are all like a turtle on a fence post. If you walk by a fence post and see a turtle on top of it, then you know someone came by and put it there. In the same way, God gives leadership according to His good pleasure.
-- Matt Chandler

#Turtles #Giving #Leader

Because a God who is ultimately most focused on his own glory will be about the business of restoring us, who are all broken images of him. His glory demands it. So we should be thankful for a self-sufficient God whose self-regard is glorious.
-- Matt Chandler

#Self #Broken #Being Thankful

Truly, God's plan of redemption is about more than me and you and our neighbor down the street. It's about men and women from every tribe, tongue, and nation on earth becoming a part of His covenant community.
-- Matt Chandler

#Men #Community #Redemption

The Christian views trials as a pathway to maturity.
-- Matt Chandler

#Christian #Maturity #Views

Intellectual ascent to correct doctrine is not salvation
-- Matt Chandler

#Intellectual #Ascent #Doctrine

We carry an insidious prosperity gospel around in our dark, little, entitled hearts.
-- Matt Chandler

#Heart #Dark #Littles

Choosing one thing over another doesn't necessarily mean we love the thing we choose. If given the choice to eat spinach or broccoli, you may choose broccoli. It may only mean you don't want to eat spinach. Heaven is not for people who just want to skip Hell. Heaven is reserved for those who love Jesus, who have been rescued by Him and who long to praise Him. If someone doesn't have much use for praising Him now, it's foolish to think they're ready for Heaven.
-- Matt Chandler

#Jesus #Mean #Thinking

Don't create theology about God so that you can feel better about Him.
-- Matt Chandler

#Feel Better #Theology #Feels

Apart from worshiping God, everything becomes superficial. But when you understand the driving force behind everything, all of a sudden there's an eternal amount of joy at our disposal, because everything we do is enlightened and enlivened by the endless glory of the eternal God.
-- Matt Chandler

#Joy #Driving #Glory

The spiritual power in the gospel is denied when we augment or adjusting gospel into no gospel at all. When we doubt the message alone is the power of God for salvation we start adding or subtracting, trusting our own powers of persuasion or presentation.
-- Matt Chandler

#Spiritual #Doubt #Adjusting

Comfort is the god of our generation, so suffering is seen as a problem to be solved, and not a providence from God.
-- Matt Chandler

#Our Generation #Suffering #Comfort

Church of Jesus, let us please be men and women who understand the difference between moralism and the gospel of Jesus Christ. Let’s be careful to preach the dos and don’ts of Scripture in the shadow of the cross’s ‘Done!’
-- Matt Chandler

#Jesus #Men #Differences

We spend so much time trying to put send to death that we don't spend enough time striving to know God deeply, trying to gaze upon the wonder of Jesus Christ and have that transform our affections to the point where our love and hope are steadfastly on Christ.
-- Matt Chandler

#Jesus #Trying #Enough Time

Every missionary I know is extraordinarily ordinary. Everything they do, they do by the grace of God.
-- Matt Chandler

#Grace #Ordinary #Missionary

There isn’t a violent soul on the planet that God might not save and transform for himself.
-- Matt Chandler

#Soul #Might #Violent

Love says: I've seen the ugly parts of you, and I'm staying. Our culture doesn't love love; It loves the idea of love. It wants the emotion without the sacrifice.
-- Matt Chandler

#Sacrifice #Ideas #Ugly

Until Christ is our treasure, any other motivation we have to suffer for him is a fool’s errand.
-- Matt Chandler

#Motivation #Suffering #Errands