Rick Warren famous quotes

God loves to bring good out of bad. He loves to turn crucifixions into resurrections. Every obstacle is an opportunity. Every problem has potential. Every crisis is an opportunity for ministry. Every hurt God wants to use for His glory.
-- Rick Warren

#Hurt #Opportunity #Use

God doesn't owe us an explanation for everything and actually what I've found is that explanations don't comfort. What comforts is the presence of God, not the explanation of God.
-- Rick Warren

#Comfort #Found #Explanation

Forgiveness must be immediate, whether or not a person asks for it. Trust must be rebuilt over time. Trust requires a track record. If someone hurts you repeatedly, you are commanded by God to forgive them instantly, but you are not expected to trust them immediately, and you are not expected to continue allowing them to hurt you.
-- Rick Warren

#Christian #Hurt #Track

You must never let your personal life be outpaced by your professional life. If you do, [if] your professional life takes more of your time than your personal life, then that's called stress, okay? And it's called worry and things like that. Worry is a sign that you're trying to be God. The greatest stress reliever to me is this sentence: God is God, and I'm not.
-- Rick Warren

#Stress #Worry #Trying

You were made by God and for God, and until you understand that, life will never make sense.
-- Rick Warren

#Faith #Christian #Godly

We take ourselves way too seriously, and we don't take God seriously enough. It is not by accident that humor and humility come from the same root word. If you can laugh at yourself, you'll always have plenty of good material.
-- Rick Warren

#Humility #Roots #Laughing

Our culture has accepted two huge lies. The first is that if you disagree with someone’s lifestyle, you must fear or hate them. The second is that to love someone means you agree with everything they believe or do. Both are nonsense. You don’t have to compromise convictions to be compassionate.
-- Rick Warren

#Life #Lying #Hate

Jesus said, "I am the way [to heaven]." I'm betting that he's not a liar. I'm betting that he told the truth.
-- Rick Warren

#Jesus #Liars #Heaven

Unkind people need your kindness the most. They advertise their pain.
-- Rick Warren

#Pain #Kindness #People

I developed a long time ago some habits. One of them is what I call "divert daily, withdraw weekly, and abandon annually." Divert daily is everyday you do something that's not work-related. You do something that relaxes you. Then you withdraw weekly. The Bible says every seven days you take a day off. And then abandon annually means you just go out and forget it all.
-- Rick Warren

#Mean #Long #Everyday

It’s not about you. The purpose of your life is far greater than your own personal fulfillment, your peace of mind, or even your happiness. It’s far greater than your family, your career, or even your wildest dreams and ambitions. If you want to know why you were placed on this planet, you must begin with God. You were born by his purpose and for his purpose.
-- Rick Warren

#Dream #Ambition #Careers

I do believe in what I call the stewardship of influence as well as the stewardship of affluence. And that is you use whatever God gives you not for your own benefit, but use it to help people who have no benefit. And when you use whatever God gives you, he gives you more of it. When you use it well, he gives you more of it.
-- Rick Warren

#Believe #Giving #People

When you give someone your time, you are giving them a portion of your life that you'll never get back.Your time is your life. That is why the greatest gift you can give someone is your time
-- Rick Warren

#Giving #Portions

My whole goal is just to keep myself motivated. If I'm motivated, if I'm on fire, it's going to catch with somebody else.
-- Rick Warren

#Fire #Goal #Motivated

Remember how far you've come, not just how far you have to go. You are not where you want to be, but neither are you where you used to be.
-- Rick Warren

#Positive #Want #Remember

I could imagine God saying to a lot of us, "Hey, I'm God, and you're not. You're not the general manager of the universe." And the greatest stress reliever is take God seriously, but don't take yourself seriously
-- Rick Warren

#Stress #Hey #Imagine

In God's eyes, the greatest heroes of faith are not those who achieve prosperity, success, and power in this life, but those who treat life as a temporary assignment and serve faithfully, expecting their promised reward in eternity.
-- Rick Warren

#Faith #Hero #Eye

I'm a pastor of a local church. I'm not a televangelist. I've never had a televised program. I'm a pastor. A pastor's role is to care and comfort, encourage, teach, and everything that I do, even when I meet with world leaders, is from a pastor's heart.
-- Rick Warren

#Heart #Leader #Church

Never let an impossible situation intimidate you. Let it motivate you - to pray more, trust more, expect more.
-- Rick Warren

#Impossible #Praying #Intimidating

People ask me, "Are you right wing or are you left wing?" and I always say, "I'm for the whole bird." A one-winged bird didn't ever get off the ground.
-- Rick Warren

#Wings #People #Bird

The ultimate test of faith is not how loudly you praise God in happy times but how deeply you trust him in dark times.
-- Rick Warren

#Dark #Tests #Praise God

We need the value and the beauty of democracy, and the beauty of pluralism is there's a free exchange of ideas. Nobody is right all the time. I'm not right all the time. I don't agree with anybody all the time, and I don't even agree with myself all the time.
-- Rick Warren

#Ideas #Democracy #Pluralism

Only the Holy Spirit has the power to make the changes God wants to make in our lives.... We allow Christ to live through us... through the choices we make. We choose to do the right thing in situations and then trust God's Spirit to give us his power, love, faith, and wisdom to do it. Since God's Spirit lives inside of us, these things are always available for asking.
-- Rick Warren

#Giving #Choices #Asking

God wants to use you to make a difference in His world. He wants to work through you. What matters is not the duration of your life, but the donation of it. Not how long you lived, but how you lived.
-- Rick Warren

#Differences #What Matters #Long

Faithful servants never retire. You can retire from your career, but you will never retire from serving God.
-- Rick Warren

#Reality #Careers #Faithful

Wearing a mask wears you out. Faking it is fatiguing. The most exhausting activity is pretending to be what you know you aren't.
-- Rick Warren

#Positivity #Wearing A Mask #Pretending

I want evangelicals to be known not for what they're against, but what they're for. Yes, there are some things that I believe are flat out wrong. There is no doubt about it, and I'm not wishy-washy about it. But my agenda is bigger than simply those issues. My agenda is to be as big as the agenda of Jesus.
-- Rick Warren

#Jesus #Believe #Issues

I serve a higher power, Jesus Christ. I make no apologies in saying that.
-- Rick Warren

#Jesus #Apology #Christ

I think a lot of times God takes away your feelings, so you have to depend on faith. And faith is kind of like a tide. It rolls in and rolls out.
-- Rick Warren

#Thinking #Feelings #Tides

Experience is not what happens to you. It is what you do with what happens to you. Don’t waste your pain; use it to help others.
-- Rick Warren

#Pain #Helping Others #Use

The way God teaches us to live by faith is He takes away our feelings.
-- Rick Warren

#Feelings #Way #Teach

If God only used perfect people, He would have no one to use.
-- Rick Warren

#Perfect #People #Use

It's easy to explain away evil. We have a free choice, and our greatest blessing is also our greatest curse, because I don't always make good choices. Other people make bad choices. I make bad choices. And sometimes we hurt other people. Sometimes intentionally, sometimes unintentionally.
-- Rick Warren

#Hurt #Blessing #People

Character is both developed and revealed by tests, and all of life is a test... You will be tested by major changes, delayed promises, impossible problems, unanswered prayers, undeserved criticism, and even senseless tragedies.
-- Rick Warren

#Prayer #Character #Promise

Nothing works perfectly. The weather doesn't work perfectly. Because of sin in the world, nothing works perfectly. But in spite of that we can find comfort. We can find strength.
-- Rick Warren

#Weather #World #Comfort

Other people are going to find healing in your wounds. Your greatest life messages and your most effective ministry will come out of your deepest hurts.
-- Rick Warren

#Hurt #Healing #People

The only antidote to materialism is giving, because materialism's all about getting. Every time I give, my heart grows bigger. Every time I give, I become more like Jesus.
-- Rick Warren

#Jesus #Heart #Giving

You weren't put on earth to be remembered. You were put here to prepare for eternity.
-- Rick Warren

#Earth #Eternity #Remembered

Almost nobody gives thanks to God at Thanksgiving, unless there's a short prayer before we eat.
-- Rick Warren

#Prayer #Giving #Thanks

The most desired gift of love is not diamonds or roses or chocolate. It's focused attention.
-- Rick Warren

#Love #Marriage #Rose

The world is always changed by people who don't listen to conventional wisdom. I think we often set our goals too small and try to accomplish them too quickly.
-- Rick Warren

#Thinking #Goal #People

Remember that your character is the sum total of your habits.
-- Rick Warren

#Character #Remember #Habit

Christmas is the time for celebration, so I'm not against decorating, putting on lights, buying gifts. In fact, the whole reason we give gifts is the wise men gave gifts to Jesus at the first Christmas, and that started the gift-giving process.
-- Rick Warren

#Wise #Jesus #Men

There are illegitimate parents, but I don't believe there are any illegitimate children.
-- Rick Warren

#Children #Believe #Parent

God has given us a gift in Jesus Christ. And people don't understand: it's for our benefit. One of the things that says, "For unto you is born this day a savior." They say, "Well, I don't need a savior." Believe me: if you didn't need one, God wouldn't have sent it. Because he wouldn't have wasted the time.
-- Rick Warren

#Jesus #Believe #People

We are products of our past, but we don't have to be prisoners of it.
-- Rick Warren

#Change #Past #Growth

I believe Jesus Christ came for everybody. I don't think he came for Christians. The Bible says take this good news to the whole world.
-- Rick Warren

#Christian #Jesus #Believe

Since God intends to make you like Jesus, he will take you through the same experiences Jesus went through. That includes loneliness, temptation, stress, criticism, rejection, and many other problems.
-- Rick Warren

#Jesus #Loneliness #Stress

I don't care whether you're Baptist, Buddhist, Mormon, Methodist, Jewish, Muslim, or no religion at all. Jesus Christ still loves you. You still matter to God.
-- Rick Warren

#Buddhist #Jesus #Love You

When God wants to make a mushroom, he does it overnight, but when He wants to make a giant oak, He takes a hundred years. Great souls are grown through struggles and storms and seasons of suffering. Be patient with the process.
-- Rick Warren

#Struggle #Years #Mushrooms

He created the church to meet your five deepest needs: a purpose to live for, people to live with, principles to live by, a profession to live out, and power to live on. There is no other place on earth where you can find all five of these benefits in one place.
-- Rick Warren

#People #Church #Needs

There's not a person on earth that God doesn't love, but God wants us to learn to love him back.
-- Rick Warren

#Want #Earth #Persons

Integrity is built by defeating the temptation to be dishonest; humility grows when we refuse to be prideful; and endurance develops every time you reject the temptation to give up.
-- Rick Warren

#Giving Up #Integrity #Humility

I dare you to try trusting Jesus for 60 days. Or your money guaranteed back.
-- Rick Warren

#Jesus #Trying #Dare

Nothing shapes your life more than the commitments you choose to make.
-- Rick Warren

#Commitment #Shapes #You Choose

To me, God says, "I've given you this gift of grace, which means you don't earn your way to heaven. You don't work your way to heaven. You simply receive my gift."
-- Rick Warren

#Mean #Heaven #Grace

It is only in God that we discover our origin, our identity, our meaning, our purpose, our significance, and our destiny. Every other path leads to a dead end.
-- Rick Warren

#Destiny #Identity #Purpose

I'm not looking for peace on earth, though, through a political solution. I'm a pastor.
-- Rick Warren

#Political #Earth #Pastor

A non-serving Christian is a contradiction in terms.
-- Rick Warren

#Christian #Contradiction #Term

There's never going to be peace in the world until there's peace in nations. There's never going to be peace in nations till there's peace in communities and families and in individual lives.
-- Rick Warren

#Community #World #Individual

Doing the easy thing makes you popular. Doing the hard thing makes you a leader.
-- Rick Warren

#Leader #Easy #Hard Things

The Bible says that governments can do things that I'm not supposed to do as an individual. God has not put the law in my hands. He's put the law in the government's hands.
-- Rick Warren

#Hands #Law #Government

The more God gives you, the more responsible he expects you to be.
-- Rick Warren

#Giving #Responsible

There aren't enough professionals to solve the world's problems. There will never be enough doctors to solve the health problems of the world. There will never be enough teachers to solve the education problems of the world - illiteracy. There will never be enough missionaries to care and comfort and share the Good News. It has to be done by normal, ordinary people.
-- Rick Warren

#Teacher #Doctors #People

If you want to know why you were jplaced on this planet, you must begin with God. You were born by his purpose and for his purpose.
-- Rick Warren

#Christian #Religion #Want

People forget that the church is bigger than China. It speaks more languages than the United Nations. It has more volunteers than all the NGOs in the world put together.
-- Rick Warren

#People #Volunteer #Church

The only way you can serve God is by serving other people.
-- Rick Warren

#People #Way #Serving Others

The key is really just saying my brain isn't big enough to figure out why everything happens. It would be like an ant trying to understand the internet.
-- Rick Warren

#Keys #Brain #Trying

When pressure builds up, don't panic. Pray! Prayer is a tremendous stress reliever. It can be your safety valve.
-- Rick Warren

#Christian #Prayer #Stress

The Bible says that evil cannot be negotiated with. It has to just be stopped.
-- Rick Warren

#Evil

Life is a series of problem-solving opportunities. The problems you face will either defeat you or develop you depending on how you respond to them.
-- Rick Warren

#Opportunity #Effectiveness #Faces

The Bible says that God puts government on earth to punish evildoers. Not good-doers. Evildoers.
-- Rick Warren

#Government #Doers #Earth

The only really happy people are those who have learned how to serve.
-- Rick Warren

#Helping Others #People #Happy People

The point is, there are some things worth dying for. There's no doubt about that. And I would die for my family. I would die for my freedom. I would die for my country.
-- Rick Warren

#Country #Doubt #Dying

The purpose of influence is to "speak up for those who have no influence." (Pr.31:8) It's not about you.
-- Rick Warren

#Purpose #Speak #Influence

We’re not completely happy here because we’re not supposed to be! Earth is not our final home; we were created for something much better.
-- Rick Warren

#Home #Earth #Finals

The best use of life is love. The best expression of love is time. The best time to love is now.
-- Rick Warren

#Christian #Time #Love Is

the moment you stop learning, you stop leading.
-- Rick Warren

#Moments

God sometimes removes a person from your life for your protection. Don't run after them.
-- Rick Warren

#God #Running #Sometimes

If you want God to bless you and use you greatly, you must be willing to walk with a limp the rest of your life, because God uses weak people.
-- Rick Warren

#Life #Christian #People

Transformation is a process, and as life happens there are tons of ups and downs. It's a journey of discovery - there are moments on mountaintops and moments in deep valleys of despair.
-- Rick Warren

#Journey #Discovery #Despair

If there was more courting in marriage, there'd be fewer marriages in court. Date your mate. Today.
-- Rick Warren

#Today #Mates #Court

After learning to love God (worship), learning to love others is the second purpose of your life.
-- Rick Warren

#Purpose #Worship #God Love

You are as close to God as you choose to be.
-- Rick Warren

#You Choose

Because God is with you all the time, no place is any closer to God than the place where you are right now.
-- Rick Warren

#Spiritual #Godly #God Is With You

God intentionally allows you to go through painful experiences to equip you for ministry to others.
-- Rick Warren

#Ministry #Painful

Humility is not thinking less of yourself; it is thinking of yourself less. Humility is thinking more of others.
-- Rick Warren

#Humility #Thinking

You cannot fulfil God's purposes for your life while focusing on your own plans.
-- Rick Warren

#Purpose #Plans

Worry is a waste of energy. It cant change the past. It cant control the future. It only makes today miserable
-- Rick Warren

#Past #Worry #Today

We are created for community, fashioned for fellowship, and formed for a family, and none of us can fulfill God's purposes by ourselves.
-- Rick Warren

#Community #Fellowship #Purpose

You cannot exalt God and yourself at the same time.
-- Rick Warren

Willpower can produce short-term change, but it creates constant internal stress because you haven't dealt with the root cause.
-- Rick Warren

#Stress #Roots #Causes

Many people allow their need for other people's approval to control their lives. They spend their lives worrying about what others think of them.
-- Rick Warren

#Thinking #Appreciate #Worry

All leaders are learners. The moment you stop learning, you stop leading. I learn as much as I can, from as many as I can, as often as I can.
-- Rick Warren

#Leader #Moments #Learners

When you use your life for God's glory, everything you do can become an act of worship
-- Rick Warren

#Christian #Use #Worship

I believe that you measure the health or strength of a church by its sending capacity rather than its seating capacity.
-- Rick Warren

#Christian #Believe #Church

The problem is that tolerant has changed its meaning. It used to mean 'I may disagree with you completely, but I will treat you with respect. Today, tolerant means - 'you must approve of everything I do.' There's a difference between tolerance and approval. Jesus accepted everyone no matter who they were. He doesn't approve of everything I do, or you do, or anybody else does either. You can be accepting without being approving.
-- Rick Warren

#Jesus #Mean #Gay

Nothing else you do will ever matter as much as helping people establish an eternal relationship with God.
-- Rick Warren

#Christian #People #Religion

Long before you were conceived by your parents, you were conceived in the mind of God.
-- Rick Warren

#Christian #Long #Parent

We are only fully alive when we're helping others
-- Rick Warren

#Christian #Helping Others #Alive