Top 42 Quotes & Sayings by J. D. Greear

At your church, the week is more important than the weekend. Empower people and send them out for the week.

True religion is when you serve God to get nothing else but more of God. Many people use religion as a way of getting something else from God they want-blessings, rewards, even escape from judgement. This is wearisome to us, and to God. But when God is His own reward, Christianity becomes thrilling. Sacrifice becomes joy.

Lord, as You have been to me, so I will be to others. As I pray, I'll measure Your compassion by the cross and Your power by the resurrection.

In a post-Christian, skeptical age, love on display is the most convincing apologetic.

A Christianity that does not have as its primary focus the deepening of passions for God is a false Christianity, no matter how zealously it seeks conversions or how forcefully it advocates righteous behavior.

We are changed not by being told what we need to do for God, but by hearing the news about what God has done for us.

The amount which you understand the gospel is measured by your ability to be joyful in all circumstances. If you grasp what a treasure the presence and acceptance of God are, then even when life goes really wrong you will have a joy that sustains you, because you’ll recognize the value of what you have in Him. When life punches you in the face, you’ll say, ‘But I still have the love and acceptance of God, a treasure I don’t deserve.’ And the joy you find in that treasure can make you rejoice even when you have a bloody nose. You have a joy that death and depravation cannot touch.

Repentance is belief in action.

True worship is obedience to God for no other reason than that you delight in God.

Salvation is not a prayer you pray in a one-time ceremony and then move on from; salvation is a posture of repentance and faith that you begin in a moment and maintain for the rest of your life.

Getting doctrine right is a matter of life and death, but holding that doctrine in the right spirit is essential too. A great deal of damage is done by those who hold the truth of Christ with the spirit of Satan.

God calls us first... not to a platform, but to an altar!

Stop Asking Jesus Into Your Heart: How to Know for Sure You Are Saved

Without love even the most radical devotion to God is of no value to Him. Let me make sure that sinks in… You can gain all the spiritual gifts in the world. You can take the most radical steps of obedience. You can share every meal with the homeless in your city. You can memorize the book of Leviticus. You can pray each morning for four hours like Martin Luther. But if what you do does not flow out of a heart of love - a heart that does those things because it genuinely desires to do them - it is ultimately worthless to God.

True religion is when you serve God to get nothing else but more of God.

Being able to articulate the gospel with accuracy is one thing; having its truth captivate your soul is quite another.

Gospel change is the Spirit of God using the story of God to make the beauty of God come alive in our hearts

God sometimes answers our prayers by giving us what we would have asked for had we known what He knows.

When we realize how great a debt we owe to God, we become willing servants, eager to be poured out for God and His Kingdom.

It is one thing to understand the gospel but is quite another to experience the gospel in such a way that it fundamentally changes us and becomes the source of our identity and security.

The gospel points us upward to a God who gave himself for us, backward to the price he paid for our sin, and forward to what he’s making us into.

What would your prayers look like if you believed that the cross really was the measure of God's compassion for someone?

Surveys show that more than 50 percent of people in the U.S. have prayed the sinner's prayer and think they're going to heaven because of it even though there is no detectable difference in their lifestyles from those outside of the church. On this issue- the most important issue on earth- we have to be absolutely clear. We need to preach salvation by repentance before God and faith in the finished work of Christ.

My identity and my security are not in my spiritual progress. My identity and my security are in God’s acceptance of me given as a gift in Christ.

Worry springs from not being convinced of a sovereign God's absolute love for you. Worry disappears when you realize that God loves you unfailingly and will let nothing interrupt His plans for your good.

Don’t feel your way into your beliefs; believe your way into your feelings.

Satan's primary temptation strategy is to try and make us forget what God has said about us and to evaluate our standing before God by some other criteria

Focusing on what we ought to do for God creates only frustration and exhaustion; focusing on what Jesus has done for us produces abundant fruit. Resting in what Jesus has done for us releases the revolutionary power of the gospel.

Satan's most effective weapon is to take our eyes off of what God has declared over us in the gospel.

In Christ, there is nothing I can do that would make You love me more and nothing I have done that makes You love me less.

As we see the beauty of God and feel His weightiness in our hearts, our hearts begin to desire Him more than we desire sin. Before the Bible says,"Stop sinning", it says,"Behold your God".

The gospel has done its work in us when we crave God more than we crave everything else in life - more than money, romance, family, health, fame - and when seeing His kingdom advance in the lives of others gives us more joy than anything we could own. When we see Jesus as greater than anything the world can offer, we'll gladly let everything else go to possess Him.

We may not be worthy to be forgiven, but He is worthy to forgive us.

The Gospel Prayer In Christ, there is nothing I can do that would make You love me more, and nothing I have done that makes You love me less. Your presence and approval are all I need for everlasting joy. As You have been to me, so I will be to others. As I pray, I'll measure Your compassion by the cross and Your power by the resurrection.

Awe combined with intimacy is the essence of Christian worship.

The goal of the gospel is to produce a type of people consumed with passion for God an love for others.

If you want to be led by the Spirit of God, then devote yourself to the Word of God.

Being converted to Jesus is learning to so adore God that we would gladly renounce everything we have to follow Him.

When something becomes so important to you that it drives your behavior and commands your emotions, you are worshipping it.

Often the strongest evidence of my growth in grace is my growth in the knowledge of my need for grace.

Faith is not the absence of doubt; it is continuing to follow Jesus in the midst of doubt.

Things like radical generosity and audacious faith are not produced when we focus on them, but when we focus on the gospel.