Top 102 Quotes & Sayings by Mark Driscoll

You have been told that God is a loving, gracious, merciful, kind, compassionate, wonderful, and good sky fairy who runs a day care in the sky and has a bucket of suckers for everyone because we're all good people. That is a lie... God looks down and says 'I hate you, you are my enemy, and I will crush you,' and we say that is deserved, right and just, and then God says 'Because of Jesus I will love you and forgive you.' This is a miracle.

Past: Jesus saved us from the penalty of sin. Present: He saves us from the power of sin. Future: He will save us from the presence of sin.

Sometimes prayer moves the hand of God, and sometimes prayer changes the heart of the person who is praying.

Forgiveness is both a decision and a process.

Much of spirituality today is an effort to change God to suit us. But he's not going to become more like us, we need to become more like him.

God loves you enough to receive you as you are. He loves you too much to keep you as you are.

God is tolerant in that He asks everyone to repent.

A lot of people are using the Church, but not a lot of people are loving the Church.

I’m frankly sick of all the books and movies trying to predict when Jesus will return and we’ll get to start our eternal vacation at his all-inclusive resort called heaven. I’m also sick of the nerd parade of books and conferences that approach the Bible like scholars whose mission is to get their Masters rather than soldiers who are on mission with their Master. We've got work to do. There are lost people to reach, churches to plant, and nations to evangelize. Hell is hot, forever is a long time, and it’s our turn to stop making a dent and start making a difference.

Marriage includes a spouse, and often children. But the goal, center, and purpose of marriage is not self, spouse, or children. The ultimate goal of marriage and family is the glory of God. Only when marriage and family exist for God's glory - and not to serve as replacement idols - are we able to truly love and be loved. Remember, neither your child nor your husband (or wife) should be who you worship, but instead who you worship with.

Truthless times need timeless truths.

Study the Bible like a soldier on a mission, not a scholar on a sabbatical.

Idols tend to be good things that you have turned into god things, which therefore become bad things

Fear is vision without hope.

Don't believe false teaching that says you won't suffer if you really love Jesus. Jesus will end all suffering eventually, but on earth he suffered more than anyone.

This world needs more than good works. It needs good news. Good works come out of the good news.

You know what I find amazing is within Christianity it is not uncommon to find [married] people who don't have sexual intimacy, don't have emotional intimacy, don't have spiritual intimacy, don't pray together, don't do their life together, don't put their schedules together, don't put their budgets together, but they don't get divorced. So they can pat themselves on the back and say, 'We're good Christians.' They're divorced in everything but the paperwork.

One of the most astonishing things about Jesus is that as God he actually chose to come into our fallen, sick, twisted, unjust, evil, cruel, painful world and be with us to suffer like us and for us. Meanwhile, we spend most of our time trying to figure out how to avoid the pain and evil of this world while reading dumb books about the rapture just hoping to get out.

Even a cursory reading of the book of Ecclesiastes shows that culture is a stationary bike that each generation climbs on in hopes of getting somewhere only to die and fall off so that the new young stud can take his turn peddling and, like a fool, make pronouncements about his progress. We would be wise to see postmodernity as simply the new guy on the old bike and not mistake cultural change for kingdom progress.

Some will tell you that there are multiple worldviews. The Bible says we have only 2: the Truth and the Lie.

I cannot worship the hippie, diaper, halo Christ because I cannot worship a guy I can beat up.

Fear is not always a sin but it always is an opportunity.

The Bible is not a book of principles to live by but rather a Person to live for.

Everything may not be OK but if God is with you, you will be OK.

Stop looking for the path of least resistance and start running down the path of greatest glory to God and good to others, because that's what Jesus, the Real Man, did.

You don't need to beat yourself up in order to make God love you. Jesus already took your beating.

You have to laugh at yourself. Otherwise you'll waste all that great material.

We're not to follow our hearts, we're to guard our hearts.

If you're not a Christian, you're going to hell. It's not unloving to say that. it's unloving not to say that.

Faith only grows through suffering.

Looking for a word from the Lord? Believe that he has already spoken, and read what he's already written.

Anxiety is not to be managed it is a sin that needs to be repented of

My desire as a Christian pastor is to see churches raised up as communities of grace ruled by Jesus and led by his gloriously masculine men who work their jobs, eat their meat, drink their beer, romance their wives, study their Bible, and raise their kids in glory and joy

The church was custom built by Jesus, and we are all works in progress. We do not expect people to get their sin in order before attending church any more than a hospital expects people to get healed before they show up.

No one can remain neutral regarding Jesus' resurrection. The claim is too staggering, the event too earthshaking, the implications too significant and the matter too serious. We must either receive it or reject it as truth for us. To remain indifferent or undecided is to reject it.

While it only takes one spouse to be friendly, it takes both spouses to be friends. When both spouses are unfriendly, the marriage is marked by conflict and coldness. When one spouse is friendly and the other is unfriendly, the marriage is marked by selfishness and sadness. But when both spouses each make a deep, heartfelt covenant with God to continually seek to become a better friend, increasing love and laughter mark the marriage.

On the Sabbath day, we are remembering that my relationship with God did not begin with what I've done, it is not sustained by what I do, and it is not guaranteed to the end by my effort or work. I'm saved from beginning to end by Jesus' work.

If you really want to be a rebel, get a job, cut your grass, read your bible, and shut up. Because no one is doing that.

Did think you were here to kill time listening to Christian music until you go to heaven? We've got work to do.

Are you letting culture, not scripture, determine your sexuality, how you date, how you present yourself, how you engage in certain relationships with members of the opposite sex? We need to be very clear that the way we do life is different than the rest of the world.

I know who made the environment and he's coming back and going to burn it all up. So yes, I drive an SUV.

You aren't what's been done to you but what Jesus has done for you. You aren't what you do but what Jesus has done. What you do doesn't determine who you are. Rather, who you are in Christ determines what you do.

There is a pile of dead bodies behind the Mars Hill bus, and by God's grace, it'll be a mountain by the time we're done.

Everyone has something to teach you if you are humble enough to learn.

Our identity is not in our joy, and our identity is not in our suffering. Our identity is in Christ, whether we have joy or are suffering.

Tragically, we live in a day when offense to God doesn't matter nearly as much as offense to others.

God picked a junior high girl [to be Jesus' mother]. Jesus was raised by a woman who today, we wouldn't even let her lead a bible study at a high school. But she could raise God.

...Seattle has unleashed this weird phenomenon on the world called the coffee shop. And the coffee shop, thanks to Starbucks, is the place where socially isolated, lonely, needy people gather together to ignore one another.

The inevitable result of borrowed faith is lost faith. People born into a family anchored in Christendom tend to assume they're right with God, regardless of whether they personally turn from sin and trust in Jesus.

A single woman should only marry a man she can follow: Ladies if you are single, be very, very careful who you date and marry. Don't just date a man who you can put up with, marry a man you can trust, you'll follow his leadership, you'll respect him, he's saved, he's godly. The last thing you want is some guy you don't trust, he's not wise, he doesn't do his homework, he's harsh, he's inconsiderate, he's immature, he's a boy, you're more his mother than you are his mate, Real danger...real danger...

Every great cause was initiated by someone whose heart was broken.

While this may look loving, when we struggle with an idol of dependence, we’re in fact not loving people as much as we’re using them to fulfill our need to belong, be liked, and be desired. This explains why some friends and family members can be so demanding, smothering, and needy. It also explains why we’re so easily inflated by praise and deflated by criticism. It’s as if others have the ability to determine our identity for that day based on a word or even a glance

Spirituality, without the Holy Spirit, is demonic.

Jesus and Paul were serious dudes. They had teeth missing. Jesus was a carpenter, Paul was in prison. These guys didn’t eat tofu dogs and bean sprouts. They didn’t play tennis. If there were trucks back in their times, they would have been doing driveway lube jobs on a Saturday afternoon. Same thing with King David. Yeah, he might have played a lyre, but he slaughtered thousands of guys.

The goal of Christian dating is not to have a boyfriend or girlfriend but to find a spouse. Have that in mind as you get to know one an- other, and if you’re not ready to commit to a relationship with the end goal of marriage, it’s better not to date but simply to remain friends.

You can't meet Jesus and not change. If you haven't changed, you haven't met the real Jesus.

Faith is not just what we believe internally. It's how we behave externally.

You're either selfish, or you're a servant...but fundamentally selfish people are terrible friends, terrible lovers, terrible spouses, terrible Christians, terrible parents. They leave a terrible legacy. Will you be selfish? Will you be a servant?...A good marriage is a servant and a servant.

So let me tell you this, when it comes to...trying to introduce other people to Jesus. Don't get mad at them: it's not because they're stupid. It's because they're blind. Yelling louder, arguing harder, pushing firmer won't make someone who is blind see. Pray for them, speak to them, care for them.

Don't cohabitate. Don't fornicate. Don't look at pornography. Don't create a standard of beauty. Have your spouse be your standard of beauty. This is one of the great devastating effects of pornography: you lust after people and compare your spouse to them. It's impossible to be satisfied in your marriage if you don't have a standard that is biblical; that standard is always your spouse.