10 Quotes From G.K. Chesterton

I spent a year with G.K. Chesterton, reading through excerpts of his writings each day for the whole year. It was educational, eye-opening, and quite enjoyable. Please check out my book review of A Year With G.K. Chesterton. 

There’s no way I could pick my top Chesterton quotes, so here are just a handful from the top of the list. My Patreon supporters have dozens of more quotes. You can get access to those as well by clicking here. 

“A stiff apology is a second insult. The injured party does not want to be compensated because he has been wronged; he wants to be healed because he has been hurt.”   

“An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is an adventure wrongly considered.”   

“Fallacies do not cease to be fallacies because they become fashions.”   

“People generally quarrel because they cannot argue.”   

“Job was comfortless before the speech of Jehovah and is comforted after it. He has been told nothing, but he feels the terrible and tingling atmosphere of something which is too good to be told. The refusal of God to explain His design is itself a burning hint of His design. The riddles of God are more satisfying than the solutions of man.”   

“Idolatry is committed, not merely by setting up false gods, but also by setting up false devils; by making men afraid of war or alcohol, or economic law, when they should be afraid of spiritual corruption and cowardice.”   

“The man of the true religious tradition understands two things: liberty and obedience. The first means knowing what you really want. The second means knowing what you really trust.”   

“There are many ways to fall down, but there’s only one way to stand up straight.”   

“This is, indeed, the supreme absurdity of the modern world, that it imagines that it can introduce anarchy into the intellect without introducing anarchy into the commonwealth. It imagines that it can make its thoughts go crooked and its motor-cars will still go straight.”   

“Jesus promised His disciples three things: they would be completely fearless, absurdly happy, and in constant trouble.”   

“Pornography is not a thing to be argued about with one’s intellect, but to be stamped on with one’s heel.” 

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God’s Paradigm

The woman was convinced. She saw that the tree was beautiful and its fruit looked delicious, and she wanted the wisdom it would give her. So she took some of the fruit and ate it. Then she gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it, too. (Genesis 3:6 NLT)

Notice that the phrase “Eve was convinced” comes after satan’s argument and before she looked at the fruit. In other words, she looked at the fruit through a wrong paradigm because she had listened to the wrong voice. 

This is why we need to take every thought captive and make it obedient to The Word. 

We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. (2 Corinthians 10:5 NIV)

If we don’t, we—like Eve—can become convinced that sin is okay before we even examine the evidence. Then we aren’t able to evaluate the evidence from a godly paradigm, but from a self-centered, sin-tainted paradigm. But if we capture our thoughts and silence those that don’t line up with God’s Word, we can evaluate the evidence through a Spirit-anointed paradigm.

Check out these related posts:

Different Thinking In Difficult Places 

Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on AppleSpotify, or Audible. 

The Israelites had just been released from the slavery in Egypt when they faced one of the most difficult places they would know. God taught them how to think differently in this hard place. 

The Scriptures I reference in this video—1 Corinthians 10:11; Exodus 14:1-3, 10-14. 

You can watch the full sermon from which I took this clip here. 

You may also be interested in my blog post Between a Rock and a Hard Place, and a whole series of messages about difficult settings called Where’s God? 

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Great Hardships Can Be Great Opportunities

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The Christians could have used the “great persecution” that broke out against them (Acts 8:1) as a great excuse to hide or to remain quiet. After all, Saul and his hoard were specifically targeting those who were known to be Christians, so keeping quiet or out of sight might have saved their lives. 

Instead, these fearless Christians used this great persecution as a messenger from God to keep them on-mission in fulfilling the Great Commission (Matthew 28:18-20; Acts 1:8), taking the Gospel to even the despised Samaritans (Acts 8:4)! 

Would they have taken this message to these folks without this “nudge” of persecution? Maybe, but then again, maybe they would have stayed in Jerusalem and delayed too long in sharing with those who lived in the capital city. It’s a really good bet that without this persecution they wouldn’t have come up with the idea of going to Samaria on their own!

I think we can learn some good lessons from this incident. When unexpected difficulties crash into our lives, let’s re-frame our thinking. Instead of using this hardship as an excuse to do less, let’s ask:

  • Do I need to re-evaluate what I have (or haven’t) been doing? Do I need to repent of anything? 
  • Am I on-mission as a Christian witness? Am I consistently using my God-given gifts in God-glorifying ways to point others to Jesus? 
  • How can I live out and proclaim the Word of God even in this unexpected place? 

Let’s be like those Christians who didn’t grumble, who didn’t hide, who didn’t make excuses. But they said, “This is just another opportunity for us to invite people to meet Jesus as their Lord and Savior,” and then they joyfully moved forward. 

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Links & Quotes

Christians do a disservice to the Gospel when we’re known more for what we’re against than what we’re for. Check out this full message hereI have lots of new content every week, which you can check out on my YouTube channel.

The Hebronites faithfully served God and King David without any fanfare or recognition. God shined His light on these “men of outstanding capability” so that they were finally recognized publicly. Note that they didn’t try to promote themselves. They faithfully served and God promoted these humble men in His timing.

I always appreciate the straightforward leadership insights that Ken Blanchard shares. He wrote, “Leadership is not something you do to people, but something you do with people.” And in this post he discusses some strategies when one of your direct reports is struggling.

“If I find 10,000 ways something won’t work, I haven’t failed.” —Thomas Edison

“We are a Christian people, according to one another the equal right of religious freedom, and acknowledging with reverence the duty of obedience to the will of God.” —1931 Supreme Court ruling

The Holy Spirit reminds us of God’s Word. But in order for Him to remind us, we have to study it first! Check out this full message.

“Your real, new self…will not come as long as you are looking for it. It will come when you are looking for God.” —C.S. Lewis, in Mere Christianity

“Just because they say it’s impossible doesn’t mean you can’t do it.” —Roger Bannister, who broke the “impossible” barrier of running less than a 4-minute mile on May 6, 1954

The Bitter Helps The Sweet

Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on AppleSpotify, or Audible. 

Have you ever been going through a difficult time in your life and wondered to yourself, “What in the world is going on here?” I might have a different way for you to think about that!

Check out this episode of The Podcast.

Some resources from this episode:

The Scriptures I reference: Romans 5:3-5; James 1:2-4; 1 Peter 1:7; Romans 8:28

Here are a couple of blog posts with some additional thoughts on this: Hard Times and Probably Not a Straight Path.

And this video—How can Christians best process difficulties?  

My new book When Sheep Bite is available for pre-order!

Here are a bunch of ways to get in touch with me and follow along with other projects on which I am involved

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Links & Quotes

The Holy Spirit loves to give us those “lightbulb moments” when the Word of God almost leaps off the page! I have lots of new content every week, which you can check out on my YouTube channel.

It has long been believed that some migratory animals use the earth’s magnetic force to help them navigate. Some researchers discovered that moths can see both the magnetic fields and the stars to plot their course. The lead researcher wrote, “If you have this tiny insect with a brain a tenth the volume of a grain of rice and eyes smaller than a pinhead, that they can do this is surprising.” The protein in their eyes that allow them to do this is unevolved—it’s always been there, implant from the beginning by our awesome Creator!

In the God Speaks Science reading plan on YouVersion, John Von Sloten wrote, “Creation is God’s first book. To read it we need science. Science is not the enemy of the Christian faith; it’s an ally! … We need to read biblical creation references with the Author’s omniscience and original intent in mind. To do that, we need science. … What if you try to connect the next scientific truth you encounter to an attribute of our ever-near God? If everything comes from God’s mind, then everything has something to say about God’s nature.”

Competitive leaders need to keep both winning and losing in perspective. Check out the full conversation Greg and I had about competition on The Craig and Greg Show.

I love studying the archeological discoveries that confirm the historicity of the Bible. Check out this compilation of the kings of Judah and Israel from The Bible Archeology Report. You may also be interested in this side-by-side chart I created of the timelines of these kings.

“Men of peace must not think about retribution or recrimination. Courageous people do not fear forgiving.” —Nelson Mandela

“Leaders inspire others because they are inspired by others.” —John Maxwell

“The most important single ingredient in the formula of success is knowing how to get along with people.” —Teddy Roosevelt

Avoiding The Bad Days

Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on AppleSpotify, or Audible. 

Would you like to avoid having a bad day? I have the solution for you!

Check out this episode of The Podcast.

Resources mentioned in this video:

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The Leadership-Followership Paradigm

Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on AppleSpotify, or Audible.

I read something which is really challenging my leadership paradigm. It’s a challenge to look at successful organizations through the lens of both a servant-hearted leader and a servant-hearted follower. 

Check out this episode of The Podcast. 

Resources I mentioned in this podcast:

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The Craig And Greg Show: Abundance Is A Mindset

Listen to the audio-only version of this podcast by clicking on the player below, or scroll down to watch the video.

On this episode of “The Craig And Greg Show” we talk about: 

  • [0:50] What does it mean to look at things with an abundance vs. scarcity mindset?
  • [1:45] Greg talks about his keynote on abundance mindset
  • [2:50] Abundance mindset is key to making halftime adjustments
  • [4:04] What kind of situation is a leader seeing when they decide to have Greg come speak?
  • [4:53] It doesn’t take much for one scarcity mindset person to change a culture
  • [5:58] People are naturally inclined to talk about negative experiences more than positive ones
  • [6:42] Sometimes it takes a caring outside observer to point out tough problems in the organization
  • [7:15] Abundance encourages creativity, but scarcity stifles it
  • [8:08] I talk about the growing pains of changing an organization’s mindset
  • [9:16] We talk about change agents
  • [10:53] Greg talks about meeting a “business pastor”
  • [11:28] Why is scarcity so easy?
  • [13:26] How can we get positivity back?
  • [16:20] Greg discusses the balance of considering scarcity without becoming consumed by it
  • [17:00] Are the people around you in a scarcity mindset?
  • [18:15] Create boundaries for your mindset
  • [19:17] You don’t have it all, so don’t act like it!
  • [19:43] Greg would love to help your organization develop an abundance mindset.

Check out this episode and subscribe on YouTube so you can watch all of the upcoming episodes. You can also listen to our podcast on Spotify and Apple.