quotes | Craig T. Owens

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12 Quotes From “Altar Ego”

April 9, 2013 — Craig T. Owens

I loved reading Altar Ego (you can read my full book review by clicking here), but here are some quotes that especially caught my attention. Unless otherwise noted, these quotes are from Craig Groeschel—

“Don’t rely too much on labels, for too often they are fables.” —Charles Spurgeon

“When God helps you overcome a destructive label, He’ll often do what He did through Peter. He will take one of your greatest weaknesses and turn it into one of your greatest strengths. It has been said that our weakness is our genius—our greatest struggle often yields the greatest opportunity for our growth.”

“If you don’t know the purpose of your life, all you can do is misuse it. …Life with no purpose is life without meaning. When you don’t know the purpose of your life, everything you do is just an experiment. You just try on one thing after another, always hoping that the next shiny thing that catches your attention will finally be the one thing that makes a difference. …You are God’s masterpiece. Wouldn’t it make sense to ask God what you should do with your life? …The fact that God made you in this way tells us something else very important about your life. You have everything you need to do everything God wants you to do.”

“So are you spiritually soaring or are you crawling right now? If you feel like you’re still on the ground, then it’s time you realized that God wants you to fly. You’re not just another average, run-of-the-mill Christians barely making it. No, if you’re a Christian, then there is nothing regular about you. You must understand that you are filled with the same Spirit that raised Christ from the grave, and there’s nothing ordinary about that! You have access to the very throne of God; that’s not regular! You have authority to use the Name that is above every name, the name of Jesus Christ. There is nothing regular about you.”

“Why does generation after generation of intelligent adults make similar decisions every day? It’s simple. We allow our out-of-control, fleshly desires to overwhelm our better senses. We allow our egos, instead of our altar egos, to drive our desires. …The world offers substitutes for (or counterfeits of) real things: physical pleasures, materials things, pride in what we have and what we do. Before long, our sinful desires for the counterfeits of this world lure us into short-term decisions with long-term consequences. …So how do we move from living like the crowd? How do we overcome the cultural pull toward immediate ego gratification? We pursue God with all our hearts until His desires become our desires. …Our demanding egos become altar egos, with our selfish impatience sacrificed for something greater.”

“Integrity doesn’t come in degrees: low, medium, or high. You either have integrity or you don’t.” —Tony Dungy

“I’m convinced that the reason our culture is known worldwide as a place of dishonor is that we, as a culture, have dishonored God. All true honor is born out of a heart surrendered to the King of Kings. Psalm 22:23 says, ‘You who fear the Lord, praise Him! All you descendants of Jacob, honor Him! Revere Him, all you descendants of Israel!’ Our culture tends to treat God as common. We’re too familiar with Him. We refer to Him as ‘the Man Upstairs’ or ‘the Big Guy,’ or we say things like ‘Jesus is my homeboy.’ Jesus is not your homeboy. He is the soon-to-return, ruling, reigning King of Kings and Lord of Lords. He is the Alpha and Omega. When He returns, it will be with a sword. He is the Righteous One who shed His blood so that we would live. We have to stop treating God as common or ordinary.”

“Gratitude kills pride. Gratitude slays self-sufficiency. Gratitude crushes the spirit of entitlement. When we place our discontented egos on the altar of gratitude, we develop contented altar egos filled with thanksgiving.”

“So often fear keeps our egos front and center and in need of reassurance from other people or from our possessions or titles. But when we lay our egos on the altar of belief, our altar egos become liberated to live by faith and not by fear.”

“I believe Christians often perceive obedience to God as some test designed just to see if we’re really committed to Him. But what if it’s designed as God’s way of giving us what’s best for us?”

“Bold obedience triggers opposition. …If you’re not ready to face opposition for your obedience, you’re not ready to be used by God. When you obey God, opposition comes. Instead of smooth sailing, you may have to swim upstream in choppy water.”

“When we spend time with God, it leads to faith, which leads to boldness, which leads to results, which leads to more desire for Him, and more faith and more boldness and more glory to our Father.”

Posted in Uncategorized. Tags: boldness, book review, Charles Spurgeon, Craig Groeschel, faith, God's glory, God's purpose, gratitude, obedience, prayer, pride, quotes, Tony Dungy. Leave a Comment »

5 Quotes From “Love To The Uttermost”

March 29, 2013 — Craig T. Owens

I suggested last week that John Piper’s book Love To The Uttermost is an excellent resource to help guide you through the Holy Week with some fresh insights (you can read my review of this book by clicking here). Here are a few of the fresh insights that stood out to me.

“Luke 12:32 is a verse about the nature of God. It’s a verse about what kind of heart God has. It’s a verse about what makes God glad—not merely about what God will do or what He has to do, but what He delights to do, what He loves to do, and what He takes pleasure in doing. ‘Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.’ … This is what the word means: God’s joy, His desire, His want and wish and hope and pleasure and gladness and delight, is to give the kingdom to His flock.”

“Jesus was not accidentally entangled in a web of injustice. The saving benefits of His death for sinners were not an afterthought. God planned it all out of infinite love to sinners like us, and He appointed a time. Jesus, who was the very embodiment of His Father’s love for sinners, saw that the time had come and set His face to fulfill His mission: to die in Jerusalem for our sake. ‘No one takes my life from Me,’ Jesus said, ‘I lay it down of my own accord’ (John 10:18).”

“First, we know the depth of someone’s love for us by what it costs him. Second, we know the depth of someone’s love for us by how little we deserve it. Third, we know the depth of someone’s love for us by the greatness of the benefits we receive in being loved. Fourth, we know the depth of someone’s love for us by the freedom with which they love us.”

“[God] does not need us. If we stay away He is not impoverished. He does not need us in order to be happy in the fellowship of the Trinity. But He magnifies His mercy by giving us free access through His Son, in spite of our sin, to the one Reality that can satisfy us completely and forever, namely, Himself.”

“The resurrection of Jesus is given to us as the confirmation or evidence that He was indeed free in laying down His life. And so the resurrection is Christ’s testimony to the freedom of His love. … Of all the great things that Easter means, it also means this: it is a mighty ‘I meant it!’ behind Christ’s death. I meant it! I was free. You see how free I am? You see how much power and authority I have? I was able to avoid it. I have power to take up My life out of the grave. And could I not, then, have devastated My enemies and escaped the Cross? My resurrection is a shout over My love for My sheep: It was free! It was free! I chose it. I embraced it. I was not caught. I was not cornered. Nothing can constrain Me to do what I do not choose to do. I had power to take My life from death. And I have taken My life from death. How much more, then, could I have kept My life from death! I am alive to show you that I really loved you. I freely loved you. Nobody forced Me to it. And I am now alive to spend eternity loving you with omnipotent resurrection love forever and ever. Come to Me, all you sinners who need a Savior. And I will forgive you and accept you and love you with all My heart forevermore.”

Posted in Uncategorized. Tags: book review, Calvary, Cross, crucifixion, Easter, forgiveness, God's love, Good Friday, Gospel of John, Gospel of Luke, Holy Week, Jesus Christ, John Piper, Passion Week, quotes, resurrection. Leave a Comment »

23 Quotes From “The 5 Levels Of Leadership”

March 28, 2013 — Craig T. Owens

There is always so much rich content in a John Maxwell book, and The 5 Levels Of Leadership is no exception. You can read my full book review by clicking here. These are a few of the quotes that especially caught my attention. Unless otherwise noted, these quotes are from John Maxwell.

“At any level, a leader doesn’t automatically stay at that level. You must earn your level of leadership with each person, and that level can go up or down at any time.”

“You have no control over how much talent you possess. You control only what you do with it.”

“Leadership is accepting people where they are, then taking them somewhere.” —C.W. Perry

“Often to make themselves look better or to keep people from rising up and threatening them, positional leaders make other people feel small. How?

By not having a genuine belief in them.
By assuming people can’t instead of assuming they can.
By assuming people won’t rather than believing they will.
By seeing their problems more readily than their potential.
By viewing them as liabilities instead of assets.”

“Anytime you think you’ve arrived—whether your position is the lowest or the highest in the organization—you’ve lowered your expectations for yourself, sold your leadership short, and fallen into a no-growth mind-set.”

“Above all else, good leaders are open. They go up, down, and around their organizations to reach people. They don’t stick to established channels. They’re informal. They’re straight with people. They make a religion out of being accessible.” —JackWelch

“You see, when there is danger, a good leader takes the front line. But when there is celebration, a good leader stays in the back room. If you want the cooperation of human beings around you, make them feel that they are important. And you do that by being humble.” —Nelson Mandela

“People will not get ahead with others unless they are willing to work behind others.”

“[Good leaders] have more than an open-door policy—they know the door swings both ways. They go through it and get out among their people to connect.”

“If you want to be successful on Level 2, you must think less in terms of systems and more in terms of people’s emotions. You must think more in terms of human capacity and less in terms of regulations. You must think more in terms of buy-in and less in terms of procedures. In other words, you must think of people before you try to achieve progress.”

“Care without candor creates dysfunctional relationships. Candor without care creates distant relationships. But care balanced with candor creates developing relationships. …Caring values the person while candor values the person’s potential. …Caring establishes the relationship while candor expands the relationship. … Caring defines the relationship while candor directs the relationship.”

“Before having a candid conversation, make sure you can answer yes to the following questions:

Have I invested enough in the relationship to be candid with them?
Do I truly value them as people?
Am I sure this is their issue and not mine?
Am I sure I’m not speaking up because I feel threatened?
Is the issue more important than the relationships?
Does this conversation clearly serve their interests and not just mine?
Am I willing to invest time and energy to help them change?
Am I willing to show them how to do something, not just say what’s wrong?
Am I willing and able to set clear, specific expectations?”

“If achieving the vision is worth building the team, it is also worth risking the relationship. Building relationships and then risking them to advance the team creates tension for the leader. That tension will force you to make a choice: to shrink the vision or to stretch the people to reach it. If you want to do big things, you need to take people out of their comfort zones. They might fail. They might implode. They might relieve their own tension by fighting you or quitting. Risk always changes relationships. If you risk and win, then your people gain confidence. You have shared history that makes the relationship stronger. Trust increases. And the team is ready to take on even more difficult challenges. However, if you risk and fail, you lose relational credibility with your people and you will have to rebuild the relationships. Risk is always present in leadership. Anytime you try to move forward, there is risk. Even if you’re doing the right things, your risk isn’t reduced. But there is no progress without risk, so you need to get used to it.”

“You can issue all the memos and give all the motivational speeches you want, but if the rest of the people in your organization don’t see you putting forth your very best effort every single day, they won’t either.” —Colin Powell

“The job of a leader is to build a complementary team, where every strength is made effective and each weakness is made irrelevant.” —Stephen Covey

“If you want to be an effective leader, you must move from perfectionist to pragmatist.”

“Since you can’t prevent mistakes, why not adopt and attitude in which you and your team learn from them?”

“The individual leads in order that those who are led can develop their potential as human beings and thereby prosper.” —Socrates

“The highest goal of leadership is to develop leaders, not gain followers or do work.”

“Leadership is an opportunity to serve.” —J. Donald Walters

“No matter where you are in your leadership journey, never forget that what got you to where you are won’t get you to the next level.”

“The reality is that no one is indispensable. Worse, allowing others to become dependent does little more that satisfy a leader’s ego. It is a very limiting leadership style that has a very short life span. The first step in developing leaders is to have a desire to develop people so that they can succeed without you. …If you want to develop people, you must help them discover and build upon their strengths. That’s where people have the most potential to grow. Helping to develop their strengths is the only way to help leaders become world-class.”

“What you do daily, over time, becomes your legacy.”

Posted in Uncategorized. Tags: book review, Colin Powell, John Maxwell, leadership, legacy, Nelson Mandela, quotes, relationships, Stephen Covey, talent, teamwork. 1 Comment »

10 Quotes From “Habitudes”

March 26, 2013 — Craig T. Owens

Honestly, there were amazing things to digest each day that I read a new Habitude (you can read my full book review by clicking here), but here are 10 passages from this book that especially stood out to me.

Unless otherwise noted, all of these quotes are from the author, Dr. Tim Elmore.

“The best leaders almost without exception and at every level, are master users of stories and symbols.” —Tom Peters

“The goal of a leader is to focus, not expand. Growth is a product of focus. Clarify the vision. Focus your people, time, energy and resources. Remember this: just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should. Intensify, don’t diversify.”

“Leaders need people in their lives who don’t take from them, but who replenish them. If they don’t have this network of people in place, they will use their followers to meet this need. This almost always leads to unhealthy situations.”

“Without question, the greatest emotional need of people today is the need to be understood. And to understand we must listen. Leaders have to get this.”

“Bad listening habits:

Judgmental listening—jumping to conclusions about the speaker.
Selective listening—only hearing what you want to hear.
Impatient listening—finishing other people’s sentences.
Egocentric listening—thinking about what you will say as others are talking.
Patronizing listening—pretending to listen, but really off in your own world.
Stubborn listening—listening, but not open, because your mind is already made up.”

“Winning in this game [chess] is all a matter of understanding how to capitalize on the strengths of each piece and timing their moves just right.” —Bobby Fischer

“Great managing is not about control, but about connection and release. It’s not about your power but your empowerment of others.”

“Think about it: a mediocre leader believes values must be taught. An excellent leader believes that the best is already inside of people—they just need to find it. So, while a mediocre leader’s goal is to overcome weaknesses, the excellent leader’s goal is to identify strengths and focus on them.”

“Choir directors are a good picture of leadership and team building. They recruit, audition, assign parts, rehearse and direct music. But at the end of the performance, the applause goes to the choir.”

“Look at a man the way he is, and he only becomes worse. But look at a man as if he were what he could be, and he becomes what he should be.” —Goethe

Posted in Uncategorized. Tags: Bobby Fischer, book review, Dr. Tim Elmore, Goethe, habitudes, leadership, listening, quotes, vision. Leave a Comment »

10 Quotes From “You Don’t Need A Title To Be A Leader”

March 19, 2013 — Craig T. Owens

Mark Sanborn has given us a wonderful book to help people be more well-rounded in their leadership, whether they have a title or not. You can read my full book review by clicking here. These are some of the quotes from this book that caught my eye.

“Leaders, untitled or otherwise, realize the extraordinary impact they can have on others and the world around them. They consciously choose to exercise their abilities, skills, and knowledge to help make a difference.”

“The reality is that we all work ‘backstage’ in our lives at times. Real leaders bring the same commitment to excellence to whatever they do, whether on the stage or behind it.”

“I began to see what happened to me as an opportunity rather than an obligation. And it made all the difference. Now when the phone rings, I respond to each call as an opportunity to serve, earn, learn, influence, network, encourage, or teach. The difference isn’t in the caller or the purpose for the call; the difference is in my response. … Genuine, authentic leadership infuses meaning into your life, because you know that your efforts count and that you are serving the needs of others as well as your own.”

“I think of the ‘self-mastery index’ as the ratio between promises made and promises kept—both to oneself and to others. If your mouth keeps making promises that you can’t keep, there is a great deal of room for improvement. Integrity, after all, is measured by the distance between your lips and your life. If you want to be a leader in your own life and in the lives of others, you’ve got to follow through on your own promises, whether you have a title or not.”

“You don’t necessarily have to be smarter or better educated to succeed. Your power lies in your ability to focus on doing what is important. If you focus on the right things, and work at them often, you will achieve exceptional results.”

“People do things for their own reasons, not for yours. To be an effective leader, you need to know how to motivate others.”

“One of the greatest compliments you can be paid as a leader is to have someone say that you helped them be better than they thought they could be.”

“People remember stories. Stories are the coat pegs of the mind. They are where people hang their ideas. Once they have a memorable story to help them remember, they can recall whatever important moral or point you have to make. … Telling an entertaining story is important, but being the story is better.”

“When something doesn’t happen, there is always an explanation. But never accept an explanation as an excuse. … Instead, use explanations to figure out what happened, then look for the lesson that will prevent that something from happening again.”

“Everyone makes a difference. The choice we all have is whether we want to make positive difference or a negative one.”

Posted in Uncategorized. Tags: book review, education, leadership, Mark Sanborn, quotes, servant-leadership, stories. 1 Comment »

11 Quotes From “Jesus Is _____”

March 13, 2013 — Craig T. Owens

Judah Smith has a fresh, clear way for us to view Jesus and His love for us. You can read my full review of Jesus Is _____ by clicking here. Below are 11 quotes from this book that got me thinking—

“The Pharisees were zealous for the law, but they didn’t understand the love of God. They imposed judgment without mercy, punishment without love, criticism without understanding. In the name of hating sin, the Pharisees ended up hating sinners. Perhaps worst of all, they concluded that their aloofness from sinners was what made them holy. The measuring stick of their goodness was the badness of the people they rejected. …Before we get too furious at the Pharisees, though, realize that inside each of us is a Pharisee trying to get out. It’s happened to me. No sooner do I conquer a bad habit than I become the biggest critic of anyone who still does what I just stopped doing. I find that righteous indignation comes a lot easier than humility and compassion. Mentally chastising the bad deeds of other people is more comfortable than dealing with my own.”

“Rather than rejecting people out of a false sense of superiority, rather than judging and condemning those whose lives don’t measure up to my standard of holiness, I need to remember that I am still desperately in need of Jesus’ grace.”

“Besides writing off bad people, we too quickly write off ourselves. We swing from the self-righteous side of the pendulum (That filthy sinner deserves to go to hell!) to the self-condemning side (I’m a filthy sinner who deserves to go to hell!). Both extremes come from focusing on rules rather than on a relationship with Jesus.”

“I think if Jesus had one shot at fixing us, He’d tell us how much He loves us. …Jesus loves us right now, just as we are. He isn’t standing aloof, yelling at us to climb out of our pits and clean ourselves up so we can be worthy of Him. He is wading waist-deep into the muck of life, weeping with the broken, rescuing the lost, and healing the sick.”

“When we realize that grace is a Person, not a principle, abusing grace is no longer an option. It’s easy to abuse a principle, to manipulate a system, or to excuse away a doctrine. But it’s much harder to abuse a person or violate a relationship.”

“Rules are not bad, but they can’t save anyone. The best a rule or a law can do is set a boundary and threaten punishment for crossing that boundary. People still decide to obey the rule or not. …Rules are meant to lead us to relationship, not to replace relationship. …Focusing too much on rules and too little on grace tells children that what they do is more important than who they are. …These principles aren’t just for parenting. This is how our relationship with God works. For God, it’s more about relationship than about rules. Far more.”

“When we make up rules because we are afraid people will sin, we end up doing an end run around faith. It’s not fear that saves us—it’s faith. Fear of failure has a sneaky way of becoming a self-fulfilling prophesy. …Make rules and follow rules as needed, but don’t focus on rules. Focus on faith. Focus on grace. Focus on Jesus. …Here’s the bottom line: everything that rules can do, grace can do better, and more besides.”

“Rules address behavior, but they don’t deal with the heart. They don’t adjust attitudes. They don’t heal the inconsistencies and fractures deep in our souls that could destroy us in the end. Grace, on the other hand, is internal. It works on a heart level. Where rules attempt to force us to do the opposite of what we want, grace actually changes what we want. It creates internal consistency and integrity. Doing what is right becomes much easier. …When we focus on Jesus instead of a code of conduct, when grace changes our desires so we are internally motivated and not just externally restrained, we become a lot more fun to be around.”

“Grace wasn’t free for Jesus. It cost Him everything. That is precisely why we should receive it freely. The most insulting thing we could do is reject this costly gift and say, ‘No thanks, God, I got this.’ Please don’t tell me Jesus was beaten and mutilated and tortured so we could try to save ourselves through our paltry good deeds. Don’t cheapen Jesus’ sacrifice by trying to pay Him back.”

“The point isn’t to quit thinking about sin. It’s to quit thinking about self and to think about Jesus. It’s to become God-conscious, not me-conscious. Do you know what law does? Law makes us self-conscious. When we are self-conscious, we become sin-conscious. We take our eyes off Jesus, and we focus on our failures, our weaknesses, our shortcomings. And we end up sinning even more because that’s all we can think about. But grace makes us God-conscious. When we live by grace, we are continually amazed by the love, goodness, and holiness of God. When we think about Him, that motivates us to act like Him. Are you struggling with sin? You don’t need more willpower. You need more of Jesus. Loving Jesus, not avoiding sin, is the focal point of our lives.”

“Holiness results in happiness, and happiness is an expression of holiness. The two go together. I am happier because I am holy, and it’s easier to be holier because I am happy. Because of the good news, because of Jesus, I can be both holy and happy—what a concept!”

Posted in Uncategorized. Tags: book review, forgiveness, God's love, grace, holiness, Jesus Christ, Judah Smith, Pharisees, quotes, relationship, rules, sin. Leave a Comment »

11 Quotes From “Visioneering”

March 5, 2013 — Craig T. Owens

If you’ve got a big dream to pursue, Visioneering by Andy Stanley could be a big help. You can read my full book review by clicking here. Below are 11 quotes from this book which especially caught my eye.

“As Christians, we do not have a right to take our talents, abilities, experiences, opportunities, and education and run off in any direction we please. We lost that right at Calvary. …At the same time, we have no right to live visionless lives either. If God—think about it—if God has a vision for what you are to do with your allotment of years, you had better get in on it. What a tragedy to miss it. Missing out on God’s plan for our lives must be the greatest tragedy this side of eternity.”

“What could be and should be can’t be until God is ready for it to be.”

“Three important things are taking place while we wait: (1)The vision matures in us; (2) We mature in preparation for the vision; (3) God is at work behind the scenes preparing the way.”

“Prayer is critical to vision development. Here’s why: We see what we are looking for; we often miss what we don’t expect to see. …Prayer keeps us looking. Prayer keeps the burden fresh. It keeps our eyes and hearts in an expectant mode. Prayer doesn’t force God’s hand. But it keeps us on the lookout for His intervention. Prayer sensitizes us to subtle changes in the landscape of our circumstances.”

“God is using your circumstances to prepare you to accomplish His vision for your life. Your present circumstances are part of the vision. You are not wasting your time. You are not spinning your wheels. You are not wandering in the wilderness. If you are ‘seeking first’ His kingdom where you are, then where you are is where He has positioned you. And He has positioned you there with a purpose in mind.”

“An agonizingly important principle: what always precedes how. You will know what God has put in your heart to do before you know how He intends to bring it about. …How is never a problem for God. It is usually a big problem for us. But how is God’s specialty.”

“I think it is safe to assume that most Christians are not attempting anything that requires God’s intervention. They are not looking for God to do anything special. They are not aware that they need Him to do anything special. They are trusting that He will step in once they breathe their last breath. But other than that, they live as if they have everything under control. If you want to know how you score on this issue, listen to your prayers and prayer requests. What do you pray for? What are the things you find yourself praying for night after night? Those are your passions. Those are the things that matter most to you. Pretty scary, huh? A little embarrassing? Somewhat self-centered? What was your response the last time someone asked you for a prayer request? Did you have to think for a moment? Was your response kind of … well … less than inspiring? Or did your eyes light up as you thought about that thing, that person, that ministry you were trusting God for? Other than Heaven, and possibly your health, what are you consciously depending on God to do?”

“This world is filled with people who stopped one question short of finding an avenue that would allow them to pursue their vision. Don’t let the discouragement of a few slammed doors cause you to walk away from the vision God has birthed in your heart. Investigate. Look around. Think outside the lines. Few destinations have only one point of access. The same is true of your vision. If your initial approach is blocked, look for alternatives. Don’t give up too quickly. You may be one question away from discovering the key that will unlock the door that stands between you and God’s vision for your life. God will use this period of investigation to confirm, sharpen, and, sometimes, redirect your vision.”

“When a man or woman is willing to give up something valuable for a God-ordained vision, God looks upon it as worship.”

“Our natural response to criticism is to defend ourselves. This is especially true when our vision is under attack. We are tempted to begin a dialogue with our critics or with those who are parroting their criticism. Consequently, we waste energy and thought trying to answer questions for people who are often not really interested in answers. Without realizing it, our focus begins to shift. Instead of being vision centered, we slowly become critic centered.”

“You have a destiny to fulfill. God has placed before you opportunities and responsibilities that are brimming with divine significance. He has given you gifts, talents, and relationships that are waiting to be exploited on behalf of His kingdom.”

Posted in Uncategorized. Tags: Andy Stanley, book review, criticism, dreams, gifts, prayer, quotes, talent, vision, vision casting. 1 Comment »

Responding To The Voice

March 4, 2013 — Craig T. Owens

In 1880, Edwin A. Abbott wrote Flatland, a book that would later become a favorite of Albert Einstein. Abbott was a college-trained mathematician and a theologian; in fact he was actually better known for his theological writings than for Flatland. Later on Einstein would say that “things should be made as simple as possible, not simpler.” In other words, don’t dumb-down the concept, but state it on a level where more people can grasp it. That’s why, I believe, Einstein loved Flatland.

Flatland is told through the eyes of Square, a two-dimensional shape that lives in Flatland. Square has length and width, but no height. So the inhabitants of Flatland can move back-and-forth, and side-to-side, but not up-and-down. To get an idea of this, put your eye right on the level of a tabletop, and look at an item on the table. Imagine you can only see what is touching the tabletop (but nothing that rises any higher or lower than that), and you will get an idea of Square’s two-dimensional world.

One day Sphere visits Flatland. Sphere is three-dimensional, so he can move up-and-down. This means that Square can only see the part of Sphere that happens to be in his line of sight at that immediate moment. So he sees just a “slice” or “layer” of Sphere as Sphere moves through Flatland. Sometimes Sphere is nothing more than a disembodied voice when he is hovering above Flatland.

This gives us a little bit of an idea of how we perceive God. He exists in dimensions that we cannot fully comprehend, so we only see “slices” of Him as He passes though our line of sight. Sometimes He is just a disembodied Voice—or as the Bible calls Him, the Word of God.

But the Word of God compressed Himself into our dimension (John 1:14). All of the fullness—all of the other-dimension-ness—of His omnipotence, omnipresence, omniscience came to our “level” in the Person of Jesus Christ (Philippians 2:6-7). The Word was the complete and total fullness of God (John 1:1-3; Colossians 2:9). But unlike Square who couldn’t fully know Sphere, God is fully knowable in The Word—in Jesus Christ!

The question is: What are you going to do with The Word? The Word of God (the Bible) allows us to fully know The Word of God (Jesus). But we need to be willing to let the Holy Spirit strip away our puny, smaller-dimensioned, finite thinking of God.

Alvin Toffler wrote, “The illiterate of the future are not those who cannot read or write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.”

I would modify this to say, “Those illiterate of The Word (Jesus) are not those who cannot read The Word (the Bible), but those who won’t let the Holy Spirit help them learn, unlearn, and relearn who God is.”

There is so much more to learn about The Word (Jesus), so let the Holy Spirit guide you in your reading of The Word (the Bible). I pray as Paul did that you will begin to experience more of the multi-dimensional-ness of God as revealed in The Word—

I pray that out of God’s glorious riches He may strengthen you with power through His Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. (Ephesians 3:16-19)

If you have missed any of the messages in this series called Who Is Jesus?, you can find them all here.

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11 Quotes From “The Secrets Of Intercessory Prayer”

February 26, 2013 — Craig T. Owens

Jack Hayford’s latest book is reenergizing the way I pray for my family members. If you want to know why prayer for your family is so powerful, if you’re feeling a bit discouraged in the seemingly unanswered prayers for your family, or if you just want to “take it up a notch” as you pray, The Secrets Of Intercessory Prayer is for you (you can read my full book review by clicking here). These are a few quotes that especially caught my eye from this book.

“Prayer in all regards takes a new frame of reference when we understand the war between God’s Kingdom and satan’s dark hordes. This battle, insofar as it involves earth, is one in which God has called us to engage, enlisting us as ‘knee-soldiers’ whose prayer-call for the ‘incoming’ of God’s Kingdom will welcome a barrage of God’s power to break through the darkness and bring deliverance to people we know.”

“Let this truth grip you with hope: If the promise of God concerning His coming Messiah, His own Son, was interrupted by the failure of humanity (in this case, the later generations of David’s offspring) and God bridged and reconnected that ‘cut-off,’ then He wants us to understand this as a power-principle for prayer. Just as God navigated that failure and brought the tender plant out of the stump that had been cut off, so He is inviting you to pray and believe that He will do the same in your relationships.”

“Let the Holy Spirit shine a searchlight in your own heart and cleanse anything that restricts the power and liberty of your intercessory role in the family. I know that I am neutralized for effective prayer to the degree that negativity characterizes my attitude toward anyone for whom I pray.”

“We refuse to sustain that spirit of death and separation through any kind of ‘labeling.’ … Without such integrity of heart before God we may unwittingly be preventing our families and friends from receiving the flow of God’s life and love.”

“Praying for those we love is not a substitute for their need to hear God’s Word of truth—the Gospel. But many of those we find resisting already know it, and for them the ‘pushiness’ of a relative deepens resistance. On the other hand—as you abide in continual prayer—the truth that they may most need at the present is a sense of your acceptance of them, even as they understand that acceptance is not approval of sinful behavior. While it is painful to see a loved one persist in sin, especially if it is self-destructive, God’s Spirit has spoken or is speaking to them about their need to turn to Him. Our prayer for them is pivotal in this regard. But it is also our job to leave God’s part for Him to achieve, as only He can.”

“The greatest tool of evangelism when it comes to loved ones is to be genuinely loving and friendly to them without the taint of manipulation. … Winning people to Christ is not conquering them or verifying yourself. It is about showing so much of Jesus that they cannot resist Him.”

“The deeper we move into the last days, the greater the need for our young people to have the shelter and the shield, the presence and the power, the wisdom and the discernment of the Holy Spirit! …The literal word for perilous used in the Greek text of 2 Timothy 3:1 describes the last days as ‘evil, ferocious, lion-like and demon-filled.’”

“Here is a key point for us to embrace as we persevere in prayer for our loved ones: Jesus wants to minister through us.”

“We are capable of compromising our discipleship under Jesus’ Lordship, not by the values we hold but by the spirit in which we respond to those whose values offend Him. …If I am unwilling to pray with a heart of passion for sinners who indulge in the perverse, the shameful and the corrupt and who do it with glee, will my passion be driven by my anger or by my sense of God’s broken heart for such warping of one of His own creation, for such satanic bondage in a being He longs to know the beauty of His original purpose?”

“Instead of yielding to fatalism, hear the call: ‘Keep praying, even when tough stuff happens,’ and do this by invading the difficult with thanksgiving, because the truth larger than the problem is that God’s power can transform any mess when He is invited into it.”

“That is what the will of God is for us: to lift up praise to Him with gratitude for His nature, which does not plan the evil, the injurious or the painful, but who—in these things—is the only One able to address them in love, resolve them in wisdom, provide for them in grace and transform then by His power. Give thanks in song for that!”