Famous Quotes & Sayings

Cole Ryan Quotes & Sayings

Enjoy the top 22 famous quotes, sayings and quotations by Cole Ryan.

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Famous Quotes By Cole Ryan

Cole Ryan Quotes 737252

Here's the thing: You can be materialistic and poor. You can also be content and rich. It has nothing to do with your income and it has everything to do with your heart. You don't need to earn more money in order to be generous with your money. Some people use that as an excuse to be greedy. Jesus seemed to believe that the key to generosity wasn't having more, but being content with what you already have. — Cole Ryan

Cole Ryan Quotes 2176813

I believe marriage was designed to do what only marriage can do - point us to Jesus by modeling his love for us. This, though, isn't easy or even preferable. This means the sin in us, the pride and selfishness and anger and stubbornness and greed and lust in us, will be revealed through our partner. A spouse can help us grow in a way that no one else in this world can. — Cole Ryan

Cole Ryan Quotes 456680

Notice that "love thy neighbor" - a wildly popular piece of wisdom found in the Bible - is a command. Jesus is commanding us to love. Now, Jesus understood that emotions and feelings cannot be commanded; they cannot be controlled. He must be saying that love isn't the way you feel about someone, it's the way your treat someone. Love isn't something that happens to you, it's something that you make happen. It's a choice. — Cole Ryan

Cole Ryan Quotes 1911907

We're prone to totally deny something that is abused, because it's easier than handling it.
I've noticed that truth is very rarely found in the extremes, in the black and white - you'll usually find it right in the middle, in the gray. It's just much harder to find that way.
We're lazy; however, and we'll take the ten step program or the list of rules before we do the dirty, difficult work of prayer, meditation and study that comes with living in the tension. It's always easier to default to an extreme than it is to find the buried, messy truth that is found in living in the already and the not yet - in the tension. — Cole Ryan

Cole Ryan Quotes 1105915

Why does Jesus love us?
Do you ever think about that?
Why does Jesus, content and whole and complete and satisfied, love us?
I don't see how this would benefit Jesus. He has nothing to gain from us; we have nothing to offer Him.
There's nothing in this for Jesus.
His love for us must not be driven by what He can get - but what He can give. Jesus is aware that by loving us we might become like Him - content and whole and complete and satisfied. We must not miss this: Jesus does not love us in order to get something from us in return. Jesus loves us simply to give us all that He has to offer - Himself. — Cole Ryan

Cole Ryan Quotes 2114823

Love is often confused with attraction. Love is an action, it's a choice. We can choose to love someone. Attraction, however, is a feeling, it's an emotion, it's temporary. — Cole Ryan

Cole Ryan Quotes 1882648

Let me paraphrase what Paul is saying here: Jesus married the Church - Christians, you and me, us. The Church is His literal bride. He laid His life down for the Church. And Paul writes that husbands should love their wives in the same way that Jesus loved The Church, and vice-versa.
What a daunting task.
But what is made clear in this passage is that marriage was designed to display the love that Jesus has for the Church, His bride. It's the closest thing we can get to tasting the kind of love that He has for us - a sacrificing love, a serving love, a selfless love.
Do you see what this means?
Marriage isn't really about us.
It's not.
It's about God.
It's about the Gospel. — Cole Ryan

Cole Ryan Quotes 1783544

I want to go much further than that. I want to point out that when Jesus spoke, whether it be of blessing or wealth or prosperity or what-have-you, He was rarely speaking of what is physical, what is tangible, what is seen.
I don't think Jesus was nearly as concerned with our circumstances as He was with our character.
With Jesus, it's all about what's on the inside. It always has been. It always will be. When He promised us blessing and wealth and prosperity, the very last thing He was talking about was money. — Cole Ryan

Cole Ryan Quotes 1773410

And for another person to come along side us on our journey - for two messy, broken people to come together and say "I know your faults, I know you're going to do some things I hate, I know the person you are now is not the person you want to be. However, I know the person you could become and I want to help you get there."
That's what it's all about. — Cole Ryan

Cole Ryan Quotes 1647730

We always want what is not ours. It's intriguing. We think if we can just get that, we'll finally be happy. The lure of what we do not have is deceptive.
True freedom, however, is found in being content with what we already have.
Can you imagine it?
Can you imagine being whole, complete, fulfilled - content with what you already have? It sounds too good to be true.
Utter satisfaction?
That is freedom.
That is what everyone is searching for.
Where, though, can you find this kind of contentment?
I've noticed that the more I've come to know Jesus, the less I've desired material things.
Materialism is what happens when you find your joy in things. Contentment is what happens when you find your joy in Jesus. They're complete opposites. You can easily differentiate a materialistic person from a content person. — Cole Ryan

Cole Ryan Quotes 1528556

You're not discontent for wanting to be in a relationship, you're just human. — Cole Ryan

Cole Ryan Quotes 1427490

God's priorities may be a bit different than ours.
Have you ever thought about that?
Have you ever considered that while you've been working on getting a promotion and moving to a safer neighborhood - God's been working on something else entirely? God's had something else planned? — Cole Ryan

Cole Ryan Quotes 1387727

There's a beautiful poem at the beginning of a collection of books we call the Bible. In that poem, it is written: "Then God said, 'Let us make man.'"

God then recognized that it was not good for man to be alone.

We can all agree on that one, I think. Loneliness is one of the most excruciating pains that the human heart, or any heart, has to go through.

What did God do about it?

What was His remedy?

What was His answer?

He created marriage. He didn't create dating, He didn't create courting - He created marriage. — Cole Ryan

Cole Ryan Quotes 153233

You might have good, moral efforts of working hard and earning money in order to help feed the poor or something along those lines - and then you get the money you've been seeking and you see and feel and taste how sweet it is and you only want more and more and more for ... yourself.
Money corrupts its own intentions. — Cole Ryan

Cole Ryan Quotes 1065893

Our God is vulnerable.
He is.
This might be striking to some. The prominent view of God is strong, mighty, courageous - not vulnerable.
God?
Vulnerable?
God didn't only hang naked on a wooden cross, and He didn't only do that because He loved us - but He did it all first.
He made the first move.
He initiated the relationship.
He didn't wait for us to clean ourselves up.
"For while we were still sinners, Christ died for us."
The foundation of our relationship with God is vulnerability. — Cole Ryan

Cole Ryan Quotes 981882

We're in an a bit of an awkward situation.
When the institution of marriage first came about, people commonly got married at around the same age that they began to develop feelings for the opposite sex.
This is no longer the case.
13, 14 - these are no longer appropriate ages to be getting married. Now, you do not get married until you're out of college, at least. If you get married any earlier, you're looked down upon.
So, what we have is a gap.
A gap between when we begin to be attracted to the opposite sex, and when we're allowed to give into that attraction. A gap between now and then. A fairly large gap, I might add. About a 10 or 12 year gap.
I believe that dating was designed to bridge that gap. — Cole Ryan

Cole Ryan Quotes 800989

Jesus' idea of blessing is completely contrary to ours. It has nothing to do with what we have, and everything to do with who we are. — Cole Ryan

Cole Ryan Quotes 787515

There's a certain worth that can only be given to us by God. You see, if you think about it, worth has nothing to do with the object. Worth has everything to do with how much someone is willing to pay for the object. God paid for each and every one of us with His son's life. That gives me chills. That makes us worth a lot. — Cole Ryan

Cole Ryan Quotes 503284

I believe being a 'gentleman' goes well beyond holding the door for a girl and letting her go before you. It's about being vulnerable for her. I think that when it comes to the way we treat women, it's a good idea to look to the way Jesus treated women.

He laid His life down for His bride,

He sacrificed for her,

He lowered Himself for her,

He was vulnerable for her.

We must love women vulnerably in the same way that Jesus loved His bride vulnerably. Being a gentleman is far more than being caring and thoughtful, it's about possessing sacrificial and vulnerable Christ-like characteristics. I don't know if it's possible to be a gentleman without knowing and representing the character of Jesus. — Cole Ryan

Cole Ryan Quotes 410670

In the first book of the Bible it is written that: "The Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart."
In another translation it is written like this: "God was sorry that he had made the human race in the first place; it broke his heart."
"It grieved him to his heart."
"It broke his heart."
We grieved him to his heart.
We broke his heart.
God's heart can be ... broken?
You cannot love without being vulnerable - because love involves the risk of the person you're loving not loving you back, of rejecting you - and that hurts.
That grieves you to your heart.
God had created man, and He loved them - but they didn't love Him back, and it broke His heart. — Cole Ryan

Cole Ryan Quotes 320872

Dating is never mentioned in the Bible, not once.
I'm not saying that dating's a sin or that dating's evil. That's not what this book is about. What I am saying is that if we look to Scripture for specific answers on dating we're not going to find any. That's not a problem, though, because it has a lot to say about marriage, and when we figure out why God created marriage, we will figure out a lot about dating in return. — Cole Ryan

Cole Ryan Quotes 240262

Active love doesn't ask: 'What does this person have to offer me?' Rather: 'What do I have to offer this person? — Cole Ryan