Stephen Kendrick Quotes & Sayings

If patience is how love reacts in order to minimize a negative circumstance, kidness is how love acts to maximize a positive circumstance. Patience avoids a problem; kidness creates a blessing. — Stephen Kendrick

I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men. (1 Tim. 2:1 nkjv — Stephen Kendrick

Grieving the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 4:30). Our anger grieves God's Spirit, not only producing bitter fruit but quenching the fruit of the Spirit in our lives. Rather than operating with love, joy, and peace toward others, a bitter person becomes hateful, negative, and restless, closing off his heart toward others. Bitter people become very unlike themselves. The most loving and joyful people in the world can become hateful, irrational pessimists if they let bitterness take root and don't forgive. Believe it or not, bitterness even hurts us physically. "A joyful heart is good medicine, but a broken spirit dries up the bones" (Proverbs 17:22). The tension of trying to contain it can harden our facial features and make us lose the radiance of our countenance, even causing a chemical imbalance in our bodies and lowering our resistance to disease. — Stephen Kendrick

Lukewarm belief is the weakest form of praying. Doubt locks us out of our own prayer closets. — Stephen Kendrick

Can you imagine churches actually working together within a city to win the lost? Can you picture pastors unselfishly praying with other pastors, sharing resources among themselves without worrying about who gets the credit? Can you see your city becoming a place where outsiders — Stephen Kendrick

Every child is a one of a kind mini-masterpiece. No known duplicates exist. They each have distinctive fingerprints, heart rhythms, eye patterns, and blood constitution. Even identical twins can be physically alike and yet light years apart in how they are mentally wired and gifted. Our children do not just grow up different; they show up different. Though circumstances and training will greatly affect their lives, the originality that is already ingrained into each of our children reflects brilliant preplanning. Every birthmark is a trademark. Every special feature is a signature of divine design. — Stephen Kendrick

Fathers should display more kindness than other men their children are around. This is what their kids are longing to experience (Proverbs 19:22). Mothers should have words of kindness flowing from their lips (Proverbs 31:26). — Stephen Kendrick

Love chooses to believe the best about people. It gives them the benefit of the doubt. It refuses to fill in the unknowns with negative assumptions. And when our worst hopes are proven to be true, love makes every effort to deal with them and move forward. As much as possible, love focuses on the positive. — Stephen Kendrick

A man "is the image and glory of God; but the woman is the glory of man" (1 Corinthians 11:7). — Stephen Kendrick

That word is 'willing.' It's an attitude and spirit of cooperation that should permeate our conversations. It's like a palm tree by the ocean that endures the greatest winds because it knows how to gracefully bend. — Stephen Kendrick

There is an old story from the Eastern tradition that says that when the gods created the universe, they found a place for everything but the truth, and this created a problem, because the gods did not want this wisdom discovered right away. One of the gods suggested the top of the highest mountain, another the farthest star, a third spoke up for the dark side of the moon, and another for the bottom of the deepest ocean. Finally, they decide to place truth inside the human heart. In that way, we would search for it all over the universe, with the secret within us all the time. — Stephen Kendrick

Jesus, help us to build our faith in You, and to believe in Your provision for every need. We also ask You to give us a vision of what You want to do in our lives for Your glory. In Your name, amen. — Stephen Kendrick

You must choose to live by enouragement rather than by expectations. — Stephen Kendrick

There must be a stronger foundation than mere friendship or sexual attraction. Unconditional love, agape love, will not be swayed by time or circumstances. — Stephen Kendrick

He wrote: "A religion to be true must include everything from the amoeba to the milky way." Nothing must be excluded from our view and purview for any faith to be true. — Stephen Kendrick

If I'm doing something as an offering unto the Lord, I want to give God my best. — Stephen Kendrick

If God is your Father, you can count on the Holy Spirit to open your eyes and illumine His truth. He will burn it into your heart as you read the Bible, ingrain it into your thinking, live it out in obedience, and let Him continually keep you aligned with ultimate reality. — Stephen Kendrick

Don't try to tackle a two-hour feature movie as your first project. Cut your teeth on a smaller level and work through the kinks at that level and build your strength as you go. — Stephen Kendrick

Every day, with each new dare, always bear in mind this one pervasive, reorienting truth: you are handling a divine opportunity to experience and represent the love of God. Our children are not playthings to be merely photographed or conveniences to make our lives complete. They're not barriers to our freedom or monuments to our greatness. They may please us and make us proud. They may fail us and disappoint us. But our children are ultimately not about us. They are about the One who gave them to us and about the love He has for them. — Stephen Kendrick

When Moses was on the mountaintop, he discovered why God kept putting up with His rebellious, complaining children: God was "compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness" (Exodus 34:6). He let His overflowing love control His anger. Whenever He did choose to be angry and firm, it was only after multiple, extended demonstrations of His compassion and patience. Today, God is still gracious and patient with us as His children. So when we are unlovable and selfish, distracted and disobedient, we need to remember His enduring love for us and let His example of love overflow onto us and our children. — Stephen Kendrick

Excellence means representing the reputation of Christ well. It means doing all things as best as you can. — Stephen Kendrick

When you choose to be patient, you respond in a positive way to a negative situation. You are slow to anger. You choose to have a long fuse instead of a quick temper. Rather than being restless and demanding, love helps you settle down and begin extending mercy to those around you. Patience brings an internal calm during an external storm. — Stephen Kendrick

Too many men want the freedoms, rewards, and privileges of manhood but only the responsibilities of boyhood. They want intimacy with their wives without loving them as God instructed. They want to be respected by their kids without investing time and discipline in them. They want a higher status at work without raising their own level of honor and integrity. — Stephen Kendrick

When I encountered these haunting words from Franz Kafka, I realized exactly why this light sermon about the search for God had struck such a nerve: Everyday life is the greatest detective story ever written. Every second, without noticing, we pass by thousands of corpses and crimes. That's the routine of our lives. — Stephen Kendrick

I'm not trying to force something but I do enjoy working behind the scenes and I do enjoy bringing all of the ingredients to the kitchen so that we can make the movie. — Stephen Kendrick

The only way love can last a lifetime is if it's unconditional. The truth is this: love is not determined by the one being loved but rather by the one choosing to love. — Stephen Kendrick

Almost every sinful action ever committed can be traced back to a selfish motive. It is a trait we hate in other people but justify in ourselves. — Stephen Kendrick

Get in God's word every day. God's word equips us for everything we do. — Stephen Kendrick

Selfishness is like a disease that suffocates our capacity to love. While love asks us to deny ourselves for the sake of another, selfishness demands we put ourselves first at their expense. When we choose to be self-centered, we become less kind and content - more needy, sensitive, and demanding. More unsatisfiable. Moodiness and impatience, laziness and irresponsibility, are only selfishness in disguise. — Stephen Kendrick

When love invades your heart, you are empowered to endure deeper pain, willingly pay a greater cost, and run risks to your reputation for the sake of another. — Stephen Kendrick

Nobody knows you as well as our spouse. And that means no one will be quicker to recognize a change when you deliberately start sacrificing your wants and wishes to make sure his or her needs are met. — Stephen Kendrick

But after about a year praying, there was just this clear direction. The leadership team believed that God was leading us to focus on fatherhood. If God is leading, then God will provide. So we begin to get storyline ideas that lined up with the subject of fatherhood that we're working on and fitting, and we were thinking, okay this is good. At the same time, as we are studying scriptures and we're on our journey as fathers, we are learning about fatherhood every day. — Stephen Kendrick

Your quality of life is directly tied to the amount of love flowing in you and through you to others. Though it's often overlooked, love is infinitely more valuable than riches, fame, or honor. They will pass away, but love remains. — Stephen Kendrick

Instead of following your heart, you are choosing to lead to lead it. The world says to follow your heart, but if you are not it, then someone or something else is. The Bible says that "the heart is more deceitful than all else" (Jeremiah 17:9), and it will always pursue that which feels right at the moment. — Stephen Kendrick

Heavenly Father, I come to You in Jesus' name, asking that You draw me into a closer, more personal relationship with You. Cleanse me of my sins and prepare my heart to pray in a way that pleases You. Help me know You and love You more this week. Use all the circumstances of my life to make me more like Jesus, and teach me how to pray more strategically and effectively in Your name, according to Your will and Your Word. Use my faith, my obedience, and my prayers this week for the benefit of others, for my good, and for Your glory. Amen. — Stephen Kendrick

He created us to love Him, and something unexplainably beautiful happens when we direct all of who we are at delighting in all of who He is. It is proper worship of the One who is worthy. — Stephen Kendrick

Run for the hills. The Bible commands us to "flee immorality" (1 Corinthians 6:18). Only a fool says, "I can handle temptation without sinning." The wise man says, "I'm not going anywhere near it. — Stephen Kendrick

When you begin to surrender control and let God fill you with His love, with renewed purpose, and with a conscience at peace, then the joy welling up inside you will begin pouring out onto the people in your family aswell. — Stephen Kendrick

Patience gives your spouse permission to be human. It understands that everyone fails. When a mistake is made, it chooses to give them more time that they deserve to correct it. It gives you the ability to hold on during the rough times in your relationship rather than bailing out under the pressure. — Stephen Kendrick

There is no greater privilege for anyone than being able to personally talk with and speak into the ears of Almighty God. — Stephen Kendrick

Children are God's homework assignment to parents. We are commissioned to love, teach and train them up for successful adulthood. — Stephen Kendrick