If Mark Batterson Quotes & Sayings

If you really believe in the message you're preaching, you want as many people as possible to listen. — Mark Batterson

Jesus didn't die to keep us safe. He died to make us dangerous. Faithfulness is not holding the fort. It's storming the gates of hell. The will of God is not an insurance plan. It's a daring plan. The complete surrender of your life to the cause of Christ isn't radical. It's normal. It's time to quit living as if the purpose of life is to arrive safely at death. It's time to go all in and all out for the All in All. Pack your coffin! — Mark Batterson

It is absolutely imperative at the outset that you come to terms with this simple yet life-changing truth: God is for you. If you don't believe that, then you'll pray small timid prayers; if you do believe it, then you'll pray big audacious prayers. — Mark Batterson

Sure, you can choose the safety and predictability of the cage, forfeiting the adventure God has destined for you. But you won't be the only one missing out or losing out. When you lack the courage to chase the Wild Goose, the opportunity costs are staggering. Who might not hear about the love of God if you don't seize the opportunity to tell them? Who might be stuck in poverty, stuck in ignorance, stuck in pain if you're not there to help free them? Where might the advance of God's kingdom in the world stall out because you weren't there on the front lines? — Mark Batterson

If you wait for perfect conditions to seize an opportunity, you'll be waiting till the day you die. — Mark Batterson

If we repent, God always recycles our mistakes. — Mark Batterson

...if you give all of yourself to God, you can ask and expect that God will give all of Himself to you because that's precisely what He wants to do. We have not because we ask not, and we ask not because we're not all in! — Mark Batterson

I don't know about you, but I want God to reveal the second step before I take the first step of faith. But I've discovered that if I don't take the first step, God generally won't reveal the next step...

Most of us will only follow Christ to the point of precedence -- the place where we have been before. But ...

If you want God to do something new, you cannot keep doing what you've always done. You've got to push past the fear of the unknown. You've got to do something different. — Mark Batterson

If you plant yourself in one place and let your roots grow deep, there is no limit to what God can do. — Mark Batterson

When we violate our conscience by compromising our integrity, we put our reputation at risk. We also become our own advocate because we step outside the boundaries of God's good, pleasing, and perfect will. But when we obey God, we come under the umbrella of His protective authority. He is our Advocate. And it's His reputation that is at stake. If we don't give the Enemy a foothold, God won't let him touch a hair on our head. — Mark Batterson

The size of prayers depends on the size of our God. And if God knows no limits, then neither should our prayers. — Mark Batterson

If you've never had a God-sized dream that scared you half to death, then you haven't really come to life. If you've never been overwhelmed by the impossibility of your plans, then your God is too small. If your vision isn't perplexingly impossible, then you need to expand the radiuses of your prayer circles. — Mark Batterson

Don't give up on your dream. If you do, you aren't just giving up on its present-tense reality. You're giving up on its future-tense potential. Were — Mark Batterson

Fail. But I also believe this: One bold prayer can accomplish more than a thousand well-laid plans. So go ahead and plan, but make sure you circle your plans in prayer. If your plans aren't birthed in prayer and bathed in prayer, they won't succeed. — Mark Batterson

If you want to find your voice, you need to hear the voice of God. — Mark Batterson

Humility is how we get out of the way of what God wants to do. And if we stay out of God's way, then there is nothing God cannot do in us and through us. — Mark Batterson

If we do the little things like they are big things, then God will do the big things like they are little things. — Mark Batterson

There is a pattern repeated in Scripture: crazy miracles are the offspring of crazy faith. Normal begets normal. Crazy begets crazy. If we want to see God do crazy miracles, sometimes we need to pray crazy prayers. — Mark Batterson

I've discovered that if I don't take the first step, God generally won't reveal the next step. — Mark Batterson

You don't have to live in fear that God is going to take away what is most important to you. After all, Isaac was God's gift to Abraham. But if the gift ever becomes more important than the Gift Giver, then the very thing God gave you to serve His purposes is undermining His plan for your life. God is no longer the End All and Be All. And when God becomes the means to some other end, it's the beginning of the end spiritually because you have inverted the gospel. — Mark Batterson

If we don't control our calendar, our calendar will end up controlling us. — Mark Batterson

Consecration is death to self. I know there is a fear that if we give more of ourselves to God, there will be less of us left, but it's the exact opposite. It's not until we die to self that we truly come alive. The more we give to God, the more we have and the more we become. It's only in losing our lives that we will really find them. — Mark Batterson

If you seek answers you won't find them, but if you seek God, the answers will find you. — Mark Batterson

Before you step into what if, you have to get past if only. — Mark Batterson

When we are born into this world, the world revolves around us. We're spoon-fed on the front end and diaper-changed on the back end. It's as if the entire world exists to meet our every need. And that's fine if you are a two-month-old baby. If you're twenty-two, it's a problem! Newsflash: — Mark Batterson

If you want God to do something new in you, you cannot keep doing the same old thing. You have to do something different. — Mark Batterson

The more you're willing to risk, the more God can use you. And if you're willing to risk everything, then there is nothing God can't do in you and through you. — Mark Batterson

I've been challenged by the action-oriented approach to Scripture proposed by Peter Marshall, former chaplain of the United States Senate. I wonder what would happen if we all agreed to read one of the Gospels until we came to a place that told us to do something, then went out to do it, and only after we had done it, began reading again? There are aspects of the Gospel that are puzzling and difficult to understand. But our problems are not centered around the things we don't understand, but rather in the things we do understand, the things we could not possibly misunderstand. Our problem is not so much that we don't know what we should do. We know perfectly well, but we don't want to do it.19 — Mark Batterson

There are moments in life when you need to stop pleading and start praising. If God has put a promise in your heart, praise Him for it. You need to celebrate as if it has already happened. You need to stop asking, because God has already answered. — Mark Batterson

We need to quit living as if the purpose of life is to arrive safely at death. — Mark Batterson

I threw in the obligatory "if it be Your will" at the end. That tagline may sound spiritual, but it was less a submission to God's will and more a profession of doubt. If you aren't careful, the will of God can become a cop-out if things don't turn out the way you want. — Mark Batterson

There are spiritual gifts like mercy, faith, or generosity that enable people to set the standard, so to speak. But just because you don't have that spiritual gift doesn't mean you aren't held to any standard at all. Even if you aren't gifted in that way, you're still called to live mercifully, faithfully, and generously. You might not set the standard, but you need to meet the standard. There is a baseline that all of us are called to. When the opportunity presents itself, we need to show mercy, exercise faith, and give generously. In the same sense, all of us are called to take risks. If it doesn't involve risk, it doesn't exercise faith. — Mark Batterson

If the kingdom of God had departments, we'd want to work in research and development. We felt like Jesus didn't hang out at the synagogue, he hung out at wells. Coffeehouses are postmodern wells. Let's not wait for people to come to us, let's go to them. — Mark Batterson

If your personal genome sequence was written out longhand, it would be a three-billion-word book. The King James Version of the Bible has 783,137 words, so your genetic code is the equivalent of nearly four thousand Bibles. And if your personal genome sequence were an audio book and you were read at a rate of one double helix per second, it would take nearly a century to put you into words! — Mark Batterson

...faith is acting as if God has already answered. And acting as if God has answered means acting on our prayers... — Mark Batterson

If you want to break the sin habit, you'd better establish a prayer habit. — Mark Batterson

Why do we act as though our sin disqualifies us from the grace of God? That is the only thing that qualifies us! Anything else is a self-righteous attempt to earn God's grace. You cannot trust God's grace 99 percent. It's all or nothing. The problem, as I pointed out earlier, is that we want partial credit for our salvation. We want to be 1 percent of the equation. But if we try to save ourselves, we forfeit the salvation that comes from Jesus Christ alone, by grace through faith. — Mark Batterson

If you can truly surrender to Him, you will do more, be more, experience more. Life will just be more. — Mark Batterson

If your deepest feelings are reserved for something other than Almighty God, then that something other is an emotional idol... if you get more excited about material things than the simple yet profound fact that your sin was nailed to the cross by the sinless Son of God, then you're bowing down to Tammuz. — Mark Batterson

If you aren't willing to look foolish, you're foolish. And that's why so many people have never built an ark, killed a giant, or walked on water. — Mark Batterson

God-ordained dreams aren't just born. They are reborn. If they become more important to you than God, you have to sacrifice them for the sake of your soul. You have to put them on the altar and raise the knife. And once the dream is dead and buried, it can be resurrected for God's glory. — Mark Batterson

If you don't have a personal definition of success, chances are you will succeed at the wrong thing. You'll get to the end of your life and realize that you spelled success wrong. And if you spell it wrong, you'll get it wrong. — Mark Batterson

Quit living as if the purpose of life is to arrive safely at death. Set God-sized goals. Pursue God-ordained passions. Go after a dream that is destined to fail without divine intervention. Keep asking questions. Keep making mistakes. Keep seeking God. Stop pointing out problems and become part of the solution. Stop repeating the past and start creating the future. Stop playing it safe and start taking risks. Expand your horizons. Accumulate experiences. Enjoy the journey. Find every excuse you can to celebrate everything you can. Live like today is the first day and last day of your life. Don't let what's wrong with you keep you from worshiping what's right with God. Burn sinful bridges. Blaze new trails. Don't let fear dictate your decisions. Take a flying leap of faith. Quit holding out. Quit holding back. Go all in with God. Go all out for God. — Mark Batterson

One of the most paralyzing mistakes we make is thinking that our problems somehow disqualify us from being used by God. Let me just say it like it is: If you don't have any problems, you don't have any potential. Here's why. Your ability to help others heal is limited to where you've been wounded. — Mark Batterson

You cannot build God's reputation if you aren't willing to risk yours. — Mark Batterson

...if you do the job no one wants, you might eventually get the job everybody wants. But you have to be willing to climb the ladder, starting with the bottom rung. — Mark Batterson

Vision beyond your resources? Don't let fear dictate your decisions. If your vision is God-given, it will most definitely be beyond your ability and beyond your resources. The God who gives the vision is the same God who makes provision. — Mark Batterson

The distance between your head and your heart is only twelve inches, but it's the difference between information and transformation. It's not enough to invite Jesus into your mind. You have to open the door to your heart of hearts. No door can remain locked. Even the door to your hidden room.

Nothing entangles the emotions like sin. And if you sin long enough, it feels like a Gordian knot that seems impossible to untangle. But Jesus Christ went to the cross to undo what you have done. He broke the curse of sin so you can break the cycle of sin. — Mark Batterson

When God doesn't conform to our expectations, we're tempted to betray what we believe in. Like Judas, we're in it for what we can get out of it. So when God doesn't grant our wishes like a divine genie in a bottle, we are tempted to turn our back on Him.

This is what separates the boys from the men. Or maybe I should say the sheep from the goats! How do you react when God doesn't meet your expectations? If you truly accepted the invitation to follow Jesus, you'll keep going on through hurricanes, hail, and hazardous conditions. If you have simply invited Him to follow you, you'll bail out at the first sign of bad weather. — Mark Batterson

When Christianity turns into a noun, it becomes a turnoff. Christianity was always intended to be a verb. And, more specifically, an action verb. The title of the book of Acts says it all, doesn't it? It's not the book of Ideas or Theories or Words. It's the book of Acts. If the twenty-first-century church said less and did more, maybe we would have the same kind of impact the first-century church did. — Mark Batterson

If you go all in and all out for the cause of Christ, there will be setbacks along the way. But remember this: without a crucifixion there can be no resurrection! And when you have a setback, you do not take a step back, because God is already preparing your comeback. — Mark Batterson

Don't seek miracles. Follow Jesus. And if you follow Jesus long enough and far enough, you'll eventually find yourself in the middle of some miracles. — Mark Batterson

Every divine appointment is preceded by a season of preparation. And if we submit to the preparation, God will fulfill His promise. If we don't, He won't. Why? Because God never sets us up to fail. — Mark Batterson

If you let fear dictate your decisions, you will live defensively, reactively, cautiously. Living by faith is playing offense with your life. — Mark Batterson

The brain is a goal-seeking organism. Setting a goal creates structural tension in your brain, which will seek to close the gap between where you are and where you want to be, who you are and who you want to become. If you don't set goals, your mind will become stagnant. Goal setting is good stewardship of your right-brain imagination. It's also great for your prayer life. — Mark Batterson

If you really want to get good at anything, you've got to work at it for ten thousand hours. — Mark Batterson

Is there a limit to my power? The obvious answer to that question is no. God is omnipotent, which means by definition, there is nothing God cannot do. Yet many of us pray as if our problems are bigger than God. — Mark Batterson

If you're in a spiritual slump, let me give you a prescription: go on a mission trip.33 There is no better or sure way of coming out of the cage of routine. It's a cure-all. — Mark Batterson

Wet. I'd much rather have God part the river, and then I'll step into the miracle. That way I don't get my feet wet, but if we aren't willing to get our feet wet, we'll never walk through parted rivers on dry ground. At flood tide, the Jordan River was approximately two hundred feet wide. That was all that separated the Israelites from their four-hundred-year-old promise. Their dream was practically a stone's throw away. But if the priests hadn't stepped into the river, they may well have spent the rest of their lives on the eastern banks of the Jordan River. And that's where many of us spend our lives. We're so close to the dream, so close to the promise, so close to the miracle. But we're waiting for God to part the river, while God is waiting for us to get our feet wet. — Mark Batterson

When God stirs our spirit or breaks our heart, we cannot sit back. We've got to step up and step in. We've got to go all in by going all out. But if we have the courage to make the choice or take the risk, it will become the defining moment of our lives. — Mark Batterson

If we do the ordinary, God will add an extra to it. — Mark Batterson

Don't whine. Don't complain. And don't check out. Make the most of the situation. Do little things like they are big things. Keep a good attitude. And faithfully carry out your current obligations. If your job isn't exciting, then bring some excitement to the job. One of the greatest acts of worship is keeping a good attitude in a bad situation. And doing a good job at a bad job honors God. It will also open doors of opportunity down the road. It did for Nehemiah. — Mark Batterson

If you follow Jesus, you'll do what He did. You'll seek to please the heavenly Father first and foremost. You'll care for the poor, you'll wash feet, and you'll offend some Pharisees along the way. You'll also traffic in the miraculous. And it won't just be as an eyewitness. It'll be as a catalyst. Please believe me when I say, you are someone else's miracle! Make no mistake about it: only God can perform miracles. So God gets all of the glory. — Mark Batterson

If you aren't hungry for God, you are full of yourself. — Mark Batterson

Jesus proclaimed the favor of God in His very first sermon. Then He sealed the deal with His death and resurrection. Favor is a function of surrender. If we don't hold out on God, God will not hold out on us. — Mark Batterson

You don't need to seek opportunity. All you have to do is seek God. And if you seek God, opportunity will seek you. — Mark Batterson

There are 1,784 ifs in the Bible. Most of those ifs function as conditional conjunctions on the front end of God's promises. If we meet the condition, God delivers on the promise! So all that stands between your current circumstances and your wildest dreams is one little if. One little if can change everything. One little if can change anything. — Mark Batterson

...there is nothing you possess that wasn't given to you by God. It's His prerogative to give. And it's His prerogative to take away. But there is one thing that can never be taken from you, and that is Jesus Christ. And if you have Jesus, then you have everything you will ever need for all of eternity.

Everything - Jesus = Nothing
Jesus + Nothing = Everything

It's that simple. — Mark Batterson

If you are not open to the unprecedented, you will repeat history. If you are open to the unprecedented, you will change history. The difference is prayer. — Mark Batterson

The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existence. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day. Never lose a holy curiosity.6 — Mark Batterson

When you are tempted to compromise your integrity, remember than an opportunity isn't an opportunity if you have to compromise your integrity. — Mark Batterson

You cannot be the hands and feet of Jesus if you're sitting on your butt. — Mark Batterson

If you don't take the risk, you forfeit the miracle. — Mark Batterson

If you are on God's side, then God is on your side. God will fight for you as you fight for Him. And you can live with holy confidence, knowing that when God is contending for your cause, your cause is destined to succeed. This doesn't mean there won't be setbacks and sacrifices along the way; it just means the war has already been won. — Mark Batterson

If you want to see God move make a move. — Mark Batterson

The only way you can fail is if you stop praying — Mark Batterson

If you keep circling the promise, God will ultimately deliver on it. — Mark Batterson

The path of least resistance never gets us where we want to go. Shortcuts always end up being cul-de-sacs. The key to spiritual growth is the willingness to go out of your way for God. You will find God in uncomfortable places at inconvenient times. But if you go out of your way for God, God will go out of His way for you. Crash the party! — Mark Batterson

If you're bored, one thing is for sure: You're not following in the footsteps of Christ. — Mark Batterson

Perhaps the LORD will act in our behalf. Don't play defense with your life. Play offense with your kids, your wife, your life. Don't look for the path of least resistance. The hard way is the best way! And quit living as if the will of God is an insurance plan. Dare to dream great things for God. — Mark Batterson

Put your Isaac on the altar! Then, and only then, will you see what God can do. He cannot give back what you do not give up. But if you surrender yourself to Him, He will provide the ram in the thicket. — Mark Batterson

The hardest thing about praying hard is enduring unanswered prayers. If you don't guard your heart, unresolved anger toward God can undermine faith. — Mark Batterson

The earth has circled the sun more than two thousand times since the day Honi drew his circle in the sand, but God is still looking for circle makers. And the timeless truth secreted within this ancient legend is as true now as it was then: Bold prayers honor God, and God honors bold prayers. God isn't offended by your biggest dreams or boldest prayers. He is offended by anything less. If your prayers aren't impossible to you, they are insulting to God. Why? Because they don't require divine intervention. But ask — Mark Batterson

I've always believed in the power of prayer. One prayer can accomplish more than a thousand plans. That isn't a magic formula, but it's an idea that if you pray, keep praying and then praying some more. — Mark Batterson

And if you need to read that sentence again, no shame. It's complicated - as complicated as the sovereignty of God. Yet as simple as if. Gustave Eiffel did not build his tower so Lora and I could kiss on top of it. Nevertheless, his if made it possible. And it's your ifs that open doors of opportunity for others, most of whom you won't meet on this side of eternity. But make no mistake about it, every little if makes an exponential difference across time and eternity. History — Mark Batterson

G. K. Chesterton said that his goal in life was to take nothing for granted - not a sunrise, not a smile, not a flower, nothing. That is a truly wonderful approach to life. Don't take anything for granted. Truly appreciate every minute that you have to live. My near-death experience has helped me be better at that. If I hadn't almost died, I wouldn't have figured out how to live. — Mark Batterson

As a child of God, you aren't just a manifestation of your biological family. You are a manifestation of your spiritual family - your true family of origin. If you let Him, the Spirit of God will manifest the Father and the Son through you. — Mark Batterson

We want a money-back guarantee before we take a step of obedience, but that eliminates faith from the equation. Sometimes we need to take a flying leap of faith.

We need to step into the conflict without knowing if we can resolve it. We need to share our faith without knowing how our friends will react to it. We need to pray for a miracle without knowing how God will answer. We need to put ourselves in a situation that activates a spiritual gift we've never exercised before. And we need to go after a dream that is destined to fail without divine intervention.

If we want to discover new lands, we've got to lose sight of the shore. We've got to leave the Land of Familiarity behind. We've got to sail past the predictable. And when we do, we develop a spiritual hunger for the unprecedented and lose our appetite for the habitual. We also get a taste of God's favor. — Mark Batterson

If God doesn't answer the way you want, you still need to praise through. That is when it's most difficult to praise God, but that is also when our praise is most pure and most pleasing to God. — Mark Batterson

Email helps me keep in touch with my family. I wouldn't know what my extended family was doing every day if we weren't emailing each other. — Mark Batterson

Just as one decision can change your destiny, so can one prayer. If you were to map out your spiritual history, you would find countless answers to prayer at key intersections along the way. Before you were even born, even named, many of you had parents and grandparents who prayed for you. At critical ages and stages, family and friends interceded on your behalf. And thousands of complete strangers have prayed for you in ways you aren't even aware of. The sum total of those prayers is your prayer genealogy. — Mark Batterson

You don't need wealth or position or power to make a difference. You just need to do the best you can with what you have where you are. And if you are faithful in Babylon, God will bless you in Jerusalem. — Mark Batterson

If you are BIG ENOUGH for your dream, your dream isn't BIG ENOUGH for God. — Mark Batterson

It's not about being in the right place at the right time; it's about being the right person, even if you find yourself in the wrong circumstances. — Mark Batterson

Even if the people could no longer hear God, he believed that God could still hear them. — Mark Batterson

In God's kingdom, calling trumps credentials every time! God does not call the qualified. He qualifies the called. And the litmus test isn't experience or expertise. It's availability and teachability. If you are willing to go when God gives you a green light, He will take you to inaccessible places to do impossible things. — Mark Batterson

But what if, instead of spending all of our energy making plans for God, we spent that energy seeking God? — Mark Batterson

If faith is being sure of what we hope for, then being unsure of what we hope for is the antithesis of faith, isn't it? — Mark Batterson

If Christians believe that God is in every person, why don't we act like that? — Mark Batterson

Now here is what you need to understand: If you don't turn your adversity into a ministry, then your pain remains your pain. But if you allow God to translate your adversity into a ministry, then your pain becomes someone else's gain. — Mark Batterson