Ortberg Soul Quotes & Sayings

Sin is very important to the soul because sin is what disintegrates the soul; it's what attacks the soul. Sin kind of is to the soul what cancer is to the body. — John Ortberg

God designed us so that our choices, our thoughts and desires, and our behavior would be in perfect harmony with each other and would be powered by an unbroken connection with God, in perfect harmony with him and with all of his creation. That is a well-ordered soul. — John Ortberg

A soul can be saved. But it will take softness and depth and space. The world won't help much. — John Ortberg

The paradox of soul-satisfaction is this: When I die to myself, my soul comes alive. God says the wrong approach to soul thirst is through human achievement and material wealth. So soul-satisfaction is not about acquiring the right things but about acquiring the right soul. It is not something you buy, but something you receive freely from God. Hear these great words of the prophet Isaiah: "Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and [your soul] will delight in the richest of fare." And it will be satisfied. — John Ortberg

Superficiality," said Richard Foster, "is the curse of our age." The desperate need of the soul is not for intelligence, nor talent, nor yet excitement; just depth. — John Ortberg

as Aristotle said, "The soul never thinks without a picture. — John Ortberg

A lot of people are dissatisfied with their jobs. "Theologian" Drew Carey said, "You hate your job? There's a support group for that. It's called everybody. They meet at the bar." A research group affiliated with the University of Chicago recently listed the ten least happy jobs in the world and the ten happiest jobs in the world. What they found was the ten least happy jobs actually were more financially lucrative and offered higher status than the ten happiest jobs. The difference? People in the happiest jobs had a higher sense of meaning. Less money, less status, but a higher sense of meaning. The main thing you bring home from your work is not a paycheck. The main thing you bring home from work is your soul. Work is a soul function. We're made to create value. The writer of Ecclesiastes says, "There is nothing better for a person than that he should make his soul enjoy good in his work. This too, I see, is from the hand of God. — John Ortberg

The truth is, the soul's infinite capacity to desire is the mirror image of God's infinite capacity to give. — John Ortberg

You're a soul made by God, made for God, and made to need God, which means you were not made to be self-sufficient. — John Ortberg

When you give your soul rest, you open it to the peace Jesus intends for you. — John Ortberg

If your soul is healthy, no external circumstance can destroy your life. If your soul is unhealthy, no external circumstance can redeem your life. — John Ortberg

John of the Cross, writing from his prison cell, says in the dark night the soul is pained but not hopeless. "God's love is not content to leave us in our weakness, and for this reason he takes us into a dark night. He weans us from all of the pleasures by giving us dry times and inward darkness ... No soul will ever grow deep in the spiritual life unless God works passively in that soul by means of the dark night." We — John Ortberg

The "with God" life is not a life of more religious activities or devotions or trying to be good. It is a life of inner peace and contentment for your soul with the maker and manager of the universe. The "without God" life is the opposite. It is death. It will kill your soul. — John Ortberg

From ancient times, the core idea of the soul is the soul is the capacity to integrate different functions into a single being or into a single person. The soul is what holds us all together: what connects our will and our minds and our bodies and connects us to God. — John Ortberg

A paradox of the soul is that it is incapable of satisfying itself, but it is also incapable of living without satisfaction. You were made for soul-satisfaction, but you will only ever find it in God. The soul craves to be secure. The soul craves to be loved. The soul craves to be significant, and we find these only in God in a form that can satisfy us. That's why the psalmist says to God, "Because your love is better than life ... my soul will be satisfied as with the richest of foods." Soul and appetite and satisfaction are dominant themes in the Bible - the soul craves because it is meant for God. "My soul, find rest in God. — John Ortberg

Your soul will never find rest unless it finds its home. We find it in the simple daily discipline of asking ourselves, "Is God here in this moment?" If he is not, he can be. — John Ortberg

Vance Havner wrote about the soul's need for rest: "If you don't come apart for a while, you will come apart in a while. — John Ortberg

THE NEGLECTED SOUL DOESN'T GO AWAY; IT GOES AWRY — John Ortberg

When I think thoughts that are false or unworthy, when I entertain desires that are in opposition to what God wants for my life, I damage my soul. — John Ortberg

A soul without a center feels constantly vulnerable to people or circumstances. — John Ortberg

For the soul to be well, it needs to be with God. — John Ortberg

As Kent Dunnington puts it, "We are limited in every way but one: we have unlimited desire." We always want more: more time, more wisdom, more beauty, more funny YouTube videos. This is the soul crying out. We never have enough. The truth is, the soul's infinite capacity to desire is the mirror image of God's infinite capacity to give. What if the real reason we feel like we never have enough is that God is not yet finished giving? The unlimited neediness of the soul matches the unlimited grace of God. — John Ortberg

Our soul's problem, however, is not its neediness; it's our fallenness. Our need was meant to point us to God. Instead, we fasten our minds and bodies and wills on other sources of ultimate devotion, which the Bible calls idolatry. — John Ortberg

Somebody said a long time ago that if the Devil can't make you sin, he will make you busy, because either way your soul will shrivel. — John Ortberg

The soul of one person can become intertwined with the soul of another. Aristotle is supposed to have said: "What is friendship? It is a single soul dwelling in two bodies." The ancient term for such a relationship is "soul friend," defined as one with whom I have no secrets. The ancient Celtic Christians said that "a person without a soul friend is like a body without a head. — John Ortberg

Life goes on. The world spins out another day. The mystery of human life and hope goes on. And here and there, the luminous light that shone out from a carpenter in Nazareth glimmers and flickers in the darkness. And we hope again for what life might become. The soul waits. — John Ortberg

The will is very good at making simple and large commitments like getting married, or deciding to move someplace," Dallas explained. "But it is very bad at trying to override habits and patterns and attitudes that are deeply rooted in us. If you try to improve your soul by willpower, you will exhaust yourself and everyone around you. — John Ortberg

I wrote 'Soul Keeping' because we are taught more about how to care for our cars than how to steward our souls. But you cannot have an impactful life with an impoverished soul. — John Ortberg

What is running your life at any given moment is your soul. Not external circumstances, not your thoughts, not your intentions, not even your feelings, but your soul. The soul is that aspect of your whole being that correlates, integrates, and enlivens everything going on in the various dimensions of the self. The soul is the life center of human beings. — John Ortberg

Have you no soul?" is really another way of saying, "Is it possible that your mind with its values and conscience are not even troubled by what your will has chosen and your body carried out? — John Ortberg

If you want to free your soul, you acknowledge that there is a spiritual order that God has designed for you. You are not the center of the universe. You are not the master of your fate. You are not the captain of your ship. There is a God, and you aren't him. True freedom comes when you embrace God's overall design for the world and your place in it. This is why in the Bible you see this strong connection between God's law and soul-freedom. — John Ortberg

Our ceaseless craving for more, though it can kill us when unredeemed, may be a hint of the joy that we were made for when the soul finds its center in God. — John Ortberg

Addiction, Kent explained, is a kind of worship, a kind of counterfeit worship. For the soul was created to worship. The soul requires a center to give it identity, to have a purpose for its activities, to give it a hope and a foundation. There is no such thing as an uncommitted person. An addict is the supreme example of trying to satisfy the soul with all the wrong things. The more it's fed, the more it craves. One of the ways to diagnose your ultimate commitment is to ask yourself: What do you get most irritated about when your soul is threatened? — John Ortberg

Greatness of soul is available to people who do not have the luxury of being ecstatic about the condition and appearance of their bodies. — John Ortberg

Frankl discovered that doors are not just physical. A door is a choice. He found that when his circumstances had closed every outer door to him, they revealed to him the doors that matter far more - the doors through which a soul can leave fear and enter into courage, leave hatred and enter into forgiveness, leave ignorance and enter into learning. He discovered that his guards were actually far more imprisoned - by cruelty and ignorance and foolish obedience to barbarism - than he was imprisoned by walls and barbed wire. — John Ortberg

So soul-satisfaction is not about acquiring the right things but about acquiring the right soul. It is not something you buy, but something you receive freely from God. — John Ortberg

A soul centered in God always knows it has a heavenly Father who will hold its pain, its fear, its anxiety. — John Ortberg

A healthy soul is whole and integrated. It is connected to God. A person with a healthy soul is at peace with God, with himself, and with other people. — John Ortberg

Our soul begins to grow in God when we acknowledge our basic neediness. — John Ortberg

This is precisely why when somebody asked Jesus once, "What is the most important of all the commandments?" he answered, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength." It is not coincidental that all the parts of the person we have been talking about are here in the most important commandment. Your heart (that is, your will, your choices), your mind (all your thoughts and desires), your strength (all of your body), and your soul are all to be bound together and focused on love of God, and then the love of all that flows out of this. — John Ortberg

Here's some soul homework, by way of Dallas Willard: If you want to really experience the flow of love as never before, the next time you are in a competitive situation [around work or relationship or whose kids are the highest achieving or looks or whatever], pray that the others around you will be more outstanding, more praised, and more used of God than yourself. Really pull for them and rejoice in their success. If Christians were universally to do this for each other, the earth would soon be filled with the knowledge of the glory of God. — John Ortberg

gratification of mind and body will actually dismantle your soul. — John Ortberg

Gratitude is what we radiate when we experience grace, and the soul was made to run on grace the way a 747 runs on rocket fuel. — John Ortberg

The soul integrates the will and mind and body. Sin disintegrates them. In sin, my appetite for lust or anger or superiority dominates my will. My will, which was made to rule my body, becomes enslaved to what my body wants. When I flatter other people, I learn to use my mouth and my face to conceal my true thoughts and intentions. This always requires energy: I am disintegrating my body from my mind. I hate, but I can't admit it even to myself, so I must distort my perception of reality to rationalize my hatred: I disintegrate my thoughts from the reality. Sin ultimately makes long-term gratitude or friendship or meaning impossible. Sin eventually destroys my capacity even for enjoyment, let alone meaning. It distorts my perceptions, alienates my relationships, inflames my desires, and enslaves my will. This is what it means to lose your soul. — John Ortberg

For much of our lives, we live in the shallows. Then something happens - a crisis, a birth, a death - and we get this glimpse of tremendous depth. My soul becomes shallow when my interests and thoughts go no further than myself. A person should be deep because life itself is deep. — John Ortberg

The soul seeks God with its whole being. Because it is desperate to be whole, the soul is God-smitten and God-crazy and God-obsessed. My mind may be obsessed with idols; my will may be enslaved to habits; my body may be consumed with appetites. But my soul will never find rest until it rests in God. — John Ortberg

People who live with largeness of soul are occupied by large problems. — John Ortberg

Learning something new is a fabulous way to be refreshed. When work can grind you down, something about learning a new activity thrills the soul. It reminds you that the world is bigger than your desk and your to-do list. — John Ortberg

A very simple way to guard your soul is to ask yourself, Will this situation block my soul's connection to God? — John Ortberg

A deep soul lives in conscious awareness of eternity, not simply today. — John Ortberg

Every day. I wrote Dallas's words on a piece of paper, and they hang above my office door: "Arrange your days so that you experience total contentment, joy, and confidence in your everyday life with God." They are the first words I see every morning when I come to work. The stream is your soul. And you are the Keeper. — John Ortberg

The reason our souls hunger so is that the life we could be living so far exceeds our strangest dreams. — John Ortberg

The soul without God for eternity is in an abyss. — John Ortberg

sin always causes the disintegration of the soul. — John Ortberg

The psalmist says "I have set the LORD always before me." Paul says, "We take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ." They speak to the need for our souls to be completely and thoroughly with God. But as both of these verses suggest, it does not happen automatically. "Set" and "take captive" are active verbs, implying that you have a role in determining where your soul rests. — John Ortberg

The soul is both the most fragile and most resilient thing about you; a healthy soul is what holds you together when your world falls apart. Since you will carry your soul into eternity, it's worth checking up on it at least as often as your teeth. — John Ortberg

When the soul is understood and attended to, we can be liberated from hurry, preoccupation, unsatisfied desires, and chronic discontent. — John Ortberg

The soul is hidden in God's creating hand: 'In his hand is the soul of every living thing' " (Job 12:10). — John Ortberg

As Parker Palmer puts it, The divided life is a wounded life, and the soul keeps calling us to heal the wound. — John Ortberg

The soul knows a glory that the body cannot rob. In some ways, in some cases, the more the body revolts, the more the soul shines through. People may claim to believe that all you are is your body. But Pat said one time, "The only thing I can depend on with my body is that it will fail me. Somehow my body is mine, but it's not 'me. — John Ortberg

Your soul is what integrates your will (your intentions), your mind (your thoughts and feelings, your values and conscience), and your body (your face, body language, and actions) into a single life. A soul is healthy - well-ordered - when there is harmony between these three entities and God's intent for all creation. When you are connected with God and other people in life, you have a healthy soul. — John Ortberg

The practices that once fed my soul feed it no more. John of the Cross, writing from his prison cell, says in the dark night the soul is pained but not hopeless. God's love is not content to leave us in our weakness, and for this reason he takes us into a dark night. He weans us from all of the pleasures by giving us dry times and inward darkness ... No soul will ever grow deep in the spiritual life unless God works passively in that soul by means of the dark night. — John Ortberg