Jim Cymbala > Quotes

“God is more powerful than anybody's past, no matter how wretched. He can make us forget - not by erasing the memory but by taking the sting and paralyzing effect out of it”
― Jim Cymbala

“It may not seem obvious at first glance, but the way we make decisions in life tells a lot about the kind of faith we have in Jesus Christ. ”
― Jim Cymbala, Fresh Faith: What Happens When Real Faith Ignites God's People

“No matter what I preach or what we claim to believe in our heads, the future will depend upon our times of prayer.”
― Jim Cymbala, Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire

“Jesus called fishermen, not graduates of rabbinical schools. The main requirement was to be natural and sincere.”
― Jim Cymbala, Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire

“I have since learned that the most mature believer is the one who is bent over, leaning most heavily on the Lord, and admitting his total inability to do anything without Christ. The greatest Christian is not the one who has achieved the most but rather the one who has received the most.”
― Jim Cymbala, Fresh Faith: What Happens When Real Faith Ignites God's People

“I discovered an astonishing truth: God is attracted to weakness. He can’t resist those who humbly and honestly admit how desperately they need him. Our weakness, in fact, makes room for his power.”
― Jim Cymbala, Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire: What Happens When God's Spirit Invades the Heart of His People

“I despaired at the thought that my life might slip by without seeing God show himself mightily on our behalf.”
― Jim Cymbala, Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire

“The old saying is true: If you have only the Word, you dry up. If you have only the Spirit, you blow up. But if you have both, you grow up.”
― Jim Cymbala, Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire: What Happens When God's Spirit Invades the Heart of His People

“Faith never denies reality but leaves room for God to grant a new reality.”
― Jim Cymbala

“If we desire the “hand of God” (i.e., his power) to return to our churches, we should focus less on the personalities and abilities of people, and more on Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit.”
― Jim Cymbala, Storm: Hearing Jesus for the Times We Live In

“Am I the only one who gets embarrassed when religious leaders in America talk about having prayer in public schools? We don’t have even that much prayer in many churches! Out of humility, you would think we would keep quiet on that particular subject until we practice what we preach in our own congregations.”
― Jim Cymbala, Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire: What Happens When God's Spirit Invades the Heart of His People

“Instead of trying to bring men and women to Christ in the biblical way, we are consumed with the unbiblical concept of “church growth.” The Bible does not say we should aim at numbers but rather urges us faithfully to proclaim God’s message in the boldness of the Holy Spirit. This will build God’s church God’s way.”
― Jim Cymbala, Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire: What Happens When God's Spirit Invades the Heart of His People

“Charles Haddon Spurgeon, the great British pulpiteer, had said in a sermon almost exactly a hundred years before: The condition of the church may be very accurately gauged by its prayer meetings. So is the prayer meeting a grace-ometer, and from it we may judge of the amount of divine working among a people. If God be near a church, it must pray. And if he be not there, one of the first tokens of his absence will be a slothfulness in prayer.1”
― Jim Cymbala, Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire: What Happens When God's Spirit Invades the Heart of His People

“Can you imagine someone handing Peter a microphone on Sunday morning and whispering, “Okay, now, you’ve got twenty minutes. We have to get the people out of here promptly because the chariot races start at one o’clock”?”
― Jim Cymbala, Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire: What Happens When God's Spirit Invades the Heart of His People

“We like to control the map of our life and know everything well in advance. But faith is content just knowing that God's promise cannot fail. This, in fact, is the excitement of walking with God.”
― Jim Cymbala, Fresh Faith: What Happens When Real Faith Ignites God's People

“Why do the greatest miracle stories seem to come from mission fields, either overseas or among the destitute here at home (the Teen Challenge outreach to drug addicts, for example)? Because the need is there. Christians are taking their sound doctrine and extending it to lives in chaos, which is what God has called us all to do. Without this extension of compassion it is all too easy for Bible teachers and authors to grow haughty. We become proud of what we know. We are so impressed with our doctrinal orderliness that we become intellectually arrogant. We have the rules and theories all figured out while the rest of the world is befuddled and confused about God’s truth … poor souls.”
― Jim Cymbala, Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire: What Happens When God's Spirit Invades the Heart of His People

“The Scriptures are not so much the goal as they are an arrow that points us to the life-changing Christ”
― Jim Cymbala, Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire: What Happens When God's Spirit Invades the Heart of His People

“Carol and I have found that unless God baptizes us with fresh outpourings of love, we would leave New York City yesterday! We don’t live in this crowded, ill-mannered, violent city because we like it. Whenever I meet or read about a guy who has sexually abused a little girl, I’m tempted in my flesh to throw him out a fifth-story window. This isn’t an easy place for love to flourish. But Christ died for that man. What could ever change him? What could ever replace the lust and violence in his heart? He isn’t likely to read the theological commentaries on my bookshelves. He desperately needs to be surprised by the power of a loving, almighty God. If the Spirit is not keeping my heart in line with my doctrine, something crucial is missing. I can affirm the existence of Jesus Christ all I want, but in order to be effective, he must come alive in my life in a way that even the pedophile, the prostitute, and the pusher can see.”
― Jim Cymbala, Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire: What Happens When God's Spirit Invades the Heart of His People

“According to 1 Corinthians 14, if meetings are governed by the Holy Spirit, the result for the visitor will be that “the secrets of his heart will be laid bare. So he will fall down and worship God, exclaiming, ‘God is really among you!’” (v. 25). This should be our goal. When a visitor comes in, there should be such a mixture of God’s truth and God’s presence that the person’s heart is x-rayed, the futility of his life is exposed, and he crumbles in repentance.”
― Jim Cymbala, Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire: What Happens When God's Spirit Invades the Heart of His People

“In too many churches today, people don’t see manifestations of God’s power in answer to fervent praying. Instead, they hear arguments about theological issues that few people care about. On Christian radio and television we are often merely talking to ourselves.”
― Jim Cymbala, Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire: What Happens When God's Spirit Invades the Heart of His People

“love always desires to bless the object of its affection.”
― Jim Cymbala, Breakthrough Prayer: The Secret of Receiving What You Need from God

“If we want that power to quicken our friends who are dead in sin, we must look to God, and not be looking to man to do it. If we look alone to ministers, if we look alone to Christ’s disciples to do this work, we shall be disappointed. If we look to the Spirit of God and expect it to come from Him and Him alone, then we shall honor the Spirit, and the Spirit will do”
― Jim Cymbala, Fresh Power: What Happens When God Leads and You Follow

“In the church today, we are falling prey to the appeal of “New!” The old truths of the gospel don’t seem spectacular enough. We’re restless for the latest, greatest, newest teaching or technique. We pastors in particular seem to search for a shortcut or some dynamic new strategy that will fire up our churches.”
― Jim Cymbala, Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire: What Happens When God's Spirit Invades the Heart of His People

“The message of the cross will always be foolishness to some, a stumbling block to others. But if our attention is on the market reaction, we move away from the power of the gospel. This fearfulness to talk about the blood of Christ is an overreaction. Worse than that, it borders on heresy, distorting and deflating the power of the Good News.”
― Jim Cymbala, Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire: What Happens When God's Spirit Invades the Heart of His People

“If you are paralyzed by your past, if Satan is destroying your gifts and your calling by his incessant replaying of old tapes, you're actually being hit by a double whammy. The original damage in the past is one thing - but now you're letting yourself be hurt and sidetracked again by the memory of what happened... We should not be ignorant of Satan's devices, and these ugly memories are one of the main weapons in his arsenal.”
― Jim Cymbala, Fresh Faith: What Happens When Real Faith Ignites God's People

“Faith deals with the invisible things of God. It refuses to be ruled by the physical senses. Faith is able to say, 'You can do what you like, because I know God is going to take care of me. He has promised to bless me wherever he leads me.' Remember that even when every demon in hell stands against us, the God of Abraham remains faithful to all his promises. Jesus Christ can do anything but fail his own people who trust him.”
― Jim Cymbala, Fresh Faith: What Happens When Real Faith Ignites God's People

“As Christians, we have had growing political involvement over the last forty years, but does anyone really believe that the Republicans, Democrats, White House, Supreme Court, or Congress will transform even one human heart? Are these civil servants supposed to be light and salt, or is that the task of the church of Jesus Christ? Unless there is a new heart, there won’t be a new person. Unless people are changed, we can’t have a transformed society, no matter who’s in charge.”
― Jim Cymbala, Storm: Hearing Jesus for the Times We Live In

“Does anyone really think that America today is lacking preachers, books, Bible translations, and neat doctrinal statements? What we really lack is the passion to call upon the Lord until he opens the heavens and shows himself powerful.”
― Jim Cymbala, Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire: What Happens When God's Spirit Invades the Heart of His People

“The more we pray, the more we sense our need to pray. And the more we sense a need to pray, the more we want to pray. C”
― Jim Cymbala, Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire: What Happens When God's Spirit Invades the Heart of His People

“...God is not dead; he really does communicate today. He's interested in every part of your life, your home, your finances, every kind of decision - and more than just the moral issues. His eye is always on you. He wants to lead you. But you have to believe that he will indeed speak to you when you wait before him in believing prayer, with a yielded heart to do his will.”
― Jim Cymbala, Fresh Faith: What Happens When Real Faith Ignites God's People