Jon Bloom > Quotes

“Learning to rest in the promises of God occurs in the crucible of wrestling with unbelief—seasons, sometimes long seasons, when everything hangs on believing that God “gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things”
― Jon Bloom, Things Not Seen: A Fresh Look at Old Stories of Trusting God's Promises

“In fact, if we do what our hearts tell us to do, we will pervert and impoverish every desire, every beauty, every person, every wonder, every joy. Our hearts want to consume these things for our own self-glory and self-indulgence. No, our hearts will not save us. We need to be saved from our hearts.”
― Jon Bloom, Don't Follow Your Heart: God's Ways Are Not Your Ways

“Sometimes, in your battle with unbelief, your greatest ally will wrestle you—he might even make you limp—until you’re desperate enough to say, 'I will not let you go unless you bless me.' It is a great mercy to be brought to the point where you’re desperate enough to insist on what you need the most.”
― Jon Bloom, Things Not Seen: A Fresh Look at Old Stories of Trusting God's Promises

“But don’t place your hope on time. Let Jesus mind the time, and you mind his faithfulness. He’s never yet broken a promise. He will answer you.”
― Jon Bloom, Things Not Seen: A Fresh Look at Old Stories of Trusting God's Promises

“We are not to lean on conclusions we deduce primarily from our perceptions. In this sense, our own understanding simply will not bear the full weight of reality. It was never intended to.”
― Jon Bloom, Don't Follow Your Heart: God's Ways Are Not Your Ways

“God’s grace is more clearly seen and more deeply savored in our weaknesses than in our strengths.”
― Jon Bloom, Not by Sight: A Fresh Look at Old Stories of Walking by Faith

“You are your truest you not when you are analyzing yourself or measuring yourself against someone else. You are your truest you when your eyes are fixed on Jesus (Heb. 12:2), when you are following him in faith, and when you are serving others in love with the grace-gifts God has assigned to you”
― Jon Bloom, Things Not Seen: A Fresh Look at Old Stories of Trusting God's Promises

“real freedom is not liberty to do what we want or the absence of distress. Real freedom is the deep-seated confidence that God really will provide everything we need. The person who believes this is the freest of all persons on earth, because no matter what situation he finds himself in, he has nothing to fear. ”
― Jon Bloom, Not by Sight: A Fresh Look at Old Stories of Walking by Faith

“It is not as important to God that we understand his purposes in a particular providence as it is that we trust in his character.”
― Jon Bloom, Not by Sight: A Fresh Look at Old Stories of Walking by Faith

“We are never more vulnerable to sin than when we are successful, admired by others, and prosperous, as King David tragically discovered.”
― Jon Bloom, Not by Sight: A Fresh Look at Old Stories of Walking by Faith

“Our role is not our reward, Jesus is. Roles will begin and they will end. The only way for us to end well is to have our hearts recalibrated. Jesus must increase and we must decrease. What rises in your heart at the thought of Jesus giving another person a more prominent role in his Wedding? How much do you long to have a more prominent role? How well are you prepared to let go of the role he has given you? What if he gives another your role? In our individual and temporary earthly roles, the Wedding is not about us. It’s about Jesus and his bride. And we should never compete with the Bridegroom for the bride’s attention and affection.”
― Jon Bloom, Things Not Seen: A Fresh Look at Old Stories of Trusting God's Promises

“When the blessed Lord grants one a role to play, one must perform it faithfully, but never grasp it. The role is not the reward. The Lord is the reward.”
― Jon Bloom, Things Not Seen: A Fresh Look at Old Stories of Trusting God's Promises

“Don’t let affluence make you impoverished of God.”
― Jon Bloom

“The truth is noone lies to us more than our own hearts. No one. If our hearts are compasses, they are Jack Sparrow compasses. They dont tell us the thruth; they just tell us want we want.”
― Jon Bloom, Don't Follow Your Heart: God's Ways Are Not Your Ways

“we will love God to the degree that we recognize the magnitude of our sins and the immensity of God’s grace to forgive them.”
― Jon Bloom, Not by Sight: A Fresh Look at Old Stories of Walking by Faith

“WE ALL WANT TO finish well, but so many of us do not. Why? Because we too easily cherish our roles in the Great Wedding more than the Wedding itself.”
― Jon Bloom, Things Not Seen: A Fresh Look at Old Stories of Trusting God's Promises

“Emotions aren't imperatives; they're not your boss. They're indicatives; they're reports. Thats why Paul wrote, " Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions; Roms 6:12”
― Jon Bloom, Don't Follow Your Heart: God's Ways Are Not Your Ways

“Though Christians are accused of holding bigoted and inhumane beliefs about sexuality, this is not true. Our view of sexuality is rooted not in fear or self-righteous prudery. It is rooted in our high view of human dignity as God’s image-bearers. That’s why we do not believe that sexuality defines humanity, nor do we believe humanity defines sexuality. Being human, and thus made in the likeness of God, is so noble a thing that God alone reserves the right to confer the definition of our true personhood. We do not say with Lady Gaga, “I’m beautiful in my way.” We say, “I am beautiful in God’s way.” To the degree that we abandon God’s way, we abandon our beauty.”
― Jon Bloom

“The prayers we weave into the matching of the socks, the working of our hands, the toiling of the hours, they survive fire. It’s the things unseen that survive fire. Love. Relationship. Worship. Prayer. Communion. All Things Unseen—and Centered in Christ. It doesn’t matter so much what we leave unaccomplished—but that our priority was things unseen. Again, today, that’s always the call: slay the idol of the seen. Slay the idol of focusing on only what can be seen, lauded, noticed. Today, a thousand times again today, I will preach His truth to this soul prone to wander, that wants nothing more than the gracious smile of our Father: “Unseen. Things Unseen. Invest in Things Unseen. The Unexpected Priority is always Things Unseen. ” “Pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret . . .” (Matt. 6:6 NIV). “For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal” (2 Cor. 4:18). It’s the things unseen that are the most important things. Though the seen product of the baskets may have gone up in a flame of smoke, it”
― Jon Bloom, Things Not Seen: A Fresh Look at Old Stories of Trusting God's Promises

“Don't follow your heart. God did not design our hearts to be followed, but to be led.”
― Jon Bloom

“Real freedom is the deep-seated confidence that God really will provide everything we need.”
― Jon Bloom, Not by Sight: A Fresh Look at Old Stories of Walking by Faith

“Prosperity obscures rather than reveals how much fallen humans love God. "Blessings" easily turn into curses as sinners subtly ( or not so subtly) come to love and trust the blessings more than the bless-er.”
― Jon Bloom

“Jesus’s discipline for you, however severe (and it is severe at times), is not God’s wrath against you. If you are tempted to believe that, don’t. It’s your unbelief or the Enemy talking to you. When Jesus became sin for you (2 Cor. 5:21), he removed all of sin’s condemnation from you (Rom. 8:1).
No, discipline is training. Training in what? Training in righteousness (2 Tim. 3:16). The unique training course that Jesus has designed for you (he designs a unique course for each disciple) has one great aim: to teach you to trust him in everything. That’s his goal for you. Jesus wants you to learn to trust in him in all things at all times. For the more you trust Jesus, the holier you become...
Jesus really does desire your comfort. He desires it more than you do. He so desires your ultimate comfort that he will make you very uncomfortable in order to give it to you.
He wants to give you the true comfort of learning to fear only God, so he will give you the discomfort of facing your false fears.
He wants to give you the true comfort of resting secure in the promises of God, so he will give you the discomfort of living with apparent uncertainty.
He wants to give you the true comfort of sharing his humility (Phil. 2:3–5), so he will give you the discomfort of opposing your pride.
He wants to give you the true comfort and joy of worshiping God alone, so he will take the painful whip of discipline into the temple of your heart to clear out the idolatrous merchants. And therefore your experience is this: “For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it” (Heb. 12:11).”
― Jon Bloom, Don't Follow Your Heart: God's Ways Are Not Your Ways

“There is a pattern in the design of deprivation: deprivation draws out desire. Absence heightens desire. And the more heightened the desire, the greater its satisfaction will be. It is the mourning who will know the joy of comfort (Matt. 5:4). It is the hungry and thirsty who will be satisfied (Matt. 5:6). Longing makes us ask, emptiness makes us seek, silence makes us knock (Luke 11:9).
Deprivation is in the design of this age. We live mainly in the age of anticipation, not gratification. We live in the dim-mirror age, not the face-to-face age (1 Cor. 13:12). The paradox is that what satisfies us most in this age is not what we receive, but what we are promised. The chase is better than the catch in this age because the catch we’re designed to be satisfied with is in the age to come”
― Jon Bloom, Don't Follow Your Heart: God's Ways Are Not Your Ways

“There is a pattern in the design of deprivation: deprivation draws out desire. Absence heightens desire. And the more heightened the desire, the greater its satisfaction will be. It is the mourning who will know the joy of comfort (Matt. 5:4). It is the hungry and thirsty who will be satisfied (Matt. 5:6). Longing makes us ask, emptiness makes us seek, silence makes us knock (Luke 11:9).
Deprivation is in the design of this age. We live mainly in the age of anticipation, not gratification. We live in the dim-mirror age, not the face-to-face age (1 Cor. 13:12). The paradox is that what satisfies us most
in this age is not what we receive, but what we are promised. The chase is better than the catch in this age because the catch we’re designed to be satisfied with is in the age to come”
― Jon Bloom, Don't Follow Your Heart: God's Ways Are Not Your Ways

“Most of the greatest gifts and deepest joys that God gives us come wrapped in painful packages.”
― Jon Bloom, Don't Follow Your Heart: God's Ways Are Not Your Ways

“There is a pattern in the design of deprivation: deprivation draws out desire. Absence heightens desire. And the more heightened the desire, the greater its satisfaction will be. It is the mourning who will know the joy of comfort (Matt. 5:4). It is the hungry and thirsty who will be satisfied (Matt. 5:6). Longing makes us ask, emptiness makes us seek, silence makes us knock (Luke 11:9).
Deprivation is in the design of this age. We live mainly in the age of anticipation, not gratification. We live in the dim-mirror age, not the face-to-face age (1 Cor. 13:12). The paradox is that what satisfies us most in this age is not what we receive, but what we are promised. The chase is better than the catch in this age because the catch we’re designed to be satisfied with is in the age to come.”
― Jon Bloom, Don't Follow Your Heart: God's Ways Are Not Your Ways

“If we ask God for greater, deeper love for him, what should we expect to receive? Answers that give us a greater awareness of our deep and pervasive sinful depravity, because those who are forgiven much, love
much, but those who are forgiven little, love little (Luke 7:47).”
― Jon Bloom, Don't Follow Your Heart: God's Ways Are Not Your Ways

“Jesus’s discipline for you, however severe (and it is severe at times), is not God’s wrath against you. If you are tempted to believe that, don’t. It’s your unbelief or the Enemy talking to you. When Jesus became sin for you (2 Cor. 5:21), he removed all of sin’s condemnation from you (Rom. 8:1).
No, discipline is training. Training in what? Training in righteousness (2 Tim. 3:16). The unique training course that Jesus has designed for you (he designs a unique course for each disciple) has one great aim: to teach you to trust him in everything. That’s his goal for you. Jesus wants you to learn to trust in him in all things at all times. For the more you trust Jesus, the holier you become.”
― Jon Bloom, Don't Follow Your Heart: God's Ways Are Not Your Ways

“There is a pattern in the design of deprivation: deprivation draws out desire. Absence heightens desire. And the more heightened the desire, the greater its satisfaction will be. It is the mourning who will know the joy of comfort (Matt. 5:4). It is the hungry and thirsty who will be satisfied (Matt. 5:6). Longing makes us ask, emptiness makes us seek, silence makes us knock (Luke 11:9).
Deprivation is in the design of this age. We live mainly in the age of anticipation, not gratification. We live in the dim-mirror age, not the face-to-face age (1 Cor. 13:12). The paradox is that what satisfies us most in this age is not what we receive, but what we are promised. The chase is better than the catch in this age because the catch we’re designed to be satisfied with is in the age to come...
If desire is to earth what sight is to heaven, then God answers our prayer with more desire. It’s the desert that awakens and sustains desire. It’s the desert that dries up our infatuation with worldliness. And it’s the
desert that draws us to the well of the world to come.”
― Jon Bloom, Don't Follow Your Heart: God's Ways Are Not Your Ways