Erwin Raphael McManus > Quotes

“The more isolated and disconnected we are, the more shattered and distorted our self-identity. We are not healthy when we are alone. We find ourselves when we connect to others. Without community we don't know who we are...
When we live outside of healthy community, we not only lose others. We lose ourselves...Who we understand ourselves to be is dramatically affected for better or worse by those we hold closest to us.”
― Erwin McManus

“Love, no matter how you come at it, is a huge risk. It makes it easier for me to remember that God will never reject me because I am not good enough and that any community that has His heart will embrace me as I am. Jesus invites us into a community where imperfect people can find acceptance, love, forgiveness, and a new beginning.”
― Erwin McManus

“Whoever tells the best story shapes the culture.”
― Erwin McManus

“How is it, that for many of us, being a good Christian is nothing more than being a good person? The entire focus of our faith has been the elimination of sin, which is important but inadequate; rather than the unleashing of a unique, original, extraordinary, wonderfully untamed, faith.”
― Erwin McManus

“Would you be willing to give your life to save the world if no one ever knew your name? If anonymity was the price you would have to pay for significance, would it be too great a price? To live a life of courage is not a guarantee of prestige or adulation. It only matters if you live and die fulfilling the mission you were born for.”
― Erwin Raphael McManus

“To create is to reflect the image of God. To create is an act of worship.”
― Erwin Raphael McManus, The Artisan Soul: Crafting Your Life into a Work of Art

“Love never comes without wounds; faith never comes without failure.”
― Erwin Raphael McManus, The Artisan Soul: Crafting Your Life into a Work of Art

“I"m often accused of being irreligious, and I suppose it's for this very reason. Whether it's Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Catholicism, Hinduism, Judaism, or any other ism, when a religioin is created on the subtle premise that God withholds his love and you must submit to the system to earn that love, I consider it the worst of corruptions...
For centuries, the church has been telling us that if we want God to love us, we need to follow the rules. It's been far more important to focus on the sin problem than the love problem.”
― Erwin McManus

“Whether we realize it or not, everything we do is an expression of either how alive our souls are or how much we have allowed ourselves to be deadened over time.”
― Erwin Raphael McManus, The Artisan Soul: Crafting Your Life into a Work of Art

“To be apathetic is literally to be without passion.”
― Erwin Raphael McManus, Uprising: A Revolution of the Soul

“While religions have historically tried to make us the same, Jesus calls us to be different. If you have ever experienced this, you know your soul bristled at the demand to quietly get in line and conform. But something in your gut told you this was wrong. If there was a God, his value would not be uniformity, but uniqueness. And you were right. Imprinted on your soul is the fingerprint of God. There is something inside you that resists surrendering your soul to legalism. The good news is that all that time it wasn't you fighting against God; you were fighting for what God has created you to become.”
― Erwin Raphael McManus, Soul Cravings: An Exploration of the Human Spirit

“True creativity does not come easily; creativity is born of risk and refined from failure.”
― Erwin Raphael McManus, The Artisan Soul: Crafting Your Life into a Work of Art

“Home is ultimately not about a place to live but about the people with whom you are most fully alive. Home is about love, relationship, community, and belonging, and we are all searching for home.”
― Erwin Raphael McManus

“We are all time voyagers leaving history in our wake, pioneering into the future.”
― Erwin Raphael McManus, Chasing Daylight: Seize the Power of Every Moment

“We can become so afraid of death that we never live, so afraid of failure that we never risk, so afraid of pain that we never discover how strong we really are.”
― Erwin Raphael McManus, The Last Arrow: Save Nothing for the Next Life

“The first and most important step in the process of becoming genuinely is to be once again authenticated by the original designer.”
― Erwin Raphael McManus, Uprising: A Revolution of the Soul

“There is no proof of creativity without action.”
― Erwin Raphael McManus, The Artisan Soul: Crafting Your Life into a Work of Art

“Average is always a safe choice, and it is the most dangerous choice you can make.”
― Erwin Raphael McManus, The Last Arrow: Save Nothing for the Next Life

“What is your idea of you? Who is it that you have decided to become? If your greatest work of art is the life you live, and ultimately life is a creative act, what life will you choose to leave behind as your masterpiece?”
― Erwin Raphael McManus, The Artisan Soul: Crafting Your Life into a Work of Art

“Artists love without reservation. They give their hearts completely and leave nothing on the table. They are naked and unashamed. They leave no room for pretension. And because they have given all of themselves, they live without regret.”
― Erwin Raphael McManus, The Artisan Soul: Crafting Your Life into a Work of Art

“It is not balance you need but adaptability.”
― Erwin Raphael McManus

“Attitude is an accurate monitor of where we fall on the spectrum of pride and humility.”
― Erwin Raphael McManus, Uprising: A Revolution of the Soul

“When calling for authenticity, we need to take seriously the brokenness and sinfulness of the human heart. If to be authentic means to be who we really are or to express what we really feel, then in most cases I’m going to vote for hypocrisy. Our prisons are filled with men and women who acted on their feelings and impulses. If authenticity is about being true to yourself, these individuals should be our models of inspiration.”
― Erwin Raphael McManus, Uprising: A Revolution of the Soul

“Jesus’s early followers formed a movement of dreamers and visionaries.”
― Erwin Raphael McManus, The Artisan Soul: Crafting Your Life into a Work of Art

“the only art we can create is that which authentically reflects who we are. Our soul is the material for all we create. Thus, to nurture the artisan soul, essence is far more important than talent.”
― Erwin Raphael McManus, The Artisan Soul: Crafting Your Life into a Work of Art

“Frankly, the people who whine the most about how hard their lives are have very rarely experienced much to be disappointed about. They seem to find solace in their most negative memories, using these as a blank check that abdicates them from all personal responsibility. “I am how I am because of the pain of my past. If you had experienced what I have experienced, you would understand my bitterness, my anger, my paralysis, my despair.”
― Erwin Raphael McManus, The Artisan Soul: Crafting Your Life into a Work of Art

“Within the universe’s intention and its unique design around relationship, we find that the focal point of the universe, the motive of the universe, is love. God created life so that we could know love. Everything God does is an expression of his love. It is neither trite nor superficial that the Scriptures summarize this in three simple words: “God is love.” It is critical to understand this because, if we are to reclaim our role in the creative process and express our lives as masterful works of art, we, too, must be sure that our motivation is the expansion of love.”
― Erwin Raphael McManus, The Artisan Soul: Crafting Your Life into a Work of Art

“The life of faith is less about gathering information than it is about expanding imagination. The movement Jesus started was a movement of dreamers and visionaries, not a movement of academics and theologians.”
― Erwin Raphael McManus, The Artisan Soul: Crafting Your Life into a Work of Art

“When we are passionate about God, we can trust our passions.”
― Erwin Raphael McManus, Chasing Daylight: Seize the Power of Every Moment

“Far too often, when we think we are frightened by mystery, the fact is that we are haunted by history.”
― Erwin Raphael McManus, The Artisan Soul: Crafting Your Life into a Work of Art