Larry Osborne > Quotes

“Fortunately, there’s a way to lessen the impact of spiritual amnesia. It’s found in practicing the discipline of gratitude, the habit of regularly giving thanks for all God has done. It’s such a powerful preventive that God actually commands us to give thanks in every circumstance.4 It’s not that God needs the praise. It’s that we need the reminder.”
― Larry Osborne, Thriving in Babylon: Why Hope, Humility, and Wisdom Matter in a Godless Culture

“But success and failure reveal nothing about our spirituality.”
― Larry Osborne, A Contrarian's Guide to Knowing God: Spirituality for the Rest of Us

“Today we place lots of emphasis on increasing racial diversity in our churches. That’s a good thing. It’s needed. But there’s more to having a genuinely mosaic church than just racial and socioeconomic diversity. We also have to learn to work through the passionate and mutually exclusive opinions that we have in the realms of politics, theology, and ministry priorities. The world is watching to see if our modern-day Simon the Zealots and Matthew the tax collectors can learn to get along for the sake of the Lord Jesus. If not, we shouldn’t be surprised if it no longer listens to us. Jesus warned us that people would have a hard time believing that he was the Son of God and that we were his followers if we couldn’t get along. Whenever we fail to play nice in the sandbox, we give people on the outside good reason to write us off, shake their heads in disgust, and ask, “What kind of Father would have a family like that?”1 BEARING WITH ONE ANOTHER To create and maintain the kind of unity that exalts Jesus as Lord of all, we have to learn what it means to genuinely bear with one another. I fear that for lots of Christians today, bearing with one another is nothing more than a cliché, a verse to be memorized but not a command to obey.2 By definition, bearing with one another is an act of selfless obedience. It means dying to self and overlooking things I’d rather not overlook. It means working out real and deep differences and disagreements. It means offering to others the same grace, mercy, and patience when they are dead wrong as Jesus offers to me when I’m dead wrong. As I’ve said before, I’m not talking about overlooking heresy, embracing a different gospel, or ignoring high-handed sin. But I am talking about agreeing to disagree on matters of substance and things we feel passionate about. If we overlook only the little stuff, we aren’t bearing with one another. We’re just showing common courtesy.”
― Larry Osborne, Accidental Pharisees: Avoiding Pride, Exclusivity, and the Other Dangers of Overzealous Faith

“Our spiritual comparisons are also incredibly biased. We have an amazing ability to compare things in a way that causes us to come out on top. And when we come out on top, it’s hard not to look down on people who don’t measure up.”
― Larry Osborne, Accidental Pharisees: Avoiding Pride, Exclusivity, and the Other Dangers of Overzealous Faith

“Fear and pessimism make no sense when victory is guaranteed.”
― Larry Osborne, Thriving in Babylon: Why Hope, Humility, and Wisdom Matter in a Godless Culture

“Winning or losing is not the right scorecard. Obedience is. When we do the right thing, we’re being faithful. Even if we get the wrong results.”
― Larry Osborne, Thriving in Babylon: Why Hope, Humility, and Wisdom Matter in a Godless Culture

“In the school of life, Trials, Hardship, and Suffering are three classes no one wants to take.”
― Larry Osborne, Thriving in Babylon: Why Hope, Humility, and Wisdom Matter in a Godless Culture

“When we offer forgiveness to those who have no excuse—and for things most of the world would consider unforgivable—we become most like Jesus.”
― Larry Osborne, Ten Dumb Things Smart Christians Believe: Are Urban Legends & Sunday School Myths Ruining Your Faith?

“It’s no different in the spiritual realm. Our failures don’t have to define us. It all depends on how we respond. If we curse our luck, blame others, and fail to take responsibility, we’ll continue to fail. But if we face the facts, accept responsibility, and humbly get back on the right path, our failures can lay the groundwork for future success.”
― Larry Osborne, Thriving in Babylon: Why Hope, Humility, and Wisdom Matter in a Godless Culture

“Trying to follow all the best practices of all best Christians won't make you a better Christian. It might make you a nervous wreck.”
― Larry Osborne, A Contrarian's Guide to Knowing God: Spirituality for the Rest of Us

“We can’t earn our way into God’s favor by meticulously following a moral code — even a biblical one. Our deeds will never be righteous enough. God’s standard of holiness is way beyond our best efforts.”
― Larry Osborne, Accidental Pharisees: Avoiding Pride, Exclusivity, and the Other Dangers of Overzealous Faith

“But it illustrates an important point: A father disciplines his own kids, not someone else’s. It’s the same in the spiritual realm. God’s discipline always begins with those he calls his own. It was true of Israel and it’s true of Christians today.1 Yet for many of us that can be confusing. At times, those who mock him, deny him, or high-handedly sin seem to do so with impunity. We assume God’s judgment should begin with those who do the greatest evil. But it doesn’t. It never has. It begins with us. And that’s been perplexing to God’s people throughout the ages.”
― Larry Osborne, Thriving in Babylon: Why Hope, Humility, and Wisdom Matter in a Godless Culture

“Empowerment without a platform is like responsibility without authority. In too many of our churches, we offer discipleship training and leadership training without providing any significant platform for people to do the things they’ve been trained to do. This is especially true in our larger churches.”
― Larry Osborne, Sticky Church

“When it comes to our unity in Christ, we constantly have choices to make. How will we respond to our brothers and sisters in Christ we wouldn’t have chosen if we had been given the choice — in light of our spiritual unity or in light of our earthly differences? The choice is ours. We can always find a way to get along. We can always find a way to pick a fight. But the choice we make will always have huge ramifications, not only for us but also for all the people we hope to influence and reach for Jesus. They’re not too likely to listen when we’re beating each other up”
― Larry Osborne, Accidental Pharisees: Avoiding Pride, Exclusivity, and the Other Dangers of Overzealous Faith

“But there is something worse than settling for mediocrity. It’s exclusivity. It’s the temptation to up the ante and to raise the bar of discipleship so high that it disqualifies all but the most committed, and thus thins the herd that Jesus came to expand.”
― Larry Osborne, Accidental Pharisees: Avoiding Pride, Exclusivity, and the Other Dangers of Overzealous Faith

“Their faith and trust in God wasn't shown in a buoyant confidence that God would come through. It was shown in the trusting act of obedience—gathering to pray even though they were sure it was a lost cause.”
― Larry Osborne, A Contrarian's Guide to Knowing God: Spirituality for the Rest of Us

“If you don’t have the guts to speak up on the front end, you don’t have the right to complain on the back end. So shut up—and speak up next time.”
― Larry Osborne, Sticky Teams: Keeping Your Leadership Team and Staff on the Same Page

“The tell-tale mark of religion is easy to spot. It's a one-size-fits-all approach to spirituality: “Follow our rules, fulfill our rituals, and God (or the gods) will be pleased and placated.”
― Larry Osborne, A Contrarian's Guide to Knowing God: Spirituality for the Rest of Us

“Before Nancy and I had children of our own, I would have titled a sermon on raising children something like “Ten Rules for Raising Godly Kids.” But birth by birth, the titles changed. The progression went something like this: “Ten Rules for Raising Godly Kids” “Ten Guidelines for Raising Good Kids” “Five Principles for Raising Kids” “Three Suggestions for Surviving Parenthood”
― Larry Osborne, Ten Dumb Things Smart Christians Believe: Are Urban Legends & Sunday School Myths Ruining Your Faith?

“We’re supposed to weep with those who weep. We’re not supposed to smother them with banal truisms, out-of-context Bible verses, shallow advice, and links to our favorite podcasts.”
― Larry Osborne, Thriving in Babylon: Why Hope, Humility, and Wisdom Matter in a Godless Culture

“And then it hit me. Don’t we claim to know how the game of life ends? And if we do, shouldn’t that affect the way we interpret and respond to the Enemy’s short-term victories and temporary advances? If our sins are forgiven and our destiny assured, if we are joint heirs with Jesus and certain he’s coming back to set all wrongs right, then despair and panic over the latest court decision, or even the steady erosion of morality in our culture, hardly seem like appropriate responses.”
― Larry Osborne, Thriving in Babylon: Why Hope, Humility, and Wisdom Matter in a Godless Culture

“We’re called to live a life of hope, humility, and wisdom.”
― Larry Osborne, Thriving in Babylon: Why Hope, Humility, and Wisdom Matter in a Godless Culture

“IS IT A SIN TO BE AVERAGE?”
― Larry Osborne, A Contrarian's Guide to Knowing God: Spirituality for the Rest of Us

“It’s not illegal to pray. We can own a Bible. We can utter Jesus’s name without fear of being tossed into jail or killed. When we refuse to bow down to the idols of our culture we may lose our job. We may lose some friends. But we won’t be thrown into a fiery furnace.”
― Larry Osborne, Thriving in Babylon: Why Hope, Humility, and Wisdom Matter in a Godless Culture

“If you allow your frustration to turn into disgust and disdain for people you’ve left behind, you’ll end up on a dangerous detour. Instead of becoming more like Jesus, you’ll become more like his archenemies, the Pharisees of old, looking down on others, confident in your own righteousness.”
― Larry Osborne, Accidental Pharisees: Avoiding Pride, Exclusivity, and the Other Dangers of Overzealous Faith

“Inevitably, being right will become more important than being kind, gracious, or loving. Thinning the herd will become more important than expanding the kingdom. Unity will take a back seat to uniformity.3”
― Larry Osborne, Accidental Pharisees: Avoiding Pride, Exclusivity, and the Other Dangers of Overzealous Faith

“Unfortunately, for most of us, when we think of having overzealous faith and being a jerk for Jesus, we picture someone with bad breath, bad theology, and no people skills. So it never dawns on us that we could be included.”
― Larry Osborne, Accidental Pharisees: Avoiding Pride, Exclusivity, and the Other Dangers of Overzealous Faith

“The ultimate goal of a sermon-based small group is simply to velcro people to the two things they will need most when faced with a need-to-know or need-to-grow situation: the Bible and other Christians.”
― Larry Osborne, Sticky Church

“In no particular order (since vital signs are all equally vital), the five areas we monitor are: •Word • Worship • Witness • Warmth • Works”
― Larry Osborne, Sticky Church

“There was no getting around it. Whether it was a chronic deceiver like Jacob, a horn-dog like Samson, a never-believe-God-the-first-time warrior like Gideon, or a zealous persecutor like the apostle Paul, God had a way of blessing and using the wrong people.”
― Larry Osborne, A Contrarian's Guide to Knowing God: Spirituality for the Rest of Us