Lisa Whittle > Quotes

“There is no one safer than Jesus. No worry of betrayal, no worry He will turn His back and walk away. He’s never told a thing I’ve told Him. He’s never been absent when I needed Him most.”
― Lisa Whittle, Jesus Over Everything: Uncomplicating the Daily Struggle to Put Jesus First

“Any of us who have become less than who God created us to be are not really who we are.”
― Lisa Whittle , Jesus Over Everything: Uncomplicating the Daily Struggle to Put Jesus First

“Too often the unfinished us is blind to what the Spirit-shaped us can be over time. Lies have felt true, damning, and permanent. We aren’t weak for falling for them. We are human. But we need to put the truth of Jesus over them now.”
― Lisa Whittle, Jesus Over Everything: Uncomplicating the Daily Struggle to Put Jesus First

“I remember what it feels like to come with open hands and heart and I am, again, awed by the Story of in the beginning, water into wine, love held by nails, the veil torn, resurrected life. He is real, more real than anything I will ever see with my eyes, hear with my ears, or touch with my hands.”
― Lisa Whittle, I Want God: Forever Changed by the Revival of Your Soul

“Until the desire for healing became greater than the fear of being honest, you weren't going anywhere.”
― Lisa Whittle, Jesus Over Everything: Uncomplicating the Daily Struggle to Put Jesus First

“Here’s what I hope will be a helpful distinction, in case you feel like hanging on right now is the best you’ve got: holding on versus hanging on. You can do better than simply hanging on. Holding on in the spiritual life is clinging to a stable place and being held in return. It is placing our lives on that big Hook that won’t disappoint us (a very rough paraphrase of Romans 5:5). So, unlike simply hanging on, we aren’t left to dangle in reliance on arms made of flesh. We are gripped by supernatural arms of immeasurable strength. In hard moments each decision in these three areas of body, mind, and soul will mark you for well beyond that day. It is a showing-up versus shutting-down decision that determines who you become. The showing up may be harder at first, but in the end it will be the richest good—you will be the most well you have ever been.”
― Lisa Whittle, The Hard Good: Showing Up for God to Work in You When You Want to Shut Down

“Wanting to exercise your gifts is not self-serving. Wanting people to love you because of it is.”
― Lisa Whittle, Jesus Over Everything: Uncomplicating the Daily Struggle to Put Jesus First

“Nothing bad ever comes from the light.”
― Lisa Whittle, Jesus Over Everything: Uncomplicating the Daily Struggle to Put Jesus First

“It didn’t take me long to realize that alcohol never brought me one good thing. It was attached to every compromising choice I made in college. It never made me a better person. It never moved me closer to Jesus. It never made me feel like I was strong. It never nurtured my soul. It never made me feel real and true. It never held me for the long haul. It never brought out my best. I hated it, and I thought I needed it at the same time.”
― Lisa Whittle, Jesus Over Everything: Uncomplicating the Daily Struggle to Put Jesus First

“If we trust a perfect God, we will trust that His version of us is the best version, and we will want none of the subtracted version we have become.”
― Lisa Whittle, Jesus Over Everything: Uncomplicating the Daily Struggle to Put Jesus First

“Love is stronger than fear, betrayal, anger, resentment, doubt, disappointment, and, yes, judgement because we chose God and God is love- the ultimate love. When someone is unloveable and we love that person anyway, we are showing God. This is what being a Jesus follower means. We may think loving someone is about them. But, ultimately it's about Him. Our behavior flows from there.”
― Lisa Whittle , Jesus Over Everything: Uncomplicating the Daily Struggle to Put Jesus First

“Love is the gift that frees us from the death of never truly living. It helps us live lighter, kinder, wiser, fuller, not only to other but also to ourselves. Judgement is the easy go-to when we have shut ourselves off from love for too long. Jesus didn't stop at saying that judging others is an unspiritual way to live. He showed us with His own life how to choose the superior way to live. He showed us with His own life how to choose the superior path of love. Judgement is a soul cancer-it attacks us from the inside and eats away at our ability to live strong lives. Love is the antidote for that.”
― Lisa Whittle, Jesus Over Everything: Uncomplicating the Daily Struggle to Put Jesus First

“Wisdom is not about never apologizing. It’s about sincere apology when it’s right.”
― Lisa Whittle, Jesus Over Everything: Uncomplicating the Daily Struggle to Put Jesus First

“The true success of a person is not in whether she can make her life work; it’s in whether she can die to her life enough for Jesus to work in her. When hard times come, how much we’ve practiced this principle will show.”
― Lisa Whittle, Jesus Over Everything: Uncomplicating the Daily Struggle to Put Jesus First

“Craving the attention of man produces in us a desire to stay concerned with our own interests over the hurts of the world. God is not in that.”
― Lisa Whittle, Jesus Over Everything: Uncomplicating the Daily Struggle to Put Jesus First

“world is full of passive bystanders to injustice and immorality—watching us wreck our lives as we go down dangerous moral and mental roads without someone to love us enough to help us by saying, “That’s not the best place for you to be,” or “That could affect your family, so why do it?” or “That’s not who you really are, so don’t waste your life playing around with something that will hurt you.” We are so afraid not to offend; we don’t want to say anything, and we don’t know how to do it without bringing far more flesh than Jesus into it because (brace yourself for an ouch) we have a lazy relationship with the Holy Spirit. At the core of it all is self-interest. We often do not get involved, not because we care about honoring others’ independence but because we care about preserving ourselves.”
― Lisa Whittle, Jesus Over Everything: Uncomplicating the Daily Struggle to Put Jesus First

“We are born homesick, every one of us. We who live in this fractured world have eternity written on our hearts; we are longing to be home and are digging the tent pegs of our lives in as deep as we can get them until we arrive on eternity’s shores.”
― Lisa Whittle, Jesus Over Everything: Uncomplicating the Daily Struggle to Put Jesus First

“Part of healing, I've found, is learning exactly how to eat the elephant in front of you instead of living in fear it will trample you down.”
― Lisa Whittle, Jesus Over Everything: Uncomplicating the Daily Struggle to Put Jesus First

“We spend more time figuring out how to hide our hide our truth than we do how to heal it. The hiding may buy us some time the momentary pain the truth brings, but it does a crazy amount more damage.”
― Lisa Whittle, Jesus Over Everything: Uncomplicating the Daily Struggle to Put Jesus First

“We have nothing to do with God’s gift of salvation and everything to do with the acceptance of it and the ongoing process of growing our faith. And yet in that there is choice and free will. The promise of eternity does not waver based on our poor decisions after salvation, but the keeping of our minds, bodies, and souls is a choice-by-choice partnership with Christ. My pastor, Jay Stewart, recently spoke something powerful and profound over us one Sunday that crystallizes this point: “What’s better—to be able to say, ‘I am forgiven and saved’ or ‘I have become like Christ?’” We can get technical about this and argue about how salvation is the most important thing, and on the core premise, I will agree. Nothing matters if we don’t first choose to follow Christ. But to rest on our status of heaven-bound rather than pursue holiness and sanctification (the process of becoming like Christ) exposes our desire for a lazy faith. God’s plan is not for us to accept salvation and sit with it. It is for us to share its miracle with the world.”
― Lisa Whittle, Jesus Over Everything: Uncomplicating the Daily Struggle to Put Jesus First

“And I think about this life—how it rusts. How it collects dusts. How people steal from us. How when we are gone, there’s nothing here we miss, and our stuff is relegated to trash bins and auctions. How so much in our lives is precious yet how much of it is rubble and ash. But in both God remains. How it’s all His. How we’re all His. Jesus over everything. From Genesis 1 until the end.”
― Lisa Whittle, Jesus Over Everything: Uncomplicating the Daily Struggle to Put Jesus First

“Real is what changes people. It is what makes them decide they are willing to give Jesus a try. Real is what makes a story preach us a lifestyle sermon that sticks. Real heals us on a day that everything seems too perfect for us to fit in.”
― Lisa Whittle, Jesus Over Everything: Uncomplicating the Daily Struggle to Put Jesus First

“It is always the love that calms the most afraid, draws in the skeptics, brings back the prodigals, and changes the hardest hearts. Judgement can never do that.”
― Lisa Whittle

“Real over pretty. Love over judgment. Holiness over freedom. Service over spotlight. Steady over hype. Wisdom over knowledge. Honesty over hiding. Commitment over mood.”
― Lisa Whittle, Jesus Over Everything: Uncomplicating the Daily Struggle to Put Jesus First

“Lies, especially the ones you want to believe , can be convincing.”
― Lisa Whittle, Jesus Over Everything: Uncomplicating the Daily Struggle to Put Jesus First

“It is hard to accept something we wish were different. But when we do, we exchange pain for freedom.”
― Lisa Whittle, The Hard Good: Showing Up for God to Work in You When You Want to Shut Down

“Lisa Bevere said it best: you will never have authority over something you are entertained by.1 And therein lies the reason many of us walk around feeling weak and defeated many days.”
― Lisa Whittle, Jesus Over Everything: Uncomplicating the Daily Struggle to Put Jesus First

“At every stop on the map of my life, He ( Jesus ) has been the safe place for me.”
― Lisa Whittle, Jesus Over Everything: Uncomplicating the Daily Struggle to Put Jesus First

“But, oh my word, be impressed with Jesus.
The One who thought up all this and you and me and the people we so admire and think are the greatest people we have ever known.
The One who is holding this whole world together right this very second, and if He were to let go of it for one second, it would crash and blow away into nothingness because without Him there is nothing left.
The One who is our real place, soft place, holy place, honest place, true place, loyal place, and eternal place of of Home. May we never get over Him.”
― Lisa Whittle, Jesus Over Everything: Uncomplicating the Daily Struggle to Put Jesus First

“Judgment is a soul cancer—it attacks us from the inside and eats away at our ability to live strong lives. Love is the antidote for that.”
― Lisa Whittle, Jesus Over Everything: Uncomplicating the Daily Struggle to Put Jesus First