“Everything we enjoy is to be treated as a trust that God has placed in our hands. The Bible says, “What do you have that God hasn’t given you? And if all you have is from God, why boast as though you have accomplished something on your own?”
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Rick Warren
“Character is both developed and revealed by tests, and all of life is a test... You will be tested by major changes, delayed promises, impossible problems, unanswered prayers, undeserved criticism, and even senseless tragedies.”
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Rick Warren
“Thinking about My Purpose POINT TO PONDER: Happiness is my choice. I don’t need anyone’s approval to be happy. VERSE TO REMEMBER: “Even if my father and mother abandon me, the Lord will hold me close.” PSALM 27:10 (NLT) QUESTION TO CONSIDER: Whose opinion matters most to me? Whose approval am I living for?”
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Rick Warren
“Without a clear purpose you have no foundation on which you base decisions, allocate your time, and use your resources. You will tend to make choices based on circumstances, pressures, and your mood at that moment. People who don’t know their purpose try to do too much — and that causes stress, fatigue, and conflict.”
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Rick Warren
“When God puts his Spirit inside you, your body becomes a temple of God, a residence for his love. So let me ask you this: If you saw someone vandalizing or damaging a temple dedicated to God, wouldn’t you consider that a crime? Of course! But you abuse and vandalize God’s temple, your body, when you deprive it of rest and sleep, overeat, put too much stress on it, and fail to take care of it.”
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Rick Warren
“Longing for the ideal while criticizing the real is evidence of immaturity. On the other hand, settling for the real without striving for the ideal is complacency. Maturity is living with the tension.”
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Rick Warren
“What may appear as audacity God views as authenticity.”
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Rick Warren
“Learning to love unselfishly is not an easy task. It runs counter to our self-centered nature. That’s why we’re given a lifetime to learn it.”
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Rick Warren
“We never really own anything during our brief stay on earth. God just loans the earth to us while we’re here. It was God’s property before you arrived, and God will loan it to someone else after you die. You just get to enjoy it for a while.”
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Rick Warren
“The best way to live. Everybody eventually surrenders to something or someone. If not to God, you will surrender to the opinions or expectations of others, to money, to resentment, to fear, or to your own pride, lusts, or ego. You were designed to worship God — and if you fail to worship him, you will create other things (idols) to give your life to. You are free to choose what you surrender to, but you are not free from the consequences of that choice. E. Stanley Jones said, “If you don’t surrender to Christ, you surrender to chaos.”
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Rick Warren
“YOU ARE NOT AN ACCIDENT. Your birth was no mistake or mishap, and your life is no fluke of nature. Your parents may not have planned you, but God did. He was not at all surprised by your birth. In fact, he expected it.”
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Rick Warren
“Martin Luther said, “You cannot keep birds from flying over your head but you can keep them from building a nest in your hair.” You can’t keep the Devil from suggesting thoughts, but you can choose not to dwell or act on them.”
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Rick Warren
“Humility is not thinking less of yourself; it is thinking of yourself less. Humility is thinking more of others.”
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Rick Warren
“You weren't put on earth to be remembered. You were put here to prepare for eternity.
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Rick Warren
“Surrendering is not repressing your personality. God wants to use your unique personality. Rather than its being diminished, surrendering enhances it. C. S. Lewis observed, “The more we let God take us over, the more truly ourselves we become — because he made us. He invented all the different people that you and I were intended to be…. It is when I turn to Christ, when I give up myself to His personality, that I first begin to have a real personality of my own.”
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Rick Warren
