Francis Chan

“Jesus didn't speak of hell so that we could study, debate and write books about it. He gave us these passages so that we would live holy lives. Jesus evidently hates it when we tear into our brothers or sisters with demeaning words, words that fail to honor the people around us as the beautiful image-bearing creatures that they are.”

“Even in my own church I heard the words, 'Francis Chan' more than I heard the words, 'Holy Spirit.'”

“When you read the New Testament, you see the Holy Spirit was supposed to change everything so that this gathering of people who call themselves Christians had this supernatural element about them.”

“Our greatest fear should not be of failure but of succeeding at things in life that don't really matter.”

“[Y]ou have to stop loving and pursuing Christ in order to sin. When you are pursuing love, running toward Christ, you do not have opportunity to wonder, *Am I doing this right?* or *Did I serve enough this week?* When you are running toward Christ, you are freed up to serve, love, and give thanks without guilt, worry or fear. As long as you are running, you're safe.”

“God exists outside of time, and since we are within time, there is no way we will ever totally grasp that concept.”

“[at CMC West Coast 2011, on 1 Samuel 14] If just a few of you would step up and be like Jonathan ... as you step out in faith, you know what's going to happen? There'll be people like Saul who'll say, "God's doing something through that guy, God's doing something through that girl. I want to be a part of that.”

“Churches we build only by our own efforts and not in the strength of the Spirit will quickly collapse when we don't push and prod people along.”

“I could be wrong about salvation. I could be wrong about a lot of things.”

“Arguments escalate when we want to be right more than we want to be CHRIST. It's easy to get blinded in the heat of disagreement. Soon, all we want is to win. Even if victory requires sin. The one who wins the argument is usually the one who acts LESS like Christ.”

“Frederick Buechner writes, “Intellectually we all know that we will die but we do not really know it in the sense that the knowledge becomes a part of us. We do not really know it in the sense of living as thought it were true. On the contrary, we tend to live as though our lives would go on forever.”

“Our God listens to us. Our God is a living God. He's not a block of wood you made up that's not going to answer you. My God listens to me. He answers me.”

“If you’d rather watch your kids grow up than see the face of your Savior today, you don’t grasp the beauty of God. If you worry about what would happen to your children if you were gone, you don’t understand the providence of God.”

“For a person to be truly discipled and growing in their faith, they need more than one person discipling them.”

“When I don't think biblically, I go nuts. I just go, 'This is crazy.'”

“More than any other attribute of Jesus, his humility is the key to a healthy marriage. If two people make it their goal to imitate the humility of Christ, everything else will take care of itself.”

“God is the only being who is good, and the standards are set by Him. Because God hates sin, He has to punish those guilty of sin. Maybe that's not an appealing standard. But to put it bluntly, when you get your own universe, you can make your own standards.”

“But God doesn't call us to be comfortable. He calls us to trust Him so completely that we are unafraid to put ourselves in situations where we will be in trouble if He doesn't come through.”

“I've never felt a need to really respond to someone else's writing.”

“I want the joy of knowing that I am doing something with my life, the joy of battle.”