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All In: You Are One Decision Away From a Totally Different Life

Book by Mark Batterson · 26 quotes · Sin, Integrity, Jesus Christ

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All In: You Are One Decision Away From a Totally Different Life Quotes

“Going all in and all out for the All in All is both a death sentence and a life sentence. Your sinful nature, along with its selfish desires, is nailed to the cross. Then, and only then, does your true personality, your true potential, and your true purpose come alive. After all, God cannot resurrect what has not died. And that's why so many people are half alive. They haven't died to self yet.”

“Why do we act as though our sin disqualifies us from the grace of God? That is the only thing that qualifies us! Anything else is a self-righteous attempt to earn God's grace. You cannot trust God's grace 99 percent. It's all or nothing. The problem, as I pointed out earlier, is that we want partial credit for our salvation. We want to be 1 percent of the equation. But if we try to save ourselves, we forfeit the salvation that comes from Jesus Christ alone, by grace through faith.”

“We live in a culture that celebrates talent more than integrity, but we've got it backward. Talent depreciates over time. So do intellect and appearance. You will eventually lose your strength and lose your looks. You may even lose your mind. But you don't have to lose your integrity. Integrity is the only thing that doesn't depreciate over time. Nothing takes longer to build than a godly reputation. And nothing is destroyed more quickly by one stroke of sin. That's why it must be celebrated and protected above all else.”

“If your deepest feelings are reserved for something other than Almighty God, then that something other is an emotional idol... if you get more excited about material things than the simple yet profound fact that your sin was nailed to the cross by the sinless Son of God, then you're bowing down to Tammuz.”

“The distance between your head and your heart is only twelve inches, but it's the difference between information and transformation. It's not enough to invite Jesus into your mind. You have to open the door to your heart of hearts. No door can remain locked. Even the door to your hidden room. Nothing entangles the emotions like sin. And if you sin long enough, it feels like a Gordian knot that seems impossible to untangle. But Jesus Christ went to the cross to undo what you have done. He broke the curse of sin so you can break the cycle of sin.”

“When we violate our conscience by compromising our integrity, we put our reputation at risk. We also become our own advocate because we step outside the boundaries of God's good, pleasing, and perfect will. But when we obey God, we come under the umbrella of His protective authority. He is our Advocate. And it's His reputation that is at stake. If we don't give the Enemy a foothold, God won't let him touch a hair on our head.”

“There are spiritual gifts like mercy, faith, or generosity that enable people to set the standard, so to speak. But just because you don't have that spiritual gift doesn't mean you aren't held to any standard at all. Even if you aren't gifted in that way, you're still called to live mercifully, faithfully, and generously. You might not set the standard, but you need to meet the standard. There is a baseline that all of us are called to. When the opportunity presents itself, we need to show mercy, exercise faith, and give generously. In the same sense, all of us are called to take risks. If it doesn't involve risk, it doesn't exercise faith.”

“In the Hebrew language, there is no distinction between knowing and doing. Knowing is doing and doing is knowing. In other words, if you aren't doing it, then you don't really know it... The phrase all out literally means "maximum effort." It's giving God everything you've got -- 100 percent. It's loving God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. It's not just worshiping God with your words. It's worshiping God with blood, sweat, and tears. It's more than sincere sentiments. It's sweat equity in kingdom causes. You cannot be the hands and feet of Jesus if you're sitting on your butt.”

“Nine times out of ten, failure is resorting to Plan B when Plan A gets too risky, too costly, or too difficult. That's why most people are living their Plan B. They didn't burn the ships. Plan A people don't have a Plan B... There are moments in life when we need to burn the ships to our past. We do so by making a defining decision that will eliminate the possibility of sailing back to the old world we left behind. You burn the ships named Past Failure and Past Success. You burn the ship named Bad Habit. You burn the ship named Regret. You burn the ship named Guilt. You burn the ship named My Old Way of Life.”

“In God's kingdom, calling trumps credentials every time! God does not call the qualified. He qualifies the called. And the litmus test isn't experience or expertise. It's availability and teachability. If you are willing to go when God gives you a green light, He will take you to inaccessible places to do impossible things.”

“At its core, sinfulness is selfishness. It's enthroning yourself - your desires, your needs, your plans - above all else. You may still seek God, but you don't seek Him first. You seek Him second or third or seventh. You may sing "Jesus at the center of it all," but what you really want is for people to bow down to you as you bow down to Christ. It's a subtle form of selfishness that masquerades as spirituality, but it's not Christ-centric. It's me-centric. It's less about us serving His purposes and more about Him serving our purposes.”

“We want a money-back guarantee before we take a step of obedience, but that eliminates faith from the equation. Sometimes we need to take a flying leap of faith. We need to step into the conflict without knowing if we can resolve it. We need to share our faith without knowing how our friends will react to it. We need to pray for a miracle without knowing how God will answer. We need to put ourselves in a situation that activates a spiritual gift we've never exercised before. And we need to go after a dream that is destined to fail without divine intervention. If we want to discover new lands, we've got to lose sight of the shore. We've got to leave the Land of Familiarity behind. We've got to sail past the predictable. And when we do, we develop a spiritual hunger for the unprecedented and lose our appetite for the habitual. We also get a taste of God's favor.”