Inspirational Quotes by Erwin Lutzer

“We do well to be reminded that the devil hates a praying leader and a praying church. When we begin to pray, we pick a fight with the devil at a whole new level. Yet, our calling is to be praying menaces to the enemy.”

“When you doubt God’s goodness, you hug sins tightly to your bosom, afraid that God will rob you of your crutch, your pastime, your pleasure.”

“Temptation is His X-ray machine, revealing the hidden conflicts that need attention.”

“To make sure our convictions, views, and assumptions about our Creator stay based on biblical truth and not on popular consensus, we must continually check what we believe against the Scriptures.”

“Christianity demands a level of caring that transcends human inclinations.”

“At death we cross from one territory to another, but we'll have no trouble with visas. Our representative is already there, preparing for our arrival. As citizens of heaven, our entrance is incontestable.”

“Within evangelicalism is a distressing drift toward accepting a Christianity that does not demand a life-changing walk with God. Many evangelicals (today) do not realize that the church has always been an island of righteousness in a sea of paganism, but as a result they turned the world upside-down.”

“Forgiveness is always free. But that doesn't mean that confession is always easy. Sometimes it is hard. Incredibly hard. It is painful to admit our sins and entrust ourselves to God's care.”

“The man who commits immorality does so because he thinks it will maximize pleasure if he can minimize the pain by keeping it secret.”

“Paul taught that religions evolved because man did not honor the true God. Because of rebellion, they "exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of the corruptible man and birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures." One characteristic of idolatry is that it always confuses the creature with the creator.”

“Don't ever think that there are many ways to the Divine. Jesus is the one qualified mediator, the only qualified sacrifice, and the only qualified savior.”

“Those who have failed miserably are often the first to see God's formula for success.”

“Church growth experts tell us that most people seeking a new church care little about its doctrines. They're mostly interested in the facilities of the church, its nursery, and opportunities for friendship. . . .The experts tell us that today's church members will switch churches at a moment's notice if they think that their personal and relational needs will be better met elsewhere--even if the doctrine taught is at best, suspect. Thus some will opt for better facilities and architecture even at the expense of jeopardizing their own soul.”

“Even in America this is a problem. In the summer of 2011, Middle East Quarterly published the results of an intensive four-year study on “sharia-adherence and the promotion of violent, jihadist literature in U.S. mosques.”14 The results? A stunning 81 percent carried jihad hate literature—with 51 percent carrying texts “rated as severely advocating violence,” and 30 percent carrying texts “rated as moderately advocating violence.”15 Especially disturbing was the discovery that “mosques with this literature were not merely repositories but incubators for the messaging of this material.”16 And fully 58 percent of the mosques “invited guest imams known to promote violent jihad.”17”

“Muslims cannot know the assurance of salvation, for in the end, Allah does with each person as he desires. According to the Hadith, Muhammad himself said he was unsure of his eternal salvation. He wrote, “Though I am an Apostle of Allah, yet I do not know what Allah will do to me!” (Bukhari 5.58.266). And the Quran states that only death by jihad assures a person of instant access into paradise. Christians, however, can know the assurance of their salvation. That’s because salvation is a free gift made available through the sacrifice and triumph of Jesus. No matter how great our sin, Jesus’ sacrifice on our behalf was greater. Because it is Christ who obtained our salvation and gives it to us, we cannot and will not lose it. As the apostle John said, “Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life. I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life” (1 John 5:12-13). This free gift is available to anyone who receives Christ as Savior: “To all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God” (John 1:12).”

“Yes, we might have ‘righteous anger’ as we see our culture destroyed, but if our anger spills over into our Christian witness, it only fuels the stereotype that the world already has of us. Yes, we are called to expose the sins of the world, but to do so with redemption, in humility and compassion. And, yes, with courage. And tears. Anger and rebuke change nothing. In fact, they cause our leftist friends to entrench themselves every deeper into their hatred of Christians. Moreover, these actions don’t represent our Master who ‘when he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly’ (1 peter 2:23). Anger, vengeance and a spirit of retaliation are not the ways of the Master. But as we shall see later in this book, neither is silence nor cowardice.”

“We are pilgrims out of step with the ever-changing culture - yet we are sent by Christ, the Head of the church. The church is the last barrier between the present moral breakdown and total chaos.”

“We will not impact the cities and towns of our world unless we live among those who need to hear the gospel through an authentic witness. It is not only church gathered that will win the world, but the church scattered that will show the beauty of Jesus to a world that is short on hope. Our impact will be marginal as long as we play safe; Jesus didn’t and neither can we.”

“I see a church that desperately needs to learn the lessons that the people of God have to RELEARN in each generation: We have to be a church that is, in some ways, repulsive to the world because of our authentic holiness and yet very attractive to the world because of our love & care. We need to be a courageous church at the time of weak knees and carnal living. In short, we have to live lives that are a credit to the gospel we preach and the Savior we worship. God has humbled us, and we must enter into our cultural decline not with a swagger but with humility and brokenness. And transparency”

“Many within the younger generation simply do not feel at home in our churches. They long to have honest sharing within a community of authentic believers who are realistic about their walk with God. They see many of our churches as being too formal, too rigid, and prepackaged.”