01c. 1950 ADEmbedded in the larger story of redemption is a principle we must not miss: God uses ordinary people to do extraordinary things in the lives of others.Paul David Tripp / quote ↗
02c. 1950 ADThe church is not a theological classroom. It is a conversion, confession, repentance, reconciliation, forgiveness and sanctification center, where flawed people place their faith in Christ, gather to know and love him better, and learn to love others as he designed.Paul David Tripp / quote ↗
03c. 1950 ADWe must not offer people a system of redemption, a set of insights and principles. We offer people a Redeemer.Paul David Tripp / quote ↗
04c. 1950 ADPeople struggling with life in a fallen world often want explanations when what they really need is imagination.Paul David Tripp / quote ↗
05c. 1950 ADWe forget that God's primary goal ia not changing our situations or relationships so that we can be happy, but changing us through our situations and relationships so that we will be holy.Paul David Tripp / quote ↗
06c. 1950 ADPersonal ministry is not about always knowing what to say. It is not about fixing everything in sight that is broken. Personal ministry is about connecting people with Christ so that they are able to think as he would have them think, desire what he says is best, and do what he calls them to do even if their circumstances never get "fixed." It involves exposing hurt, lost, and confused people to God's glory, so that they give up their pursuit of their own glory and live for his.Paul David Tripp / quote ↗
07c. 1950 ADHarboring bitterness against people is actually confessing their sin to myself, over and over again. Anger is akin to confessing their sin to God, dissatisfied that he hasn't done something and placing myself in his position as judge.Paul David Tripp / quote ↗
08c. 1950 ADThe good news of the kingdom is not freedom from hardship, suffering, and loss. It is the news of a Redeemer who has come to scue me from myself.Paul David Tripp / quote ↗
09c. 1950 ADAn instrument s a tool that is actively used to change something, and God has called all of his people to be instruments of change in his redemptive handsPaul David Tripp / quote ↗
10c. 1950 ADReal comfort is found when I understand that I am held in the hollow of the hand of the One who created and rules all things. The most valuable thing in my life is God's love, a love that no one can take away. When my identity is rooted in him, the storms of trouble will not blow me away. This is the comfort we offer people. We don't comfort them by saying things will work out. They may not. The people around them may change, but they may not. The Bible tells us again and again that everything around us is in the process of being taken away. God and his love are all that remain as cultures and kingdoms rise and fall. Comfort is found by sinking our roots into the unseen reality of God's ever-faithful love.Paul David Tripp / quote ↗
11c. 1950 ADGod’s grace invites you to be part of something that is far greater than your boldest and most expansive dream. His grace cuts a hole in your self-built prison and invites you to step into something so huge, so significant that only one word in the Bible can adequately capture it. That word is glory.Paul David Tripp / quote ↗
12c. 1950 ADThe fatal flaw of human wisdom is that it promises that you can change your relationships without needing to change yourself.Every painful thing we experience in relationships is meant to remind us of our need for God. And every good thing we experience is meant to be a metaphor of what we can only find in Him.... We settle for the satisfaction of human relationships when they were meant to point us to the perfect relational satisfaction found only with God.Paul David Tripp / quote ↗
13c. 1950 ADIf I am seeking to get identity from you ,I will watch you too closely, listen to you too intently, and need you to fundamentally. I will ride the roller coaster of your best and worst moments and everything in between. And because I am watching you too closely, I will become acutely aware of your weaknesses and failures. I will become overly critical, frustrated, disappointed, hopeless, and angry. I will be angry not because you are a sinner but because you have failed to deliver the one thing I seek from you: identity. But none of us will ever get the well-being that comes from knowing who we are from our relationships. Instead we will be left with damaged relationships filled with hurt, frustration and anger.Paul David Tripp / quote ↗
14c. 1950 ADOur purpose (in relationship) is to get what we want but God's purpose is to give us what we really need. We think things are going well only if we are getting along with others. But God says that it is also when we are not getting along with others that he is accomplishing his purpose.God has designed our relationship to function as both a diagnosis and a cure.Paul David Tripp / quote ↗
15c. 1950 ADWe all look for strategies or techniques that will free us from the pain of relationships and the hard work good relationships demand. We hope that better planning, more effective communication, clear role definitions, conflict resolution strategies, gender studies, and personality typing--to name just a few -- will make the difference. There may be value in these things, but if they were all we needed, Jesus' life, death, and resurrection would be unnecessary or, at best, redundant. Skills and techniques appeal to us because they promise that relational problems can be fixed by tweaking our behavior without altering the bent of our hearts. But the Bible says something very different. It says that Christ is the only real hope for relationships because only he can dig deep enough to address the core motivations and desires of our hearts.Most dangerous aspect of your relationships is not your weakness, but your delusions of strength. Self-reliance is almost always a component of a bad relationship.Paul David Tripp / quote ↗
16c. 1950 ADEvery time you ask for forgiveness, you recognize that the biggest problems you face in life exist inside of you, not outside of you.Paul David Tripp / quote ↗
17c. 1950 ADEvery time you ask for forgiveness, you declare that your life does not belong to you, but has been created for the purpose of Another.Paul David Tripp / quote ↗
18c. 1950 ADCould it be that desire for a good thing has become a bad thing because that desire has become a ruling thing?Paul David Tripp / quote ↗
19c. 1950 ADToday you will envy the blessings of another, or you will bask in the wonder of the amazing grace you have been given.Paul David Tripp / quote ↗
20c. 1950 AD. . .most people who are angry with God are angry with him for being God. They're not angry because he has failed to deliver what he promised, They're angry because he has failed to deliver what they have craved, expected or demanded.Paul David Tripp / quote ↗
21c. 1950 ADThe Bible says that our core problem, the fundamental reason we do what we do, is sin.Paul David Tripp / quote ↗
22c. 1950 ADFor students who have not been required to confess that it is easier to learn theology then live it, it is tempting to think maturity is more a matter of knowing in a matter of livingPaul David Tripp / quote ↗
23c. 1950 ADBut it must be said that maturity is not merely something you do with your mind. No, maturity is about how you live your life. It is possible to be theologically astute in yet very immature. It is possible be biblically literate and in need of significant spiritual growth.Paul David Tripp / quote ↗
24c. 1950 ADIt is a sweet thing that we serve a dissatisfied God who has destinations in mind for us that we would never choose for ourselves. It really is a good thing that he will not be satisfied until he has gotten us exactly where he created us and re-created us to be. Most of us would have been satisfied to stay at home, and many of us would have quit the journey long before it was completed. But our heavenly Father won't give up until each one of his children has completed the journey.Paul David Tripp / quote ↗
