Richard Stearns Quotes

Love always requires tangible expression. It needs hands and feet.

The meaning, purpose, and significance of our lives are found only by aligning our lives with God's purposes, in lives committed to following Jesus Christ.

The beautiful simplicity of our faith is that it distills down to the exact same bottom line for both the brilliant theologian and the five-year-old child: love God and love each other - period.

Can you imagine the impact on our own culture if American Christians began using their riches as if they belonged to God?

If I have learned anything about the purpose, meaning, and significance of life over the years, I have learned that, for a Christian, it is not found in any job, even a job like mine. It is not found in any human relationship, no matter how important. Nor is it found in any accomplishment, no matter how significant. Meaning, purpose, and significance are found only by aligning our lives with God's purposes in lives committed to following Jesus Christ.

What if we actually demonstrated God's love for the world instead of just talking about it?

God never asks us to give what we do not have . . . But he cannot use what we will not give.

What if there are children who will suffer somehow because I failed to obey God? What if my cowardice costs even one child somewhere in the world his or her life?

If we are not personally engaged in God's great mission in the world, then we have missed the very thing he created us to do. We are like birds meant to fly but living in a cage; fish meant to swim but floundering on the beach. It makes sense when you think about it. If the Author of the universe created us to play a key role in his unfolding drama but we have failed to find our place in that story, then of course we would feel incomplete.

If we are ever truly going to find purpose and meaning in our lives, we first have to rise above the trees to rediscover the forest - we have to understand what God is doing in the world and how we fit in.

And when we go to church, read our Bibles, have our quiet times, and go to Christian conferences, we too can build some impressive spiritual muscles, but unless we use those spiritual muscles to change our lives, build the church, love our neighbors, and care for the sick and the poor, we...are just posers. Let us not take God's truth for granted.

Don't fail to do something just because you can't do everything

I believe that this could very well be looked back on as the sin of our generation...I believe that our children and their children, 40 or 50 years from now, are going to ask me, what did you do while 40 million children became orphans in Africa?

If we truly love God, we will express it by loving our neighbors, and when we truly love our neighbors, it expresses our love for God.