J. Oswald Sanders Quotes

Jesus drank a cup of wrath without mercy, that we might drink a cup of mercy without wrath.

It is impossible for a believer, no matter what his experience, to keep right with God if he will not take the trouble to spend time with God. Spend plenty of time with him; let other things go, but don't neglect Him.

Faith never knows where it is being led, or it would not be faith. True faith is content to travel under sealed orders.

Once the joy of intimacy with God has been experienced, life becomes unbearable without it.

When God lays a burden on our hearts and thus keeps us praying, He obviously intends to grant the answer.

True greatness,true leadership,is found in giving yourself in service to others, not in coaxing or inducing others to serve you. True service is never without cost. Often it comes with a painful baptism of suffering. But the true spiritual leader is focused on the service he and she can render to God and other people, not on the residuals and perks of high office or holy title. We must aim to put more into life than we take out.

The man of leadership caliber will work while others waste time, study while others sleep, pray while others play. There will be no place for loose or lazy habits in word or thought, deed or dress. He will observe a soldierly discipline, diet and deportment, so that he may wage a good warfare.

The frontiers of the kingdom of God were never advanced by men and women of caution.

Faith enables the believing soul to treat the future as present and the invisible as seen.

Eyes that look are common; eyes that see are rare.

It is obvious that Paul did not regard prayer as supplemental, but as fundamental-not something to be added to his work but the very matrix out of which his work was born. He was a man of action because he was a man of prayer. It was probably his prayer even more than his preaching that produced the kind of leaders we meet in his letters.

True leadership is found in giving yourself in service to others, not in coaxing or inducing others to serve you.

We are at this moment as close to God as we really choose to be. True, there are times when we would like to know a deeper intimacy, but when it comes to the point, we are not prepared to pay the price involved.

There is no conceivable situation in which it is not safe to trust God.

Our problem is not too little time, but making better use of the time we have. Each of us has as much time as anyone else.

If a Christian is not willing to rise early and work late, to expend greater effort in diligent study and faithful work, that person will not change a generation. Fatigue is the price of leadership. Mediocrity is the result of never getting tired.

Pride takes many forms, but spiritual pride is the most grievous. To become proud of spiritual gifts or leadership position is to forget that all we have is from God, all the position we occupy is God's appointment.

Vision involves optimism and hope. The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees opportunity in every difficulty. The pessimist tends to hold back people of vision from pushing ahead.

Before we can conquer the world, we must first conquer the self.

Disciples [deep people] are not manufactured wholesale. They are produced one by one, because someone has taken the pains to discipline, to instruct and enlighten, to nurture and train one that is younger.

Most men are notable for one conspicuous virtue or grace - Moses for meekness, Job for patience, John for love. But, in Jesus you find everything.

Spirituality is not easy to define, but you can tell when it is present. It is the fragrance of the garden of the Lord, the power to change the atmosphere around you, the influence that makes Christ real to others.

Ambition that centers on the glory of God and welfare of the church is a mighty force for good.

Time lost can never be retrieved. Time cannot be hoarded, only spent well.

A leader is only able to lead others because he disciplines himself. The person who does not know how to bow to discipline imposed from without, who does not know how to obey, will not make a good leader-nor will the one who has not learned to impose discipline within his own life. Those who scorn scripturally or legally constituted authority, or rebel against it, rarely qualify for high leadership positions.