Joni Eareckson Tada Quotes

As you read the Word of God today, read it with expectancy and anticipation for the changes it will make in you.

The moment we change our thinking and start connecting with God, we start connecting with His plans, which always exceed our small plans.

Prayer does not change God, but it changes him who prays.

The function of prayer is not to influence God, but rather to change the nature of the one who prays.

When I see Jesus Christ I simply want to be what He wants me to be.

To be a Christian is not only to believe the teaching of Christ, and to practice it; it is not only to try to follow the pattern and example of Christ; it is to be so vitally related to Christ that His life and His power are working in us. It is to be "in Christ," it is for Christ to be in us.

Walk more closely with God. Get nearer to Christ. Seek to exchange hope for assurance. Seek to feel the witness of the Spirit more closely and distinctly every year. Lay aside every weight, and the sin that so easily threatens you. Press towards the mark more earnestly. Fight a better fight, and war a better warfare every year you live. Pray more. Read more. Subdue self more. Love the brethren more. Oh that you may endeavor to grow in grace every year, that the end of your Christian course may be better than the beginning!

Open your heart and invite God into every circumstance because when God enters the scene, miracles happen.

When we genuinely believe that inner transformation is God's work and not ours, we can put to rest our passion to set others straight.

Just when all seems to be going right, challenges often come in multiple doses applied simultaneously. When those trials are not consequences of your disobedience, they are evidence that the Lord feels you are prepared to grow more. He therefore gives you experiences that stimulate growth, understanding, and compassion which polish you for your everylasting benefit.

I have now concentrated all my prayers into one, and that one prayer is this, that I may die to self, and live wholly to Him.

God has given us the gift of faith that we can take what's unseen and make it part of who we are.

There can be no Kingdom of God in the world without the Kingdom of God in our hearts.

Program your mind with what God says about you and a transformation will take place.

I want to change my circumstances. God wants to change me.

The waiting itself is beneficial to us: it tries faith, exercises patience, trains submission, and endears the blessing when it comes.

God wants to produce the character of Christ in our lives because he knows that the more we become like him, the more fulfilled we will be.

When I understand that everything happening to me is to make me more Christlike, it resolves a great deal of anxiety.

Be assured that God does more in us than we for Him; and that what we do is only for Him in proportion as it is He Himself who works it in us.

Oh thrice fools are we who like new-born princes weeping in the cradle know not that there is a kingdom before them then let our Lord's sweet hand square us and hammer us and strike off the knots of pride self-love and world-worship and infidelity that He may make us stones and pillars in His Father's house.

The purpose of God's discipline is not to punish us but to transform us.

If my ruling disposition is self-interest, I perceive that everything that happens to me is always for or against my self-interest; if, on the other hand, my ruling disposition is obedience to God, I perceive Him to be at work for my perfecting in everything that happens to me.

No pain that we suffer, no trial that we experience is wasted. It ministers to our education, to the development of such qualities as patience, faith, fortitude and humility. All that we suffer and all that we endure, especially when we endure it patiently, builds up our characters, purifies our hearts, expands our souls, and makes us more tender and charitable, more worthy to be called the children of God . . . and it is through sorrow and suffering, toil and tribulation, that we gain the education that we come here to acquire and which will make us more like our Father and Mother in heaven.

I got the best of Jesus. He got the worst of me.

God has a purpose behind every problem. He uses circumstances to develop our character. In fact, he depends more on circumstances to make us like Jesus than he depends on our reading the Bible.