Paul Washer Quotes

My book centers in on the New Testament, the goal being to help a person who wants to understand the Bible to see how what God did as revealed in the New Testament will reveal to them their own personal story.

I consider myself a non-denominational Christian. I grew up in a Bible church and still hold those beliefs very close to me.

I would say I am a mediocre Christian.

We can grow so accustomed to being spoon-fed the Word of God that we sometimes forget how to examine the Scriptures for ourselves.

The Christian is prepared to say, 'I don't like the sound of this, ... but if this is what it really means, I'm going to have to pray for grace and strength to get that into my heart and be shaped by it.'

Compare yourself only with Jesus.

What wisdom can there be to choose, what continence to forbear without the knowledge of evil? He that can apprehend and consider vice with all her baits and seeming pleasures, and yet abstain, and yet distinguish, and yet prefer that which is truly better, he is the true wayfaring Christian.

Little works, little thoughts, little loves, little prayers for little Christians, and larger and larger as the years grow.

When you do the first half of life well, you have a good sense of yourself. Most of our mainline Christian denominations, in my opinion, don't do the first or second halves very well. We don't really give people a good container, we give them a bunch of legalisms.

We must learn to measure ourselves, not by our knowledge about God, not by our gifts and responsibilities in the church, but by how we pray and what goes on in our hearts. Many of us, I suspect, have no idea how impoverished we are at this level. Let us ask the Lord to show us.

You are not mature if you have a high esteem of yourself. He who boasts in himself is but a babe in Christ, if indeed he be in Christ at all. Young Christians may think much of themselves. Growing Christians think themselves nothing. Mature Christians know that they are less than nothing. The more holy we are, the more we mourn our infirmities, and the humbler is our estimate of ourselves.

The goal of the pastor is not to get people to show up but to get people to grow up.

Many books in my library are now behind and beneath me. They were good in their way once, and so were the clothes I wore when I was ten years old; but I have outgrown them. Nobody ever outgrows Scripture; the book widens and deepens with our years.

The true expression of Christian character is not in good-doing but in God-likeness.

Every time we deny ourselves in order to serve someone else, we grow in Christ.

The end of the year! I draw the balance. Inquiry of conscience and request to the Spirit for progress and maturity.

The goal is not for us to get through the Scriptures. The goal is to get the Scriptures through us.

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.

The test of Christian character should be that a man is a joy-bearing agent to the world.

All of us have areas of weakness. God wants these character flaws to show us how totally dependent we are upon Him. When we handle them properly, they drive us into a deeper, more intimate relationship with the Lord. But uncontrolled weakness wreaks havoc in a person's life.

...there is still a need for those of us nestled deep within the Christian bubble to look beyond the status quo and critically assess the degree to which we are really living biblically.

Every one, though born of God in an instant, yet undoubtedly grows by slow degrees.

I don't think it's that hard [to lead a Christian life]. To me it's fun. We have joy and happiness.

The little troubles and worries of life may be as stumbling blocks in our way, or we may make them stepping-stones to a nobler character and to Heaven. Troubles are often the tools by which God fashions us for better things.

Don't expect wisdom to come into your life like great chunks of rock on a conveyor belt. Wisdom comes privately from God as a byproduct of right decisions, godly reactions, and the application of spiritual principles to daily circumstances.