"Prayer is picking a fight with the Enemy. It's spiritual warfare. Intercession transports us from the sidelines to the front lines without going anywhere. And that is where the battle is won or lost. Prayer is the difference between us fighting for God and God fighting for us. But we can't just hit our knees. We also have to take a step, take a stand. And when we do, we never know what God will do next."

"We give people political labels, sexual labels, and religious labels. But in the process, we strip them of their individuality and complexity. Prejudice is pre-judging. It's assuming that bad stories end badly, but Jesus is in the business of turning bad beginnings into happily ever afters....God cannot give up on you. It's not in His nature. His goodness and mercy will follow you all the days of your life. All you have to do is turn around. All you have to do is crash the party!"

"Whatever you don't turn into praise turns into pride."

"Half of learning is learning. The other half of learning is unlearning."

"If you aren't hungry for God, you are full of yourself. That's why God cannot fill you with His Spirit. But if you will empty yourself, if you will die to self, you'll be a different person by the time you reach the last page of this book."

"We are living in a time where the hearing from God is bombarded by many frequencies and voices. This noise, corrosive in nature, makes it difficult to hear God's voice...living with more noise means we live less like a disciple. We need a prism. Eric Samuel Timm is a prism."

"Learning is the heart of discipleship. You can't just take up your cross daily. You need to take up the Bible every day."

"Nolan Bushnell, the creator of the Atari video game system, once stated, 'Everyone who's ever taken a shower has had an idea, It's the person who gets out of the shower, dries off, and does something about it who makes a difference."

"Following Jesus is a verb."

"True knowledge should not produce pride; it should produce humility...Because the more you know, the more you know how much you don't know."

"Potential is God's gift to you. What you do with it is your gift back to God."

"The only way to predict the future is to create it. You don't let it happen. You make it happen. How? Stop regretting the past and start learning from it. Let go of guilt by leaning into God's grace. Quit beating yourself up and let the Spirit of God heal your heart. You cannot divorce yourself from the past. You are married to it forever. But God wants to reconcile your past by redeeming it. God is in the recycling business, He makes recycled goods out of wasted lives."

"Courage doesn't wait until situational factors turn in one's favor. It doesn't wait until a plan is perfectly formed. It doesn't wait until the tide of popular opinion is turned. Courage only waits for one thing: a green light from God. And when God gives the go, it's full steam ahead, no questions asked."

"Your ability to see failure as a necessary stepping stone directly correlates with your ability to dream bigger and dream better."

"Put your Isaac on the altar! Then, and only then, will you see what God can do. He cannot give back what you do not give up. But if you surrender yourself to Him, He will provide the ram in the thicket."

"We live in a culture that celebrates talent more than integrity, but we've got it backward. Talent depreciates over time. So do intellect and appearance. You will eventually lose your strength and lose your looks. You may even lose your mind. But you don't have to lose your integrity. Integrity is the only thing that doesn't depreciate over time. Nothing takes longer to build than a godly reputation. And nothing is destroyed more quickly by one stroke of sin. That's why it must be celebrated and protected above all else."

"If you let fear dictate your decisions, you will live defensively, reactively, cautiously. Living by faith is playing offense with your life."

"The only God-ordained fear is the fear of God, and if we fear Him, we don't have to fear anyone or anything else."

"Sin always overpromises and underdelivers, while righteousness pays dividends for eternity...Nothing is more illogical than sin. It's the epitome of poor judgment. It's temporary insanity with eternal consequences. And we have no alibi, save the cross of Jesus Christ."

"Part of discovering the adventure God has designed you for is learning how to frame it or reframe it."

"The blessings of God will complicate your life, but unlike sin, they will complicate your life in the way it should be complicated."

"Everybody wants a miracle, we just don't want to be in a situation where we need one. You can't have one without the other. Sometimes what we perceive as our problem is really God setting us up to do something miraculous in our lives. It's about training ourselves to see those problems as opportunities so God can intervene."

"When God stirs our spirit or breaks our heart, we cannot sit back. We've got to step up and step in. We've got to go all in by going all out. But if we have the courage to make the choice or take the risk, it will become the defining moment of our lives."

"Most God-ordained dreams die because we are not willing to do something that seems illogical."

"Even choosing to do nothing is still making a choice."

"You don't have to go looking for adventure. If you follow Jesus, adventure comes looking for you. Jesus didn't carry a cross to Calvary so that we could live a halfway life. He died so that we could come alive in the truest and fullest sense of the word."

"God is great not just because nothing is too big for Him. God is great but because nothing is too small for Him either."

"It's not about success and failure. It's not about good days and bad days. It's not about wealth or poverty. It's not about health or sickness. It's not even about life or death. It's about glorifying God in whatever circumstance you find yourself in."

"Prayer adds an element of surprise to your life that is more fun than a surprise party or surprise gift or surprise romance. In fact, prayer turns life into a party, into a gift, into a romance."

"I have a handful of prayers that I pray all the time... One is that God will put my books into the right hands at the right times. I've prayed this prayer thousands of times, and God has answered it in dramatic fashion countless times. The right book in the right hands at the right time can save a marriage, avert a mistake, demand a decision, plant a seed, conceive a dream, solve a problem, and prompt a prayer. That is why I write. And that's why, for me, a book sold is not a book sold; a book sold is a prayer answered. I don't know the name and situation of every reader, but God does, and that's all that matters."

"What sets lion chasers apart isn't the outcome. It's the courage to chase God-sized dreams."

"Imagination is the road less taken, but it is the pathway of prayer."

"Going all in and all out for the All in All is both a death sentence and a life sentence. Your sinful nature, along with its selfish desires, is nailed to the cross. Then, and only then, does your true personality, your true potential, and your true purpose come alive. After all, God cannot resurrect what has not died. And that's why so many people are half alive. They haven't died to self yet."

"Embrace relational uncertainty. It's called romance. Embrace spiritual uncertainty. It's called mystery. Embrace occupational uncertainty. It's called destiny. Embrace emotional uncertainty. It's called joy. Embrace intellectual uncertainty. It's called revelation."

"Each prayer is like a seed that gets planted in the ground. It disappears for a season, but it eventually bears fruit that blesses future generations. In fact, our prayers bear fruit forever."

"The genealogy of blessing always traces back to God-ordained risk."

"Whether we write lyrics or craft legislation, sell homes or teach classes, design spaces or open franchises, prayer is a critical part of the creative process. Don't just brainstorm; praystorm."

"In every dream journey, there comes a moment when you have to quit living as if the purpose of life is to arrive safely at death."

"Jesus proclaimed the favor of God in His very first sermon. Then He sealed the deal with His death and resurrection. Favor is a function of surrender. If we don't hold out on God, God will not hold out on us."

"There is nothing God loves more that keeping promises, answering prayers, performing miracles, and fulfilling dreams."

"As I look back on my own life, I recognize this simple truth: The greatest opportunities were the scariest lions. Part of me has wanted to play it safe, but I've learned that taking no risks is the greatest risk of all."

"I just don't think pastors should turn their pulpits into public policy platforms. It cheapens the gospel. Our congregation doesn't need another political opinion. They need spiritual revelation. They don't need to think about politics on the weekend. They need to be reminded to seek first the kingdom of God."

"Part of my driving desire as a pastor is to remove every obstacle except the cross that would keep people from coming to faith in Christ."

"Grace is loving people for who they are, where they are. It's loving people *before* they change, not just *after* they change. And that grace is the difference between holy and holier-than-thou. Holiness, in its purest form, is irresistible. That's why sinners couldn't be kept away from Jesus. Hypocrisy has the opposite effect. It's as repulsive to the irreligious as the Pharisees' religiosity was to Jesus."

"If your deepest feelings are reserved for something other than Almighty God, then that something other is an emotional idol... if you get more excited about material things than the simple yet profound fact that your sin was nailed to the cross by the sinless Son of God, then you're bowing down to Tammuz."

"We take some big miracles for granted. We're on a planet that's spinning at a thousand miles per hour, traveling through space and we don't worry about God keeping our planet in orbit. We already trust God for the big miracles like our heart beating and today alone, we'll take a thousand breaths, but can we trust Him in the smaller things?"

"Worship is forgetting about what's wrong with you and remembering what's right with God."

"If you really want to get good at anything, you've got to work at it for ten thousand hours."

"Dr. Neal Roese makes a fascinating distinction between two types of regret: regrets of action and regrets of inaction."

"Goal setting is good stewardship. Instead of letting things happen, goals help us make things happen. Instead of living by default, goals help us live by design. Instead of living out of memory, goals help us live out of imagination."