How People Change Quotes

“You and I will only be able to understand what is valuable when we examine things from the perspective of eternity.”
― Timothy S. Lane, How People Change

“Scripture makes it clear that these responses are not forced upon us by the pressures of the situation. What I do comes from inside me. The things that happen to me will influence my responses but never determine them. Rather, these responses flow out of the thoughts and motives of my heart.”
― Timothy S. Lane, How People Change

“My husband and I have been a part of the same small group for the past five years.... Like many small groups, we regularly share a meal together, love one another practically, and serve together to meet needs outside our small group. We worship, study God’s Word, and pray. It has been a rich time to grow in our understanding of God, what Jesus has accomplished for us, God’s purposes for us as a part of his kingdom, his power and desire to change us, and many other precious truths. We have grown in our love for God and others, and have been challenged to repent of our sin and trust God in every area of our lives. It was a new and refreshing experience for us to be in a group where people were willing to share their struggles with temptation and sin and ask for prayer....We have been welcomed by others, challenged to become more vulnerable, held up in prayer, encouraged in specific ongoing struggles, and have developed sweet friendships. I have seen one woman who had one foot in the world and one foot in the church openly share her struggles with us. We prayed that God would show her the way of escape from temptation many times and have seen God’s work in delivering her. Her openness has given us a front row seat to see the power of God intersect with her weakness. Her continued vulnerability and growth in godliness encourage us to be humble with one another, and to believe that God is able to change us too. Because years have now passed in close community, God’s work can be seen more clearly than on a week-by-week basis. One man who had some deep struggles and a lot of anger has grown through repenting of sin and being vulnerable one on one and in the group. He has been willing to hear the encouragement and challenges of others, and to stay in community throughout his struggle.... He has become an example in serving others, a better listener, and more gentle with his wife. As a group, we have confronted anxiety, interpersonal strife, the need to forgive, lust, family troubles, unbelief, the fear of man, hypocrisy, unemployment, sickness, lack of love, idolatry, and marital strife. We have been helped, held accountable, and lifted up by one another. We have also grieved together, celebrated together, laughed together, offended one another, reconciled with one another, put up with one another,...and sought to love God and one another. As a group we were saddened in the spring when a man who had recently joined us felt that we let him down by not being sensitive to his loneliness. He chose to leave. I say this because, with all the benefits of being in a small group, it is still just a group of sinners. It is Jesus who makes it worth getting together. Apart from our relationship with him...,we have nothing to offer. But because our focus is on Jesus, the group has the potential to make a significant and life-changing difference in all our lives. ...When 7 o’clock on Monday night comes around, I eagerly look forward to the sound of my brothers and sisters coming in our front door. I never know how the evening will go, what burdens people will be carrying, how I will be challenged, or what laughter or tears we will share. But I always know that the great Shepherd will meet us and that our lives will be richer and fuller because we have been together. ...I hope that by hearing my story you will be encouraged to make a commitment to become a part of a small group and experience the blessing of Christian community within the smaller, more intimate setting that it makes possible. 6”
― Timothy S. Lane, How People Change

“The Christian life is a state of thankful discontent or joyful dissatisfaction. That is, I live every day thankful for the grace that has changed my life, but I am not satisfied. Why not? Because, when I look at myself honestly, I have to admit that I am not all I can be in Christ. I am thankful for the many things in my life that would not be there without his grace, but I will not settle for a partial inheritance!”
― Timothy S. Lane, How People Change

“Whenever you believe that the evil outside you is greater than the evil inside you, a heartfelt pursuit of Christ will be replaced by a zealous fighting of the “evil” around you. A celebration of the grace that rescues you from your own sin will be replaced by a crusade to rescue the church from the ills of the surrounding culture. Christian maturity becomes defined as a willingness to defend right from wrong. The gospel is reduced to participation in Christian causes.”
― Timothy S. Lane, How People Change

“We say that the difficulty causes us to respond in sinful ways. But the Bible teaches again and again that our circumstances don’t cause us to act as we do. They only expose the true condition of our hearts, revealed in our words and actions.”
― Timothy S. Lane, How People Change

“We have been chosen from the mass of humanity to live in an intimate union with Christ. It is amazing even to be tolerated by God. It would be an honor simply to be invited to the wedding! It is beyond comprehension to be the beloved bride of the King of kings and Lord of lords! When you understand this, you can’t help but live life aware of the honor, privilege, and blessing that are yours. Yes, your job may bore you. Yes, you had hoped to do something more significant. Yes, you wish you could find a way out. But you do not go to work searching for fulfillment. It may give you a sense of dignity, but it does not define you. In Christ you are full, joyful, and satisfied.”
― Timothy S. Lane, How People Change

“But the Bible teaches again and again that our circumstances don’t cause us to act as we do. They only expose the true condition of our hearts, revealed in our words and actions.”
― Timothy S. Lane, How People Change

“What God has begun in you, he will complete. Your destiny has already been decided. The One who decided it will give you all you need to get there.”
― Timothy S. Lane, How People Change

“Only when you accept the bad news of the gospel does the good news make any sense. The grace, restoration, reconciliation, forgiveness, mercy, patience, power, healing, and hope of the gospel are for sinners. They are only meaningful to you if you admit that you have the disease and realize that it is terminal.”
― Timothy S. Lane, How People Change

“We are fallen dreamers, who dream of better worlds than the one in which we live. But the dreams we envision are often more about our own agenda than they are about our Lord’s. Though we may not be aware of it, we are often at odds with our wise and loving Lord. The change he is working on is not the change we dream about. We dream about change in it—a person or circumstance—but God is working in the midst of it to change us.”
― Timothy S. Lane, How People Change

“Life is seldom simple. Growth in God’s grace is a process and not an event. Tough things are not going to turn around overnight because you have entrusted them to the Lord. The Bible is honest in its description of how grave and comprehensive our war with sin is. Individuals, friendships, churches, marriages, and neighborhoods don’t turn around in a moment. The Bible describes the Christian life as a journey that often takes us through the wilderness. You will get tired and confused. You will have moments when you wonder where God is. You will struggle to see God’s promises at work in your life. You will feel that following God has brought you more suffering than blessing. You will go through moments when it seems as if the principles of Scripture don’t work. It will sometimes seem as if the wrong side wins. There will be moments when you feel alone and misunderstood. There will be times when you feel like quitting. This passage is meant to encourage you to be full of hope in the midst of things you don’t fully understand. You don’t have to figure everything out. You do need to know and trust the One who does understand, and who knows exactly what he is doing. Do you look at your life as Paul looked at the”
― Timothy S. Lane, How People Change

“The gospel calls us to look at the messiness of life in a radically different way. The good news of the gospel is that Christ has conquered sin and death, and with them every meaningless and destructive end. Our final destination infuses every word, action, desire, and response with meaning and purpose. There are no completely hopeless situations. The gospel welcomes us to a hopeful realism. We can look life in the face and still be hopeful because of who Christ is and where he is taking us. Everything God has brought into your life has been brought with your destination in view. God is moving you on, even when you think you are stuck.”
― Timothy S. Lane, How People Change

“Legalism is not just a reduction of the gospel, it is another gospel altogether (see Galatians), where salvation is earned by keeping the rules we have established.”
― Timothy S. Lane, How People Change

“Whenever you believe that the evil outside you is greater than the evil inside you, a heartfelt pursuit of Christ will be replaced by a zealous fighting of the “evil” around you.”
― Timothy S. Lane, How People Change

“Christ gives us all we need to draw nearer to him and enjoy him amid difficulties and blessings. We may get tired, but not despondent. We will be sad, but not hopeless. We will endure pain, but we will not give up. We will enjoy blessings, but not grow proud. We see that our lives do not consist only in what we have, how we feel, or what we have accomplished, but in who we are in Christ. This enables us to stand where we would once have fallen down.”
― Timothy S. Lane, How People Change

“Everything God does and everything God calls us to only make sense from the perspective of eternity. If there is no end to the story, believers are a bunch of fools who need to be pitied. There is no reason for what we have tried to do. But there is a final chapter! God has opened it up so that we could look in and then look back to our lives with understanding and hope.”
― Timothy S. Lane, How People Change

“The decision to forgive is first a heart transaction between you and God. It is a willingness to give up your desire to hold onto (and in some way punish the person for) his offense against you. Instead, you entrust the person and the offense to God, believing that he is righteous and just. You make a decision to respond to this person with an attitude of grace and forgiveness.”
― Timothy S. Lane, How People Change

“One of the mistakes we make in handling God’s Word is that we reduce it to a set of directions on how to live. We look for directions about relationships, church life, sex, finances, marriage, happiness, parenting, and so on. We mistakenly think that if we have clear directions we will be all right. But we keep getting lost! All the wise and precise directions given to us in Scripture haven’t kept us from getting lost in the middle of our personal “big city.”
― Timothy S. Lane, How People Change

“The one thing worth celebrating for all eternity is your redemption.”
― Timothy S. Lane, How People Change

“We think, How much better life would be if a certain situation or a relationship were different! Meanwhile, God says that what needs change most is us! He does not just work to fix situations and relationships; he is intent on rescuing us from ourselves. We are the focus of his loving, lifelong work of change.”
― Timothy S. Lane, How People Change

“Very few people wake up one morning and decide to change their theology. Changes in a person’s belief system are seldom that self-conscious.”
― Timothy S. Lane, How People Change

“We have not forsaken the faith, but we may have redefined it in ways that are fundamentally different from the gospel laid out in Scripture. This redefinition of the faith does not happen all at once. It may not even surface in the public theological discussions of the church. Rather, the redefinition is a process of subtle steps at the practical level of the church’s fellowship, life, and ministry. Hope in Christ gets replaced with Christian activity, emotional experiences, Christian fellowship, or something else, without anyone consciously redefining or forsaking the faith.”
― Timothy S. Lane, How People Change

“Psalm 88 and James 1 remind us that the Bible speaks of a God who comforts people in the middle of genuine difficulties in a sin-stained world.”
― Timothy S. Lane, How People Change

“Instead, these believers leave a trail of broken relationships, a knowledgeable but impersonal walk with God, a struggle with material things, and a definite lack of personal growth.”
― Timothy S. Lane, How People Change

“Often there is a vast gap in our grasp of the gospel. It subverts our identity as Christians and our understanding of the present work of God.”
― Timothy S. Lane, How People Change

“Phil and Ellie had a huge gap in their understanding of the gospel. It was as if they were attempting to live with a gaping hole in the middle of their house.”
― Timothy S. Lane, How People Change

“The time he spent dealing with his own problems left little time for ministry to others.”
― Timothy S. Lane, How People Change

“We don’t just struggle with want; we struggle with blessing as well.”
― Timothy S. Lane, How People Change

“Sin makes us fools. We are easily deceived, attracted to hollow and deceptive philosophy, and enticed by arguments that lead us away from Christ. Sin blinds us to our sin!”
― Timothy S. Lane, How People Change