When People Are Big and God is Small Quotes

“1. We fear people because they can expose and humiliate us.
2. We fear people because they can reject, ridicule, or despise us.
3. We fear people because they can attack, oppress, or threaten us. These three reasons have one thing in common: they see people as “bigger” (that is, more powerful and significant) than God, and, out of the fear that creates in us, we give other people the power and right to tell us what to feel, think, and do.”
― Edward T. Welch, When People Are Big and God is Small: Overcoming Peer Pressure, Codependency, and the Fear of Man

“Jesus did not die to increase our self-esteem. Rather, Jesus died to bring glory to the Father by redeeming people from the curse of sin.”
― Edward T. Welch, When People Are Big and God is Small: Overcoming Peer Pressure, Codependency, and the Fear of Man

“Fear” in the biblical sense…includes being afraid of someone, but it extends to holding someone in awe, being controlled or mastered by people, worshipping other people, putting your trust in people, or needing people.”
― Edward T. Welch, When People Are Big and God is Small: Overcoming Peer Pressure, Codependency, and the Fear of Man

“Sanctification is like a clumsy, slow walk rather than a light switch that we turn from off to on.”
― Edward T. Welch, When People Are Big and God is Small: Overcoming Peer Pressure, Codependency, and the Fear of Man

“God's love is a costly love. It never takes the easy path away from relationships. Instead, it plots how to move towards other people. It thinks creatively of ways to surprise them with love.”
― Edward T. Welch, When People Are Big and God is Small: Overcoming Peer Pressure, Codependency, and the Fear of Man

“When God and spirituality are reduced to our standards or our feelings, God will never be to us the awesome Holy One of Israel. With God reduced in our eyes, a fear of people will thrive.”
― Edward T. Welch, When People Are Big and God Is Small: Overcoming Peer Pressure, Codependency, and the Fear of Man

“The massive interest in self-esteem and self-worth exists because it is trying to help us with a real problem. The problem is that we really are not okay. There is no reason why we should feel great about ourselves. We truly are deficient. The meager props of the self-esteem teaching will eventually collapse as people realize that their problem is much deeper. The problem is, in part, our nakedness before God.”
― Edward T. Welch, When People Are Big and God Is Small: Overcoming Peer Pressure, Codependency, and the Fear of Man

“We are more concerned about looking stupid (a fear of people) than we are about acting sinfully (a fear of God).”
― Edward T. Welch, When People Are Big and God is Small: Overcoming Peer Pressure, Codependency, and the Fear of Man

“As a counselor, I have spoken with many people who want to know their spiritual gifts. They come hoping for some sort of diagnostic test that will precisely locate them. My impression is that this perspective represents a breakdown in the church. It reflects a church where we are running around as self-actualizing individuals rather than uniting as a God-glorifying community.”
― Edward T. Welch, When People Are Big and God is Small: Overcoming Peer Pressure, Codependency, and the Fear of Man

“It is possible that our present-day discussion about needs might be framed more by secular psychological theories than by Scripture. If this is so, we should be careful about saying, "Jesus meets all our needs." At first, this has a plausible biblical ring to it. Christ _is_a friend; God _is_ a loving Father; Christians _do_ experience a sense of meaningfulness and confidence in knowing God's love. It makes Christ the answer to our problems. Yet if our use of the term "needs" is ambiguous, and its range of meaning extends all the way to selfish desires, then there will be some situations where we should say that Jesus does not intend to meet our needs, but that he intends to change our needs.”
― Edward T. Welch, When People Are Big and God is Small: Overcoming Peer Pressure, Codependency, and the Fear of Man

“When you are in the grips of low self-esteem, it’s painful, and it certainly doesn’t feel like pride. But I believe that this is the dark, quieter side of pride — thwarted pride.”
― Edward T. Welch, When People Are Big and God Is Small: Overcoming Peer Pressure, Codependency, and the Fear of Man

“The gospel is the story of God covering his naked enemies, bringing them to the wedding feast, and then marrying them rather than crushing them.”
― Edward T. Welch, When People Are Big and God Is Small: Overcoming Peer Pressure, Codependency, and the Fear of Man

“To look to Christ to meet our perceived psychological needs is to Christianize our lusts. We are asking God to give us what we want, so we can feel better about ourselves or so we can have more happiness, not holiness, in our lives.”
― Edward T. Welch, When People Are Big and God is Small: Overcoming Peer Pressure, Codependency, and the Fear of Man

“Our goal is to love people more than need them. We are overflowing pitchers, not leaky cups.”
― Edward T. Welch, When People Are Big and God Is Small: Overcoming Peer Pressure, Codependency, and the Fear of Man

“Anything that erodes the fear of God will intensify the fear of man.”
― Edward T. Welch, When People Are Big and God Is Small: Overcoming Peer Pressure, Codependency, and the Fear of Man

“One reason Christians respond positively to a needs psychology is that it takes people's pain seriously. However, this perspective can actually make pain worse. It compounds pain by suggesting that not did the sins of others hurt deeply, but they also deprived you of something--a right, something you were owed--that is necessary for life. Being deeply hurt by others is hard enough, but when we believe that their sin was a near-lethal blow that damaged the core of our being, the hurt is intensified....Therefore, one task in counseling is to begin to separate the real hurt from the pain that is amplified by our own lusts and longings.”
― Edward T. Welch, When People Are Big and God is Small: Overcoming Peer Pressure, Codependency, and the Fear of Man

“Fear of man is always part of a triad that includes unbelief and disobedience.”
― Edward T. Welch, When People Are Big and God Is Small: Overcoming Peer Pressure, Codependency, and the Fear of Man

“Regarding other people, our problem is that we need them (for ourselves) more than we love them (for the glory of God).”
― Edward T. Welch, When People Are Big and God Is Small: Overcoming Peer Pressure, Codependency, and the Fear of Man

“9:10). Since the fear of the Lord is the great treasure of life, Proverbs tries to woo us to it. It tries to make the fear of the Lord as attractive as possible. Those who fear the Lord will fear nothing else (19:23). The fear of the Lord adds length to life (10:27), it is a secure fortress for the one who fears and for his or her children (14:26). It is a fountain of life (15:16), it brings honor (22:4), and it should be praised when we see it (31:30). What does the fear of the Lord look like? It looks like loving good and hating evil. “The fear of the LORD is to hate evil” (8:13). It looks like trusting God (reverence) and obeying him. Can you see that the fear of the Lord is a blessing? Just imagine what it would be like to truly hate sin, first our own, then the sins of others (Matt. 7:3-5). What would happen to marital fights? They would be almost impossible. Spouses would be too busy listening and asking forgiveness for their own selfishness. What about the little cliques in the school yard? They would be telling good stories about somebody else. What about when someone sins against us? We would no longer have to murder the person in our own heart. Instead, we could cover the sin in humility and love, or we could confront the other person in the same spirit.”
― Edward T. Welch, When People Are Big and God Is Small: Overcoming Peer Pressure, Codependency, and the Fear of Man

“The gospel is only available to people who know they are unclean.”
― Edward T. Welch, When People Are Big and God Is Small: Overcoming Peer Pressure, Codependency, and the Fear of Man

“When the fear of the Lord matures in you, Christ becomes irresistible.”
― Edward T. Welch, When People Are Big and God Is Small: Overcoming Peer Pressure, Codependency, and the Fear of Man

“When psychological needs, rather than sin, are seen as our primary problem, not only is our self-understanding affected, but the gospel itself is changed.”
― Edward T. Welch, When People Are Big and God Is Small: Overcoming Peer Pressure, Codependency, and the Fear of Man

“The fear of man is the sinful exaggeration of a normal experience.”
― Edward T. Welch, When People Are Big and God Is Small: Overcoming Peer Pressure, Codependency, and the Fear of Man

“Regarding other people, our problem is that we need them (for ourselves) more than we love them (for the glory of God). The task God sets for us is to need them less and love them more. Instead of looking for ways to manipulate others, we will ask God what our duty is toward them.”
― Edward T. Welch, When People Are Big and God Is Small: Overcoming Peer Pressure, Codependency, and the Fear of Man

“The love of God can be a profound answer to just about any human struggle, but sometimes we can use it in such a way that it becomes a watered down version of profoundly rich truth. For example, sometimes, because of shortcomings in us rather than Scripture, this answer misses the call to “consider others better than yourselves” (Phil. 2:3), or it ignores personal repentance. Sometimes it still allows us and our needs to be at the center of the world, and God becomes our psychic errand boy given the task of inflating our self-esteem.”
― Edward T. Welch, When People Are Big and God Is Small: Overcoming Peer Pressure, Codependency, and the Fear of Man

“If we look only at God’s love, we will not need him, and there will be no urgency in the message of the cross. If we focus narrowly on God’s justice, we will want to avoid him, and we will live in terror-fear, always feeling guilty and waiting for punishment.”
― Edward T. Welch, When People Are Big and God Is Small: Overcoming Peer Pressure, Codependency, and the Fear of Man

“Therefore, we cannot rightly say, “My God is not a God of judgment and anger; my God is a God of love.” Such thinking makes it almost impossible to grow in the fear of the Lord. It suggests that sin only saddens God rather than offends him. Both justice and love are expressions of his holiness, and we must know both to learn the fear of the Lord.”
― Edward T. Welch, When People Are Big and God Is Small: Overcoming Peer Pressure, Codependency, and the Fear of Man

“Modern spirituality has no hell, no doctrine, no substance. It is about feeling.”
― Edward T. Welch, When People Are Big and God Is Small: Overcoming Peer Pressure, Codependency, and the Fear of Man

“Fear” in the biblical sense is a much broader word. It includes being afraid of someone, but it extends to holding someone in awe, being controlled or mastered by people, worshipping other people, putting your trust in people, or needing people.”
― Edward T. Welch, When People Are Big and God Is Small: Overcoming Peer Pressure, Codependency, and the Fear of Man

“To look to Christ to meet our perceived psychological needs is to Christianize our lusts. We are asking God to give us what we want, so we can feel better about ourselves, or so we can have more happiness, not holiness, in our lives.”
― Edward T. Welch, When People Are Big and God Is Small: Overcoming Peer Pressure, Codependency, and the Fear of Man