Restoration Year Quotes

“God knows the danger of ignoring our hearts, and so he reawakens desire. You see a photo in a magazine, and find yourself pausing. You’re channel surfing one night and see someone doing the very thing you always dreamed you would do—the runner breaking the tape, the woman enjoying herself immensely as she teaches her cooking class. Sometimes all it takes is seeing people enjoying themselves doing anything, and your heart says, I want that too. God does this to reawaken desire, to stir your heart up from the depths you sent it to. He does it so that you don’t fall prey to some substitute that looks like life but will instead become a type of addiction. He awakens your desire so that you will seek the life you were meant to seek. Isn’t this just what happens to the prodigal son? He wakes one day to say, “All those farmhands working for my father sit down to three meals a day, and here I am starving” (Luke 15:17 THE MESSAGE). Look at their lives, he says. And is stirred to head for home. To seek life. Dear friend, where you find God stirring your heart, you will find that is the place where he is calling you home.”
― John Eldredge, Restoration Year: Devotions to Transform Your Relationships, Spirit, and Faith

“So you turn from your independence and all the ways you either charge at life or shrink from it; this may be one of the most basic and the most crucial ways you repent.”
― John Eldredge, Restoration Year: Devotions to Transform Your Relationships, Spirit, and Faith

“The secret of Christianity is something else altogether—the life of Christ in you. Allowing his life to become your life. His revolution is not self-transformation, but his transformation of you, from the inside out, as you receive his life and allow him to live through you. Vine, branch. Anything else is madness.”
― John Eldredge, Restoration Year: Devotions to Transform Your Relationships, Spirit, and Faith

“God seems to be of the opinion that no one should sustain the rigors of the Christian life without very robust and concrete hopes of brazen reward.”
― John Eldredge, Restoration Year: Devotions to Transform Your Relationships, Spirit, and Faith

“C. S. Lewis writes: “If you consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Your Lord finds your desires not too strong, but too weak.”
― John Eldredge, Restoration Year: Devotions to Transform Your Relationships, Spirit, and Faith

“Then you turn to others and ask, “And what are these chests, Lord?” These are the rewards for your choices, your victories, your perseverance, and your service. Those treasure chests are yours, friend; their contents will thrill your heart and redeem so much of what you have endured here. Justice shall be yours. Wrongs will be avenged, hurts shall be healed, and all that was stolen from you in this life recompensed far beyond your wildest hopes. You will open those chests, look, and be radiant. Your heart will throb and swell with joy.”
― John Eldredge, Restoration Year: Devotions to Transform Your Relationships, Spirit, and Faith

“Imagine—after your enemies are judged and banished, many great treasure chests are set before you. Jesus tells you to open them, saying, These are the gifts I meant for you in your former life but were stolen. I return them now, with interest. Imagine what fills those chests. Laughter comes from one, for so much of what has been lost are memories and joy.”
― John Eldredge, Restoration Year: Devotions to Transform Your Relationships, Spirit, and Faith

“many relationships fail for the insistence of treating others as problems to be solved, rather than as hearts to be known and loved.”
― John Eldredge, Restoration Year: Devotions to Transform Your Relationships, Spirit, and Faith

“There is hope of freedom because of what Christ has done. Now you have an option. But you do have to stop presenting yourself over to sin as best you can. Your choices matter. You need to renounce the ways you have presented yourself to sin, and represent yourself to Christ.”
― John Eldredge, Restoration Year: Devotions to Transform Your Relationships, Spirit, and Faith

“You will discover that freedom comes only as you bring unsanctified and unholy places under the rule of Jesus Christ, so that he can possess these very places deeply and truly. Therefore, part of this first step involves sanctifying the place of bondage to Christ. If it’s emotional (as with rage) you sanctify your emotions; if it involves addiction you sanctify your obsession, and your body.”
― John Eldredge, Restoration Year: Devotions to Transform Your Relationships, Spirit, and Faith

“what you must cling to is that you have died with Christ in the cross; sin no longer has to rule over you. You have a choice!”
― John Eldredge, Restoration Year: Devotions to Transform Your Relationships, Spirit, and Faith

“The cross was not only then, it is now. An essential choice you face daily is whether you’ll let the “self” life reign in you, or will Christ reign in you? The first issue is never sin; it’s what you do with your internal, natural inclination to play lord of your life. All the hatred and envy you see in social media—that is the “offended self” lashing out. When Jesus invites you to take up your cross daily, he is not saying you have to crucify your every hope and desire. He is saying you must choose not to let “self” reign—neither in your internal nor external world. Christ is Lord of both.”
― John Eldredge, Restoration Year: Devotions to Transform Your Relationships, Spirit, and Faith

“you must cling to is that you have died with Christ in the cross; sin no longer has to rule over you. You have a choice!”
― John Eldredge, Restoration Year: Devotions to Transform Your Relationships, Spirit, and Faith

“You must understand: the unholy trinity Scripture names as the world, our flesh, and the evil one conspire to undermine your character.”
― John Eldredge, Restoration Year: Devotions to Transform Your Relationships, Spirit, and Faith

“But the way Jesus discipled each man proves his humility. To be a crowd-drawing teacher can be a rather heady experience, all eyes looking to you for the next bit of wisdom to drop from your lips. It’s easy to be gracious when you’re adored. But when your class keeps missing the point, challenging you, running down rabbit trails, changing the subject, misunderstanding, breaking out into a brawl—that’s when your character is exposed”
― John Eldredge, Restoration Year: Devotions to Transform Your Relationships, Spirit, and Faith

“far and above the most revealing aspect of anyone’s character is how one handles people. How is Jesus with people? He welcomes intrusion. He stops what he’s doing and gives undivided attention. He’s such an immensely gracious person.”
― John Eldredge, Restoration Year: Devotions to Transform Your Relationships, Spirit, and Faith

“That’s the key word—engage. Choose to engage and your weary warrior wakes up.”
― John Eldredge, Restoration Year: Devotions to Transform Your Relationships, Spirit, and Faith

“Life will provide a thousand sessions for raising the warrior God calls you to be. Turn your radar on during the day, and intentionally don’t take the path of least resistance.”
― John Eldredge, Restoration Year: Devotions to Transform Your Relationships, Spirit, and Faith

“You make no agreements with whatever the temptation or accusation is.”
― John Eldredge, Restoration Year: Devotions to Transform Your Relationships, Spirit, and Faith

“Friend, you must be intentional about holding on to the truth.”
― John Eldredge, Restoration Year: Devotions to Transform Your Relationships, Spirit, and Faith

“And he wants you to be utterly yourself, with him.”
― John Eldredge, Restoration Year: Devotions to Transform Your Relationships, Spirit, and Faith

“The most essential gift you have to give is yourself.”
― John Eldredge, Restoration Year: Devotions to Transform Your Relationships, Spirit, and Faith

“Dear friend, this fear is a mighty powerful force.”
― John Eldredge, Restoration Year: Devotions to Transform Your Relationships, Spirit, and Faith

“Friend, Christ has bestowed on you an identity. The best thing you can do is ask him to reveal it to you.”
― John Eldredge, Restoration Year: Devotions to Transform Your Relationships, Spirit, and Faith

“What do you want me to pray for them? Show me what to pray.”
― John Eldredge, Restoration Year: Devotions to Transform Your Relationships, Spirit, and Faith

“When you are praying for guidance, first you need to reduce any pressure. Pressure nearly always gets in the way of hearing from God. Drama never helps; stress never helps. Give it some breathing room. Take a deep breath yourself. Second, be open to whatever it may be that God has to say to you. If you are, in truth, only open to hearing one answer from God, then it’s not likely you will hear anything at all. More sadly, if you do hear a “yes,” you won’t trust it. Surrender is the key. Yield your desires and plans to the living God, so that you’ll receive his counsel. Consecrate the matter and process of decision making! Third, don’t fill in the blanks! Do not spend half your energy trying to figure it out while you are giving the other half to seeking God. Far better to live with the uncertainty for a while than to be your own counselor. Finally, give it some time. If you feel you are receiving counsel, guidance, and direction from the Holy Spirit, then ask for confirmation. Confirmation will give you a settled assurance that you are in fact following God’s will.”
― John Eldredge, Restoration Year: Devotions to Transform Your Relationships, Spirit, and Faith

“requiring all things to recognize and yield to that authority, announcing that the authority of Jesus Christ is now in effect here.”
― John Eldredge, Restoration Year: Devotions to Transform Your Relationships, Spirit, and Faith

“You enforce by proclaiming what is true over the subject.”
― John Eldredge, Restoration Year: Devotions to Transform Your Relationships, Spirit, and Faith

“the power of proclaiming.”
― John Eldredge, Restoration Year: Devotions to Transform Your Relationships, Spirit, and Faith

“Think of consecration as aligning and enforcing—aligning yourself with Jesus and all the laws of his kingdom, then enforcing his rule and those laws over the matter in question.”
― John Eldredge, Restoration Year: Devotions to Transform Your Relationships, Spirit, and Faith