Eternity Is Now in Session Quotes

“every human being.”[12] Salvation doesn’t mean simply being rescued from the consequences of our wrong choices. It doesn’t mean being delivered into better circumstances. It means being changed. Salvation isn’t primarily a matter of going to the good place. It’s about becoming good people.”
― John Ortberg, Eternity Is Now in Session: A Radical Rediscovery of What Jesus Really Taught about Salvation, Eternity, and Getting to the Good Place

“Salvation doesn’t mean simply being rescued from the consequences of our wrong choices. It doesn’t mean being delivered into better circumstances. It means being changed. Salvation isn’t primarily a matter of going to the good place. It’s about becoming good people.”
― John Ortberg, Eternity Is Now in Session: A Radical Rediscovery of What Jesus Really Taught about Salvation, Eternity, and Getting to the Good Place

“Much of the way we're taught to view eternal life is as a destination we reach, and until we get there, we're like anxious kids on a long car trip asking, "Are we there yet?" We think we're just biding time until we get there, when the real enjoyment will begin. But what if we're missing out along the way?
This book contrasts two ways of thinking about Jesus' gospel. The more common version is thought to involve how people ensure they will go to heaven when they die. It's about how to go from "down here" to "up there." It usually involves affirming certain beliefs or praying a particular prayer that is thought to make a person a "Christian."
The other understanding is that the gospel announces the availability of life under God's reign and power now. It's about "up there" coming "down here." By grace. Through Jesus. Transcending death. To all who will. For the sake of the world.
The first version tends to produce consumers of Jesus' merit. The second tends to produce disciples of Jesus' Way.”
― John Ortberg, Eternity Is Now in Session: A Radical Rediscovery of What Jesus Really Taught about Salvation, Eternity, and Getting to the Good Place

“Great Experiment” that Jesus himself invites us to run: “Anyone who chooses to do the will of God will find out whether my teaching comes from God or whether I speak on my own” (John 7:17). Now we begin to understand why the “minimum entrance requirements” question is such a problematic approach to salvation.”
― John Ortberg, Eternity Is Now in Session: A Radical Rediscovery of What Jesus Really Taught about Salvation, Eternity, and Getting to the Good Place

“But trust that doesn’t obey isn’t trust at all. It’s a mental game to say otherwise. It is the nature of genuine trust to obey; that’s what trust means. There is no other way. And it’s not true about just Jesus. There’s no other way to be happy in your doctor, or your trainer, or your vocal coach, or your auto mechanic. If you trust that they are competent, you are prepared to do what they say. What else would it mean to trust them?”
― John Ortberg, Eternity Is Now in Session: A Radical Rediscovery of What Jesus Really Taught about Salvation, Eternity, and Getting to the Good Place

“Jesus’ gospel had a tendency to produce disciples.”
― John Ortberg, Eternity Is Now in Session: A Radical Rediscovery of What Jesus Really Taught about Salvation, Eternity, and Getting to the Good Place

“as much as we look for deliverance from our outward circumstances, the main task of salvation is an inside job.”
― John Ortberg, Eternity Is Now in Session: A Radical Rediscovery of What Jesus Really Taught about Salvation, Eternity, and Getting to the Good Place

“When we abide, we make a home (our “abode”) in a place. We linger there, and our inner person gets shaped by our abode. We can abide in fear. We can abide in ambition. We can abide in anger. We can abide in lust. Or we can abide in God.”
― John Ortberg, Eternity Is Now in Session: A Radical Rediscovery of What Jesus Really Taught about Salvation, Eternity, and Getting to the Good Place

“To have saving faith is not to believe the minimum amount so God has to let you in. To have saving faith is to believe what Jesus himself believed, to see what Jesus himself saw, so that you naturally do what Jesus himself would do.”
― John Ortberg, Eternity Is Now in Session: A Radical Rediscovery of What Jesus Really Taught about Salvation, Eternity, and Getting to the Good Place

“Belief is simply not the sort of thing you can make yourself do.”
― John Ortberg, Eternity Is Now in Session: A Radical Rediscovery of What Jesus Really Taught about Salvation, Eternity, and Getting to the Good Place

“Dallas once wrote, “We must . . . do nothing less than engage in a radical rethinking of the Christian conception of salvation.”[9] I”
― John Ortberg, Eternity Is Now in Session: A Radical Rediscovery of What Jesus Really Taught about Salvation, Eternity, and Getting to the Good Place

“Eternal life in the individual does not begin after death, but at the point where God touches the individual with redeeming grace and draws them into a life interactive with himself and his kingdom.”[7]”
― John Ortberg, Eternity Is Now in Session: A Radical Rediscovery of What Jesus Really Taught about Salvation, Eternity, and Getting to the Good Place

“Which means eternal life isn’t just about the future. We can have it now. It’s not just about there. We can have it here. Most important, it’s not something we simply receive through a transaction that arranges for our future destination. It’s something we experience now through becoming Jesus’ disciples, which death is then unable to stop.”
― John Ortberg, Eternity Is Now in Session: A Radical Rediscovery of What Jesus Really Taught about Salvation, Eternity, and Getting to the Good Place