God Pursues

“God pursues us into whatever dark places we’ve landed and behind whatever locked door holds us in. He holds our unwashed and dirty hands and models how He wants us to pursue each other. Sometimes that means picking up a phone and asking a stranger to do something that seems crazy at first. He invites us to leave perfectly fine careers like Christ did, and rather than having us apply for a position, He says our lives are the position. And He says to ordinary people like me and you that instead of closing our eyes and bowing our heads, sometimes God wants us to keep our eyes open for people in need, do something about it, and bow our whole lives to Him instead.” – Bob Goff, Love Does

God Delights

“What I’ve learned the more I’ve spent time following Jesus is that God delights in answering our impossible prayers. The kind of prayers made in a dark cell by someone holding unwashed hands. Prayers asking for the things we couldn’t possibly think could happen for us or someone else. Ones we might even feel a little bad saying, as if it’s just asking God for too much. But what I forget is that we are talking to a God who knows what we need the most is to return to our lives. And God knows that we can’t fully return until we know we’ve been forgiven.” – Bob Goff, Love Does

Good

“I used to think God was good some of the time, but now I know He’s good all of the time.” – Bob Goff, Love Does

Isn’t it a shame when an amazing truth somehow gets watered down from overuse? It doesn’t make it any less true though. God’s goodness is constant. Therefore we can absolutely trust Him all the time. Rain or shine, good times and tough times God is always at work with our ultimate good in mind and on the horizon. Now that’s worth getting excited about.

He Digs Us

“Jesus hardly talked to anyone about what He’d done. The Bible never depicts one of those end-of-camp slideshows where Jesus goes over all He had done with His disciples. Instead Jesus modeled that we don’t need to talk about everything we’ve done. It’s like He was saying, what if we were just to do awesome stuff together while we’re here on earth and the fact that only He knew would be enough? If we did that, we wouldn’t get confused about who was really making things happen. Not surprisingly, we’d get a lot more done too, because we wouldn’t care whose looking or taking credit. All that energy would be funneled into awesomeness. Even then, though, don’t take the bait that if we do incredible things Jesus will dig us more. He can’t. He already digs us more. And more than that, our pictures are already in His wallet.” – Bob Goff, Love Does

The Book of Life

“I read somewhere in the Bible that there is a book of life. I don’t think this book of life is full of equations, and I don’t think that it’s just a book of names either. I think that this book of life is more like a book of lives, a book of stories. I bet it’s about people traveling in the direction of Jesus, trying to follow Him. People like me who made lots of mistakes and midcourse corrections. It’s about people who stayed within the large circle of His love and grace, staying the course on a long line pointing toward Him. And their names weren’t in the book because of what they did or didn’t do. They were there because of who God is and what He has done to draw a circle around them.” – Bob Goff, Love Does

Original Art

“God invites us to be new creations, original art, and to live a life of engagement. He says to leave the cheap imitation in a closet somewhere. He doesn’t say when you hang the real you out there – the priceless one – that things will go great either. It’s pretty clear from watching Jesus’ followers past and present that when you risk the real you, you’ll probably take a hit. God did when He hung Jesus out there. But one thing I do know is this: when we do take hits, and we will, God isn’t going to think less of us.” – Bob Goff, Love Does

He loves us scars and all.

Rearview Mirror

“The more I’ve listened to God, the more I’ve realized I don’t always catch what God is up to in real time either. Some people speak with a great deal of authority about what God is doing right now. I’m always amazed because I can never figure out God that quickly. I usually understand what God is doing by seeing it through the rearview mirror. Only then can I connect the dots, and even then, it’s a pretty dodgy sketch. Maybe that’s why the Bible described what we are often doing as looking through a mirror dimly. The Bible says that right now we only know “in part” and that one day, after we’ve gone, we’ll know “in full.” That makes more sense to me because it means our understanding will always have gaps and gaps are good because they leave room for God to fill in the spaces.” – Bob Goff, Love Does

Unlimited

“Rather than spending time wondering why I don’t hear audible voices. I just try to listen harder with my heart, and I’ve realized a couple things that seem kind of obvious now. God doesn’t talk to me in an audible voice because God isn’t a human being; He’s God. That makes sense to me, because human beings are limited and God isn’t limited at all. He can communicate to us in any way He wants to anytime He wants to. Through flowers, other people, an uncomfortable sense, a feeling of joy, goose bumps, a newfound talent, or an appreciation we acquire over time. It doesn’t need to be a big mystical thing.” – Bob Goff, Love Does

Adventure

“Everyday God invites us on an adventure. It’s not a trip where He sends us a rigid itinerary, He simply invites us. God asks what it is He made us to love, what it is that captures our attention, what feeds that deep indescribable need of ours to experience the richness of the world He made. And then leaning over to us, He whispers, “Let’s go do that together.”” – Bob Goff, Love Does

Yes Lord, let’s do it.

Leaky

“…I want to leak from having been hit by Jesus. From having something crazy happen to me, something that flipped my life upside down. I’ve met people like that, people who leak Jesus. Whenever you’re around them, Jesus keeps coming up with words and with actions. I don’t suppose everybody gets hit by Jesus, but those of us who have talk about Him differently. We start leaking where we stand. And it’s because we got thrown from our lives.” – Bob Goff, Love Does