Top 280 Bob Goff Quotes (2025 Update)
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151. “The people who creep us out aren’t obstacles to having faith; they’re opportunities to understand it.”

— Bob Goff

152. “We need to make our faith our very own love story.”

— Bob Goff

153. “Big faith doesn’t need big words. We also don’t need to make faith easier, because it’s not; we need to make it simpler, because it is.”

— Bob Goff

154. “Jesus always pointed people towards a better version of themselves – particularly when they’d failed.”

— Bob Goff

155. “What I’ve been doing with my faith is this: instead of saying I’m going to believe in Jesus for my whole life, I’ve been trying to actually obey Jesus for thirty seconds at a time.”

— Bob Goff

156. “It’s given me a lot of comfort knowing we’re all rough drafts of the people we’re still becoming.”

— Bob Goff

157. “If you want to make a big impact in the world, stop throwing pine on the fire in your life and burn the oak instead. Play the long game.”

— Bob Goff

158. “When we get our security from Christ, we no longer have to look for it in the world, and that’s a pretty good trade.”

— Bob Goff

159. “Don’t wait to join a movement. A movement is just a bunch of people making moves. Be a movement. Figure out what your next move is going to be, then make it. No one is remembered for what they only planned to do.”

— Bob Goff

160. “When I think about satan, my thoughts go to how Jesus interacted with him in the desert. Jesus spoke with him for just a few seconds and then sent him away. Satan was a manipulator who wanted to control God, but Jesus had a relationship with God that satan didn’t understand, and Jesus had no problem telling him off and getting rid of him. I think we should do the same.”

— Bob Goff

161. “Decide in advance that you will do whatever it takes to get your heart right, and then do it- even if it will kill all previous versions of you. You need to ask yourself what makes your heart beat in ways that make you stronger, more courageous, more giving, and more loving. Figure out what makes your heart skip a beat with joy and what makes it miss a beat with disfunction and distraction.”

— Bob Goff

162. “The sad fact is, many of us have lost our way trying to help people find theirs. Arguments won’t change people. Simply giving away kindness won’t either. Only Jesus has the power to change people, and it will be harder for them to see Jesus if their view of him is blocked by our big opinions.”

— Bob Goff

163. “These people haven’t tried to save up love like they’re going to need it later; they know we’re rivers, not reservoirs.”

— Bob Goff

164. “Telling people what they should want turns us into a bunch of sheriffs. People who are becoming love lose the badge and give away grace instead. Tell the people you meet who they’re becoming, and trust that God will help people to find their way toward beautiful things in their lives without you.”

— Bob Goff

165. “Every day God invites us on an adventure. It’s not a trip where He sends us a rigid itinerary, He simply invites us.”

— Bob Goff

166. “We won’t convince people with our arguments or Bible verses; we’ll move them with the kind of sacrificial love that precludes every other explanation.”

— Bob Goff

167. “I think Jesus meant something different when He said “enemies.” He meant we should love the people we don’t understand. The ones we disagree with. The ones who are flat wrong about more than a couple of things. I have plenty of those people in my life, and my bet is you do too.”

— Bob Goff

168. “If you are a person of faith, at some point you’ll need to decide whether you want to be right or if you want to be Jesus.”

— Bob Goff

169. “He said people who followed Him should think of themselves more like ushers rather than the bouncers, and it would be God who decides who gets in. We’re the ones who simply show people to their seats that someone else paid for.”

— Bob Goff

170. “They give away love like they’re made of it.”

— Bob Goff

171. “Could God speak to me audibly if He wanted to? You bet, and I hope He does sometime; I’ll let you know. Probably in a book called ‘God Talked to Me’. Until then, it seems that what God does most the time when He has something to say is this... He doesn’t pass us messages, instead He passes us each other.”

— Bob Goff

172. “I learned that faith isn’t about knowing all of the right stuff or obeying a list of rules. It’s something more, something more costly because it involves being present and making a sacrifice.”

— Bob Goff

173. “Love finds us where we are, not where we were.”

— Bob Goff

174. “See people for who they’re becoming. Not who they were.”

— Bob Goff

175. “I used to think God wouldn’t talk to me, but now I know I’m just selective with what I choose to hear.”

— Bob Goff

176. “Grace means we don’t need to airbrush our lives to make them look like they’re working.”

— Bob Goff

177. “It has always seemed to me that broken things, just like broken people, get used more; it’s probably because God has more pieces to work with.”

— Bob Goff

178. “Jesus talked to His friends a lot about how we should identify ourselves. He said it wouldn’t be what we said we believed or all the good we hoped to do someday. Nope, He said we would identify ourselves simply by how we loved people. It’s tempting to think there is more to it, but there’s not. Love isn’t something we fall into; love is someone we become.”

— Bob Goff

179. “If we pick recognition over influence we’ll be known for all the wrong stuff.”

— Bob Goff

180. “I’ve learned that God sometimes allows us to find ourselves in a place where we want something so bad that we can’t see past it. Sometimes we can’t even see God because of it. When we want something so bad, it’s easy to mistake what we truly need for the thing we really want. When this sort of thing happens, and it seems to happen to everyone, I’ve found it’s because what God has for us is obscured from view, just around another bend in the road.”

— Bob Goff

181. “Jesus lets us be real with our life and our faith.”

— Bob Goff

182. “We won’t figure out what’s sacred in life if we settle for what’s safe.”

— Bob Goff

183. “We don’t need to spend as much time as we do telling people what we think about what they’re doing. Loving people doesn’t mean we need to control their conduct. There’s a big difference between the two. Loving people means caring without an agenda. As soon as we have an agenda, it’s not love anymore. It’s acting like you care to get someone to do what you want or what you think God wants them to do. Do less of that, and people will see a lot less of you and more of Jesus.”

— Bob Goff

184. “We get to be God’s plan for the whole world by pointing people toward Him.”

— Bob Goff

185. “No one expects us to love them flawlessly, but we can love them fearlessly, furiously, and unreasonably.”

— Bob Goff

186. “Our failures can leave behind pavement or potholes. Our ability to receive grace determines which it will be.”

— Bob Goff

187. “Be ambitious about things that last.”

— Bob Goff

188. “Yet Jesus continues to select broken and splattered people not just as followers, but as participants. He called people like me who can’t even figure out which way to turn a screw to tighten it or even stack a cake correctly the ones who would build a kingdom. And then, if we’re willing, He serves us up – rocks, small bits of asphalt, and all.”

— Bob Goff

189. “It taught me that when God is big enough and loves me enough to say He forgives me, I should actually believe Him.”

— Bob Goff

190. “You can usually tell when someone is doing this because, just like Sceva’s sons, they use Jesus’ name a lot, but it doesn’t seem that they have any of the power Jesus said would come with knowing Him. That power is easy to spot because it usually comes in the form of grace and acceptance, as well as sincere love and respect. It’s the kind of power that actually does things rather than just talking about them.”

— Bob Goff

191. “The world has been shouting over the noise of our programs that it doesn’t need more presidents or organizations, what it needs are more friends.”

— Bob Goff

192. “God asks what it is He’s made us to love, what it is that captures our attention, what feeds that deep indescribable need of our souls to experience the richness of the world He made. And then, leaning over us, He whispers, ‘Let’s go do that together.”

— Bob Goff

193. “Run toward these people, not away. There is a quiet confidence in knowing we all hit a couple of wrong notes here and there. The report card on our faith is how we treat one another when we do.”

— Bob Goff

194. “I don’t think people trying to make their points are always aware of the damage they are doing to other people’s hearts or their own reputations, but the fact is, they are doing damage. When it comes to the words we use, we’re never shooting blanks even though we think we are. In the Bible, Jesus said that our words are an overflow of whatever is in our hearts.1 I agree and wonder if we understand that many of the words we are using have become distractions to ourselves and the people around us.”

— Bob Goff

195. “The kind of adventure Jesus has invited us on doesn’t require an application or prerequisites. It’s just about deciding to take up the offer made by a father who wants us to come.”

— Bob Goff

196. “That’s one of those things about love. It always assumes it can find a way to express itself.”

— Bob Goff

197. “I don’t think success is what we’ve made of ourselves; I think it’s what we’ve made of others.”

— Bob Goff

198. “We need to replace what we’ve settled for with what we’ve been longing for.”

— Bob Goff

199. “There are plenty of people I don’t understand. I suppose some are trolls and some aren’t. God doesn’t see people the way I do, though. The ones I see as problems, God sees as sons and daughters, made in His image. The ones I see as difficult, He sees as delightfully different. The fact is, what skews my view of people who are sometimes hard to be around is that God is working on different things in their lives than He is working on in mine.”

— Bob Goff

200. “When we want something that bad, it’s easy to mistake what we truly need for the thing we really want. When this sort of thing happens, and it seems to happen to everyone, I’ve found it’s because what God has for us is obscured from view, just around another bend in the road.”

— Bob Goff