Top 50 Brant Hansen Quotes (2024 Update)

1. “Few want to hear this, but it’s true, and it can be enormously helpful in life: if you’re constantly being hurt, offended, or angered, you should honestly evaluate your inflamed ego.”

— Brant Hansen

2. “It takes childlike humility to embrace the love of God, to realize how “unfair” it is, and then quickly add, “but I’ll take it!”

— Brant Hansen

3. “Whether or not you currently feel that God is around doesn’t alter reality. Whether or not you feel He loves you, or even that you are worthy of His love, doesn’t change reality either.”

— Brant Hansen

4. “It makes you wonder about God: What kind of father wants to be pestered? Probably one who really loves his children and is hoping they don’t wait until the perfect moment, or until they are perfect themselves, before they finally talk to him.”

— Brant Hansen

5. “Jesus encountered one moral mess after another, and He was never taken aback by anyone’s morality. Ever.”

— Brant Hansen

6. “No more defensiveness. No more taking things personally. He’ll handle it. Really. Trust Him. Rest. Quit thinking it’s up to you to police people, and that God needs you to “take a stand.” God “needs” nothing.”

— Brant Hansen

7. “Proverbs says to ask for wisdom. Wisdom means perspective. It means knowing what matters.”

— Brant Hansen

8. “We can play pretend and try to set up an aquarium-type existence, devoid of interaction with anything or anyone who might challenge or upset us, but that’s not the world Jesus came to save.”

— Brant Hansen

9. “Forfeiting our right to anger makes us deny ourselves, and makes us others-centered. When we start living this way, it changes everything. Actually, it’s not even “forfeiting” a right, because the right doesn’t exist. We’re told to forgive, and that means anger has to go, whether we’ve decided our own anger is “righteous” or not.”

— Brant Hansen

10. “Choosing not to take offense is not about simply ignoring wrongs. If someone, say, cuts in front of you in line, you can address the situation. You don’t have to simply accept it. But you can act without contempt, anger, and bitterness.”

— Brant Hansen

11. “When we surrender our perceived “rights,” when we let go of our attempts to manipulate, we find – surprise! – joy.”

— Brant Hansen

12. “Seek justice; love mercy. You don’t have to be angry to do that. People say we have to get angry to fight injustice, but I’ve noticed that the best police officers don’t do their jobs in anger. The best soldiers don’t function out of anger. Anger does not enhance judgment.”

— Brant Hansen

13. “Choosing to be unoffendable not only helps me sleep at night rather than worrying about my latest online “Stand for Truth”; it helps me remember that Jesus didn’t even ask me to take a stand for truth on everything. He told His followers to go and make disciples. Make other followers.”

— Brant Hansen

14. “Yes, the world is broken. But don’t be offended by it. Instead, thank God that He’s intervened in it, and He’s going to restore it to everything it was meant to be. His kingdom is breaking through, bit by bit. Recognize it, and wonder at it.”

— Brant Hansen

15. “One of the hardest-to-swallow, most countercultural, counter intuitive implications of the gospel is that bearing up under a difficult burden with patient perseverance is a good thing.”

— Brant Hansen

16. “Quit trying to parent the whole world. Quit offering advice when exactly zero people asked for it. Quit being shocked when people don’t share your morality. Quit serving as judge and jury, in your own mind, of that person who just cut you off in traffic. Quit thinking you need to “discern” what others’ motives are. And quit rehearsing in your mind what that other person did to you.”

— Brant Hansen

17. “Oh yes, the heart is deceptive. And that calls for humility above all else, because my heart isn’t deceptive because it fools other people. It’s deceptive because it fools me.”

— Brant Hansen

18. “Being offended is a tiring business. Letting things go gives you energy.”

— Brant Hansen

19. “Our feelings have nothing to do with whether God loves us or is still involved in our lives.”

— Brant Hansen

20. “We are capable of imagining threats and staying in a kind of constant, low-grade fight-or-flight mode. We’re capable of feeling threatened all the time, by things that haven’t even happened and may not ever happen.”

— Brant Hansen

21. “Grace isn’t for the deserving.”

— Brant Hansen

22. “In the moment, everyone’s anger always seems righteous. Anger is a feeling, after all, and it sweeps over us and tells us we’re being denied something we should have. It provides its own justification. But an emotion is just an emotion. It’s not critical thinking. Anger doesn’t pause. We have to stop, and we have to question it.”

— Brant Hansen

23. “Your life will become less stressful when you give up your right to anger and offense. And by the way, if you don’t, you’re doomed. So there’s that too.”

— Brant Hansen

24. “God knows others’ private motives. We don’t. God knows our private motives. We don’t. We think we can judge others’ motives. We’re wrong.”

— Brant Hansen

25. “Since anger has value, giving it up requires a sacrifice. And, as we’ve explored, it’s one that’s simply not optional for the follower of Jesus. The cross simultaneously stands as a constant reminder of His willingness to “pay the bill,” and as an indictment on us when we are unwilling to do the same for others.”

— Brant Hansen

26. “Grace isn’t for the deserving. Forgiving means surrendering your claim to resentment and letting go of anger.”

— Brant Hansen

27. “We should forfeit our right to be offended. That means forfeiting our right to hold on to anger. When we do this, we’ll be making a sacrifice that’s very pleasing to God. It strikes at our very pride. It forces us not only to think about humility, but to actually be humble.”

— Brant Hansen

28. “Our anger is valuable to us. That’s why we want to hold it, to savor it. It means something. It means we’ve been wronged, we’re in the right, and we’re the victims in an unfair exchange. We want to even out the scales, and one way to do it, at least psychologically, is to stay offended.”

— Brant Hansen

29. “Taking offense is so often a lot of work. It can wear you out; but for some, it really becomes a lifestyle.”

— Brant Hansen

30. “We hold on to worry because we don’t trust God. We hold on to anger because we don’t trust God. We feel threatened because we’re insecure, and we’re insecure because – surprise! – we don’t trust God.”

— Brant Hansen

31. “Whenever there’s an injury to a relationship, a hurt, a broken heart, or even a broken thing, and you are willing to forgive, you are saying, “I got this. I’m going to pick up the bill for this.” This is, of course, precisely what God has done for us.”

— Brant Hansen

32. “Loving others means divesting ourselves of our status. We’re not being naive in doing it. We’ve surrendered it for good reason, believing that there is something better in exchange.”

— Brant Hansen

33. “The Bible gives us ample commands to act, and never, ever, says to do it out of anger. Instead, we’re to be motivated by something very different: love, and obedience born of love.”

— Brant Hansen

34. “Love people where they are, and love them boldly.”

— Brant Hansen

35. “When He says to get rid of anger, to serve others, and to die to ourselves, it’s in our best interests to obey. He knows how we can thrive.”

— Brant Hansen

36. “I get the impression from Scripture that God would rather be in communication with an immature, selfish person than be ignored by a theologically fastidious one.”

— Brant Hansen

37. “Instead of changing our beliefs to match reality, we often just rearrange reality, in our heads, to match what we want.”

— Brant Hansen

38. “I suspect our sense of entitlement to anger is directly proportional to our perception of our own relative innocence.”

— Brant Hansen

39. “Loving people means divesting ourselves of our status. We’re not being naive in doing it. We’ve surrendered it for good reason, believing that there is something better in exchange. We decide to be unoffendable because that’s how love operates; it gives up its “status” entirely.”

— Brant Hansen

40. “It seems like being “passionate for something big” is something positive, but I keep running into Jesus telling us to be like children. And children are small. Maybe you’ve noticed that too. They do little things, and they’re okay with it. Jesus seems passionate about other little things too. Mustard seeds. Sparrows. Lilies of the field. Single days, like today, instead of The Big Future. Little acts of our will.”

— Brant Hansen

41. “Choosing to be unoffendable out of love for others is ministry.”

— Brant Hansen

42. “Choosing to be unoffendable means choosing to be humble. Not only that, the practice teaches humility. Once you’ve decided you can’t control other people; once you’ve reconciled yourself to the fact that the world, and its people, are broken; once you’ve realized your own moral failure before God; once you’ve abandoned the idea that your significance comes from anything other than God, you’re growing in humility, and that’s exactly where God wants us all.”

— Brant Hansen

43. “Still, it’s up to us. My kids are older now, but I want them to know that. They’re free. God knows what’s best for us. He offers peace. He offers rest. But He lets us choose.”

— Brant Hansen

44. “Anger is extraordinarily easy. It’s our default setting. Love is very difficult. Love is a miracle.”

— Brant Hansen

45. “Choosing to be unoffendable, or relinquishing my right to anger, does not mean accepting injustice. It means actively seeking justice, and loving mercy, while walking humbly with God. And that means remembering I’m not Him. What a relief.”

— Brant Hansen

46. “When you’re living in the reality of the forgiveness you’ve been extended, you just don’t get angry with others easily.”

— Brant Hansen

47. “If you call yourself a Christian, and you want things to be fair, and you want God’s rewards given out only to the deserving and the upstanding and the religious, well, honestly, Jesus has got to be a complete embarrassment to you.”

— Brant Hansen

48. “Forfeiting our right to anger makes us deny ourselves, and makes us others-centered. When we start living this way, it changes everything.”

— Brant Hansen

49. “So think about this: When Peter insists that he is even willing to die for Jesus, Jesus tells him, “No, you’ll betray Me. You’ll deny Me – three times. But don’t let your heart be troubled. Believe in me. I’m going to prepare a special place for you – and I’m coming back to get you!”

— Brant Hansen

50. “I’m already a believer, but the kingdom of God is so shockingly opposite the way the rest of the world works that I need constant reminding of what it looks like and how good it is.”

— Brant Hansen