Top 160 Erwin Raphael McManus Quotes (2024 Update)
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51. “It is insanity to run from God and search for love.”

— Erwin Raphael McManus

52. “Jesus is being lost in a religion bearing his name.”

— Erwin Raphael McManus

53. “How in the world could you ever imagine a life of faith that does not require risk? Faith and risk are inseparable.”

— Erwin Raphael McManus

54. “Jesus did not have a value for prayer for prayer’s sake. He had a value for the intimate communion between God and man.”

— Erwin Raphael McManus

55. “We have to ask ourselves, ‘Am I really trying to discern God’s will, or determine whether I want to do it?’”

— Erwin Raphael McManus

56. “I think Christianity is the same as Buddhism and Hinduism – whenever a religion begins to say that these are the things you have to do to be loved by God, you have a religion.”

— Erwin Raphael McManus

57. “It is not balance you need but adaptability.”

— Erwin Raphael McManus

58. “The tragedy of a life that is never fully lived is not simply the loss of that one life. The tragedy is the endless number of lives that would have been forever changed if we had chosen to live differently.”

— Erwin Raphael McManus

59. “You’re not supposed to die with your potential. A life well lived squeezes all the potential placed within and does something with it.”

— Erwin Raphael McManus

60. “To blame others is an act of cowardice. We blame in an attempt to hide our shame. This is not the way of the warrior. The warrior understands that to blame is not simply an abdication of responsibility but a relinquishing of power. You cannot change what you do not take responsibility for.”

— Erwin Raphael McManus

61. “We do not see the world as it is; we see the world as we are. A heart filled with violence will never see a world filled with peace. You can bring hope only if you have found hope.”

— Erwin Raphael McManus

62. “True creativity does not come easily; creativity is born of risk and refined from failure.”

— Erwin Raphael McManus

63. “If the safest place to be is in the center of the will of God, then an appropriate measure of God’s will is the test, ‘is it safe?’... This view runs counter to what we find in the Scriptures. I want to reiterate the fact that the center of God’s will is not a safe place, but the most dangerous place in the world.”

— Erwin Raphael McManus

64. “The most important moments rarely come at a convenient time.”

— Erwin Raphael McManus

65. “The fuel of ambition is not the problem; it is the focus of ambition that frees or betrays us.”

— Erwin Raphael McManus

66. “People who are fully alive look out of their minds to those who simply exist.”

— Erwin Raphael McManus

67. “Far too often, when we think we are frightened by mystery, the fact is that we are haunted by history.”

— Erwin Raphael McManus

68. “The great tragedy that I have witnessed over and over again is that we keep underestimating how much God wants to do in us and through us. Too many of us have believed the lies we have been told: that we’re not good enough, we’re not smart enough, we’re not talented enough, we’re just not enough. One of the facets of God that makes him extraordinary is his ability to do the impossible through ordinary, everyday, common people like you and me.”

— Erwin Raphael McManus

69. “But if you choose the way of the warrior, living a life of service, it will demand of you the best you have. You may not need to be great, but the world needs your greatness. Whatever God has placed within you that could ever be described as great was never meant for you, anyway. It’s a stewardship that has been given to you. Greatness never belongs to the one who carries it; it belongs to the world that needs it.”

— Erwin Raphael McManus

70. “It is no small thing that Paul says that only with this new mind can you become a new you. So often the will of God is described as something to be received rather than something that must be perceived. Paul tells us that when our minds are renewed, it is then and only then that we are able to test and approve what the will of God is. When we see the world from this new mind, we will see that God’s intention for us is good and pleasing and perfect.”

— Erwin Raphael McManus

71. “This thing that haunts you, that never seems satisfied, the cravings in your soul that you are unable to satiate through all the success that the world can bring this is your soul screaming for God.”

— Erwin Raphael McManus

72. “My goal is to destroy Christianity.”

— Erwin Raphael McManus

73. “Whoever tells the best story shapes the culture.”

— Erwin Raphael McManus

74. “If you find yourself living in a world where there is only cynicism, negativity, and distrust, you need to realize that it’s a world of your own making. There is a more beautiful world out there to be known, but you have to be able to see it. You have to want it. You must be willing to risk, to step outside of what you know, to live in a more extraordinary unknown.”

— Erwin Raphael McManus

75. “Average is always a safe choice, and it is the most dangerous choice you can make.”

— Erwin Raphael McManus

76. “How is it, that for many of us, being a good Christian is nothing more than being a good person? The entire focus of our faith has been the elimination of sin, which is important but inadequate; rather than the unleashing of a unique, original, extraordinary, wonderfully untamed, faith.”

— Erwin Raphael McManus

77. “Peace comes when you stop trying to control the world around you and instead take responsibility for the world within you.”

— Erwin Raphael McManus

78. “If our children are going to walk away from Christ, we need to raise them in such a way that they understand that to walk away from Jesus is to walk away from a life of faith, risk and adventure and to choose a life that boring, mundane and ordinary.”

— Erwin Raphael McManus

79. “Artists love without reservation. They give their hearts completely and leave nothing on the table. They are naked and unashamed. They leave no room for pretension. And because they have given all of themselves, they live without regret.”

— Erwin Raphael McManus

80. “A world without God cannot wait for us to choose the safe path. If we wait for someone else to take the risk, we risk that no one will ever act and that nothing will ever be accomplished.”

— Erwin Raphael McManus

81. “Jesus beckons his followers to a path that’s far from the easy road. It’s a path filled with adventure, uncertainty, and unlimited possibilities – the only path that can fulfill the deepest longings and desires of your heart.”

— Erwin Raphael McManus

82. “The greatest enemy to the movement of Jesus Christ is Christianity.”

— Erwin Raphael McManus

83. “I have so much confidence in the reality of Jesus that I feel no pressure to try to make people act or be a certain way. I’m banking everything on the fact that God actually changes people.”

— Erwin Raphael McManus

84. “In some sense we are all hypocrites in transition.”

— Erwin Raphael McManus

85. “I realize that I live on the bubble of insanity. I feel the weight of human suffering, loneliness and despair on me all the time. It’s not getting easier; if anything, it’s always right on the edge of my skin.”

— Erwin Raphael McManus

86. “We cannot live unaffected by love. We are most alive when we find it, most devastated when we lose it, most empty when we give up on it, most inhumane when we betray it, and most passionate when we pursue it.”

— Erwin Raphael McManus

87. “The warrior does not need a crowd; they need a tribe.”

— Erwin Raphael McManus

88. “If God imagined you at birth, what makes you think He’s stopped imagining you now.”

— Erwin Raphael McManus

89. “It takes courage to not only accept our limitations but embrace our potential. To deny our creative nature is to choose a life where we are less and thus responsible for less. We see ourselves as created beings, so we choose to survive. When we see ourselves as creative beings, we must instead create.”

— Erwin Raphael McManus

90. “We can become so afraid of death that we never live, so afraid of failure that we never risk, so afraid of pain that we never discover how strong we really are.”

— Erwin Raphael McManus

91. “Our lives will become our greatest works of art not only when our relationships are a beautiful expression of love, acceptance, and intimacy, but when we have a deep sense of purpose that produces accomplishments that express, for us, success and significance.”

— Erwin Raphael McManus

92. “Two thousand years ago, God started a revolt against the religion He started. So don’t ever put it past God to cause a groundswell movement against churches and Christian institutions that bear His name.”

— Erwin Raphael McManus

93. “We will never know peace if we lose the present because we are trapped in the past and paralyzed by the future.”

— Erwin Raphael McManus

94. “Creativity should be an everyday experience. Creativity should be as common as breathing. We breathe, therefore we create.”

— Erwin Raphael McManus

95. “Our citizenship is in eternity; history is our temporary residence.”

— Erwin Raphael McManus

96. “Religion as a whole specializes in sin management. It’s all about organizing humanity in such a way that we cause as little damage as possible.”

— Erwin Raphael McManus

97. “It is amazing how much we can endure when we are convinced there is a purpose to our struggle.”

— Erwin Raphael McManus

98. “When you begin to create the life of your dreams – or maybe better stated, when you begin to live the life that God dreams for you – you take responsibility to prepare for the future.”

— Erwin Raphael McManus

99. “Whether we realize it or not, everything we do is an expression of either how alive our souls are or how much we have allowed ourselves to be deadened over time.”

— Erwin Raphael McManus

100. “The Christian faith grew through story – not text. Only later did the stories become Scripture. While the Scripture must be held in the highest regard, we must not neglect the power of story.”

— Erwin Raphael McManus