Anytime I'm not reading my Bible or praying, I feel like I'm wasting my time. [Mark's brother-in-law, Matt ________, speaking]

— Mark Batterson

As Edison is credited with saying, "Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work." We all want to be successful, but most of us aren't willing to do what those who are successful did to attain it. We want success without sacrifice, but you can't have one without the other!

— Mark Batterson

As I look back on my own life, I recognize this simple truth: The greatest opportunities were the scariest lions. Part of me has wanted to play it safe, but I’ve learned that taking no risks is the greatest risk of all.

— Mark Batterson

At its core, sinfulness is selfishness. It's enthroning yourself - your desires, your needs, your plans - above all else. You may still seek God, but you don't seek Him first. You seek Him second or third or seventh. Furthermore, you may sing "Jesus at the center of it all," but what you really want is for people to bow down to you as you bow down to Christ. It's a subtle form of selfishness that masquerades as spirituality, but it's not Christ-centric. It's me-centric. Furthermore, it's less about us serving His purposes and more about Him serving our purposes.

— Mark Batterson

Confession breaks the power of canceled sin. It also heals the broken heart.

— Mark Batterson

Courage doesn't wait until situational factors turn in one's favor. It doesn't wait until a plan is perfectly formed. It doesn't wait until the tide of popular opinion is turned. Courage only waits for one thing: a green light from God. And when God gives the go, it's full steam ahead, no questions asked.

— Mark Batterson

Death is a mirror that gives us a glimpse of who we really are. Death is a rearview mirror that puts the past into perspective.

— Mark Batterson

Dreams without deadlines are dead in the water. Deadlines are really lifelines to achieving our goals.

— Mark Batterson

Dr. Neal Rose makes a fascinating distinction between two types of regret: regrets of action and regrets of inaction.

— Mark Batterson

...each of us has an explanatory style... And our explanation is more important than the experience itself. In the words of Aldous Huxley, "Experience is not what happens to a man; it is what a man does with what happens to him.

— Mark Batterson