Vance Havner Christian Quotations

It is only the life that is lost for Him that is found in Him.

Jesus Christ demands more complete allegiance than any dictator who ever lived. The difference is, He has a right to it.

Popularity has killed more prophets than persecution.

A deep and sober concern to please God is the rarest of rarities.

When a man makes alliance with the Almighty, giants look like grasshoppers.

I have often been reminded of the wild duck that came down on migration into a barnyard and liked it so well that he stayed there. In the fall his erstwhile companions passed overhead and his first impulse was to rise and join them, but he had fed too well and could rise no higher than the eaves of the barn. The day came when his old fellow travelers could pass overhead without his even hearing their call. I have seen men and women who once mounted up with wings like eagles but are now content to live in the barnyard of this world.

What gives the Word of God authority is simply the fact that it is the word of God!

No life is great that does not point to Christ.

We need to take down our "Do not disturb" signs... snap out of our stupor and come out of our coma and awake from our apathy.

God has a place and purpose for you, somewhere for you to be and something for you to do. You never will be happy elsewhere, nor can you please God anywhere but there.

Before we can strengthen believers or win the lost, we must be converted from the self-life to the Christ-life. . . "Not I, but Christ."

Blessed is that Christian who can accept at the start by simple faith that which others reach only through years of questioning and reach it only then because they give up trying to analyze it and decide to accept it.

You have not really learned a commandment until you have obeyed it. The Church suffers today from Christians who know volumes more than they practice.

Every Christian is a priest, not offering a sacrifice for sins - since that has been done once and for all - but offering his person, praise and possessions.

Too many Christians are stuffing themselves with gospel blessings while millions have never had a taste.

There never has been a culture since this world began in which a New Testament Christian could feel at home.

A revival is the church falling in love with Jesus Christ all over again.

You always enter God's hospital as a charity patient. You can't pay your way.

We can often do more by doing less. God is not particularly interested in quantity production. That is an American standard, not a Bible standard.

One cannot help the evil thoughts that come, but it is the thoughts we cultivate that make the difference between good or evil. We don't have to open the door to the devil and say, "Make yourself at home."

More Bibles are bought and fewer read than any other book.

People used to blush when they were ashamed. Now they are ashamed if they blush. Modesty has disappeared and a brazen generation with no fear of God before its eyes mocks at sin. We are so fond of being called tolerant and broadminded that we wink at sin when we ought to weep.

A picture of Christ was hung in the back of a pulpit. When the minister rose to speak one Sunday morning, a little boy asked his mother, 'Mother, who is that man who stands so we can't see Jesus?'

The devil is in constant conspiracy against a preacher who really prays, for it has been said that what a minister is in his prayer closet is what he is, no more, no less.

In other days people chose a church on the basis of their doctrinal convictions. Now, lacking doctrinal convictions, they choose for social reasons.

Don't ever come to church without coming as though it were the first time, as though it could be the best time, and as though it could be the last time.

The alternative to discipline is disaster

Men love everything but righteousness and fear everything but God.

If you see a Bible that is falling apart, it probably belongs to someone who isn't!

If you are what you've always been, you are not a Christian. A Christian is a new creation.

If you lack knowledge, go to school. If you lack wisdom, get on your knees.

There are many who say they want to be victorious Christians, but few are willing to endure the discipline necessary to make one a good solider of Jesus Christ. There is a prize to possess, but before we possess it there is a price to be paid, and few will pay it.

When we are weakest and most despondent, Jesus is most considerate. When there is a break in our progress or we have a spell of depression, he sees the whole of our lives and in the light of that He is longsuffering with discordant details.

No nation can last long when it stops praying and takes up playing.

When Christ possesses the will He keeps it fixed. The trouble comes when we take matters out of His hand and try to handle them ourselves.

Christ is most concerned with the direction in which you habitually are going and not with a spasmodic eruption either good or bad.

The man who sets out to live the life worthwhile-to follow his vision and speak his heart-need not look for position, honors, prosperity.

Men seek fame and high places only to learn that they were happier in obscurity

I can conceive of no greater, more romantic and interesting adventure than to undertake to live like Jesus in this complicated day.

Most of the notable turn out to be the not-able. God's greatest truths still belong to babes.

Not everyone who has made peace with God has realized the peace of God.

God's deepest secrets often miss the wise and prudent and are revealed unto babes. We say, "Children, be like your parents." Jesus said, "Parents, be like your children."

We are fighting the greatest battle of all time with the most untrained army on earth. If strict discipline is necessary in art and athletics, how can we expect to be advanced Christians and stay in kindergarten?

We justify ourselves when we should judge ourselves. If we learned humility, it might spare us the humiliation.

Our Lord holds the keys to the doors of Christian service. You don't have to chase 'key men' around if you know the Keeper of the keys!

We are not bearing our crosses every time we have a headache; an aspirin tablet will take care of that. What is meant is the trouble we would not have if we were not Christians.

Somehow the idea has gotten around that it is unchristian to take a stand against heresy. Some of us need to read the New Testament again.

The early Christians condemned false doctrine in a way that sounds almost unchristian today.

Revival is simply New Testament Christianity, the saints going back to normal.

Life is like a grain of wheat: to plant it is to recognize its value; to keep it is to destroy its value. The 'planted' Christian counts life dear not unto himself but unto God.

I'm convinced that a large percentage of people that we call worldly Christians are perhaps not Christian to begin with and that may be the trouble.

To some Christianity is an argument. To many it is a performance. To a few, it is experience.

The detour is always rougher than the main road

A true preacher is best measured not by how many bouquets have been pinned on him but by how many brickbats have been pitched at him. Prophets have been on the receiving end of mud more than medals.

People get so used to the dark that they think it's growing brighter. It's possible to fraternize with unbelievers until false doctrine becomes less and less objectionable.

Revival precedes evangelism. The church must first repent. This is the blind spot in our eye today.

To the average professed Christian today, living so far below normal, New Testament Christianity would be a shock.

It's hard to be optimistic when you have a misty optic.

We must live in all kinds of days, both high days and low days, in simple dependence upon Christ as the branch on the vine. This is the supreme experience

When God's people are removed from this earth, you might as well try to dam up Niagara Falls with toothpicks as to stem the flood of lawlessness that will engulf mankind. Thank God for the restraining Spirit today!

One hour in heaven, and we shall be ashamed that we ever grumbled.

We have always needed old people to keep things from going too fast and young people to keep them from going too slow. Youth has fire and age has light and we need both.

If the church would only be the church- if Christians would only be Christians- nothing could halt our onward march.

The gospel is for lifeboats, not showboats, and a man must make up his mind which boat he is going to operate.

We honor God by asking for great things when they are a part of His promise. We dishonor Him and cheat ourselves when we ask for molehills where He has offered mountains.

The tragedy of today is that the situation is desperate but the saints are not.

Because the Lord loves us He chastens and rebukes us. Modern sentimentality has reduced God to a tolerant indulgent grandfatherly being who winks at our transgressions.

I suspect that much of our praying to be used is selfish, and underneath it is the sneaking desire to make our mark and be recognized.

When we sin, we are often upset, not because we have grieved the Spirit but because our pride has been injured.

Most people would not want to live where there are no churches but many people live as though there were no churches.

Where are the marks of the cross in your life? Are there any points of identification with your Lord? Alas, too many Christians wear medals but carry no scars.

Nothing is needed so much as a holy indignation against sin. It is true that there is not enough love for God, and one sign of it is that there is not enough hatred for sin.

To build character of purpose and integrity is our high mark, and that cannot be done in a world where there are no adverse elements.

We are challenged these days, but not changed; convicted, but not converted. We hear, but do not; and thereby we deceive ourselves.

One of the greatest errors in the church today is the artificial distinction we have created between accepting Christ as Savior and confessing Him as Lord. We have made two experiences of it, but the New Testament makes them one.

God judges what we tolerate as well as what we practice. Too often we put up with things we ought to put out.

Too many Christians live their Christian lives inside their heads; it never gets out through hands and feet and lips.

I remember when the Titanic sank in 1912, it was the ship that was supposed to be unsinkable. The only thing it ever did was sink. When it took off from England, all kinds of passengers were aboard - millionaires, celebrities, people of moderate means, and poor folks down in the steerage. But a few hours later when they put the list in the Cunard office in New York, it carried only two categories - lost and saved. Grim tragedy had leveled all distinctions.

Satan does some of his worst work on exhausted Christians when nerves are frayed and the mind is faint.

If the devil cannot keep you from being saved, if next he fails to make you backslide, then he undertakes to keep you just an average Christian. Here he succeeds with most believers.

We need a dedicated minority who, like the apostles of old, are willing to be called the scum of the earth and a spectacle to the world for the scandal of the cross.

If you are a Christian, you are not a citizen of this world trying to get to heaven; you are a citizen of heaven making your way through this world.

No man can be a Christian by knowingly and willfully taking Christ on the installment plan, as Savior now, and Lord later.

The world does not hate its own. It does hate our Lord. It hates His followers. Where do you belong in this lineup?

Too much preaching nowadays pats the back and tickles the ear, but does not get under the skin. There is no conviction and therefore no conversion. I am thinking not only of the ministry of reproof and rebuke but also of the message of inspiration, of encouragement, of comfort. People go out of church at noon with the depths unstirred, the heart untouched, the conscience unpricked.

A mortician can make a dead man look better than he ever did when he was alive. So churches like Sardis may appear very much alive when they are dead in the sight of the Lord. God knows the difference.

The preacher who jests and jokes with his people all week will soon find that he cannot stand in his pulpit on Sunday with power to reprove, rebuke and exhort. He may be the life of the party but it will be the death of the prophet.

Adam tried to hide behind the trees in the garden. There is only one tree that can hide us from Him and that is the tree of the cross.

We are not going to move this world by criticism of it nor conformity to it, but by the combustion within it of lives ignited by the Spirit of God.

The middle of the road is a poor place to walk. It is a poor place to drive. It is a poor place to live.

When the Lord's white sheep become dirty gray, all black sheep feel more comfortable.

Real revival does not begin with joyous singing. It begins with conviction and repentance on the part of Christians.

We are so prone to expect to become good Christians by some sudden experience that lifts us all at once to higher ground without the gradual climb. We forget that we are to "grow in grace" and that normal growth is not a matter of fits and starts.

Christians, like snowflakes, are frail, but when they stick together they can stop traffic.

What our Lord said about cross-bearing and obedience is not in fine type. It is in bold print on the face of the contract.

Our efficiency without God's sufficiency is only a deficiency.

Paul was not ignorant of Satan's devices, but we are not so wise. Among his most successful devices today are these: exalting tolerance above truth; emphasizing the head more than the heart; making size more important than sort; stressing the positive to the neglect of the negative; putting happiness above holiness; majoring on this world instead of the next.

Satan is not fighting churches; he is joining them. He does more harm by sowing tares than by pulling up wheat. He accomplishes more by imitation than by outright opposition.

It is not our business to make the message acceptable, but to make it available. We are not to see that they like it, but that they get it.

At the rate America is decaying morally, we shall have to change our national symbol from an eagle to a vulture.