Quotes by Paul David Tripp

Embedded in the larger story of redemption is a principle we must not miss: God uses ordinary people to do extraordinary things in the lives of others.

The church is not a theological classroom. It is a conversion, confession, repentance, reconciliation, forgiveness and sanctification center, where flawed people place their faith in Christ, gather to know and love him better, and learn to love others as he designed.

We must not offer people a system of redemption, a set of insights and principles. We offer people a Redeemer.

People struggling with life in a fallen world often want explanations when what they really need is imagination.

We forget that Gods primary goal ia not changing our situations or relationships so that we can be happy, but changing us through our situations and relationships so that we will be holy.

Personal ministry is not about always knowing what to say. It is not about fixing everything in sight that is broken. Personal ministry is about connecting people with Christ so that they are able to think as he would have them think, desire what he says is best, and do what he calls them to do even if their circumstances never get fixed. It involves exposing hurt, lost, and confused people to Gods glory, so that they give up their pursuit of their own glory and live for his.

Harboring bitterness against people is actually confessing their sin to myself, over and over again. Anger is akin to confessing their sin to God, dissatisfied that he hasnt done something and placing myself in his position as judge.

The good news of the kingdom is not freedom from hardship, suffering, and loss. It is the news of a Redeemer who has come to scue me from myself. 

An instrument s a tool that is actively used to change something, and God has called all of his people to be instruments of change in his redemptive hands

Real comfort is found when I understand that I am held in the hollow of the hand of the One who created and rules all things. The most valuable thing in my life is Gods love, a love that no one can take away. When my identity is rooted in him, the storms of trouble will not blow me away. This is the comfort we offer people. We dont comfort them by saying things will work out. They may not. The people around them may change, but they may not. The Bible tells us again and again that everything around us is in the process of being taken away. God and his love are all that remain as cultures and kingdoms rise and fall. Comfort is found by sinking our roots into the unseen reality of Gods ever-faithful love.

God’s grace invites you to be part of something that is far greater than your boldest and most expansive dream. His grace cuts a hole in your self-built prison and invites you to step into something so huge, so significant that only one word in the Bible can adequately capture it. That word is glory.

The fatal flaw of human wisdom is that it promises that you can change your relationships without needing to change yourself.Every painful thing we experience in relationships is meant to remind us of our need for God. And every good thing we experience is meant to be a metaphor of what we can only find in Him.... We settle for the satisfaction of human relationships when they were meant to point us to the perfect relational satisfaction found only with God.

If I am seeking to get identity from you ,I will watch you too closely, listen to you too intently, and need you to fundamentally. I will ride the roller coaster of your best and worst moments and everything in between. And because I am watching you too closely, I will become acutely aware of your weaknesses and failures. I will become overly critical, frustrated, disappointed, hopeless, and angry. I will be angry not because you are a sinner but because you have failed to deliver the one thing I seek from you: identity. But none of us will ever get the well-being that comes from knowing who we are from our relationships. Instead we will be left with damaged relationships filled with hurt, frustration and anger.

Our purpose (in relationship) is to get what we want but Gods purpose is to give us what we really need. We think things are going well only if we are getting along with others. But God says that it is also when we are not getting along with others that he is accomplishing his purpose.God has designed our relationship to function as both a diagnosis and a cure.

We all look for strategies or techniques that will free us from the pain of relationships and the hard work good relationships demand. We hope that better planning, more effective communication, clear role definitions, conflict resolution strategies, gender studies, and personality typing--to name just a few -- will make the difference. There may be value in these things, but if they were all we needed, Jesus life, death, and resurrection would be unnecessary or, at best, redundant. Skills and techniques appeal to us because they promise that relational problems can be fixed by tweaking our behavior without altering the bent of our hearts. But the Bible says something very different. It says that Christ is the only real hope for relationships because only he can dig deep enough to address the core motivations and desires of our hearts.Most dangerous aspect of your relationships is not your weakness, but your delusions of strength. Self-reliance is almost always a component of a bad relationship.

Every time you ask for forgiveness, you recognize that the biggest problems you face in life exist inside of you, not outside of you.

Every time you ask for forgiveness, you declare that your life does not belong to you, but has been created for the purpose of Another.

Could it be that desire for a good thing has become a bad thing because that desire has become a ruling thing?

Today you will envy the blessings of another, or you will bask in the wonder of the amazing grace you have been given.

. . .most people who are angry with God are angry with him for being God. Theyre not angry because he has failed to deliver what he promised, Theyre angry because he has failed to deliver what they have craved, expected or demanded.