Quotes from James MacDonald

Don't get a bad attitude like they did back in the wilderness, or you're going to be joining them.

To complain is to say in effect; "God, You blew it! You had a chance to meet my expectations, but You couldn't handle it! Nice try, God, close—but not close enough." So complaining definitely injures you and the Lord.

When we shift from personal purity to personal happiness, we lose biblical hope because we are not focusing on God's agenda, we are focusing on our own. God's agenda is guaranteed on our agenda is not.

More of anything other than God will never fill that longing for fulfillment He has placed within you and me.

So often, it's others around us who can see where God wants to grow us even before we see it ourselves.

With God, we can be satisfied and fulfilled with very little, but without Him, all that we have will always be dry and deeply disappointing.

Thankfulness is the attitude that perfectly displaces my sinful tendency to complain and thereby release joy and blessing into my life.

Too often, we think of sin as self-contained, point-in-time choices with no interconnection or momentum. But sin refuses to remain contained in the moment it is conceived.

Yet those who wait for the LORD will gain new strength; they will mount up with wings like eagles, they will run and not get tired.

Our view of human problems determines who is qualified to speak to them. If sin is the primary human problem, then those with the theological and practical expertise in dealing with sin — in its varied and complex forms — should lead the way in the field of people-helping. Unless we have an accurate and robust conception of sin, the church will concede much of its work to outside professional and will be ill-equipped to cooperate with them when needed.

Whenever you are in a critical temper, it is impossible to enter into communion with God.

We must evaluate every person, place, product, perspective, position, or pleasure we have looked to in place of the promises of God, and turn away from those things accordingly.