Quotes from Larry Crabb

every personal or behavioral problem one might wish to change (for example, bad temper, perverted sexual desires, depression, anxiety, overeating) results ultimately from violations of the command to love.

Confession designed to restore lost blessings is a management technique, it is not repentance.

You're coming to Him not to get Him to enter your world and change things to make you happy and give your life meaning and provide you with the blessings you want. You're now entering His world wanting to bring Him glory, to become a source of joy to your Papa, willing to endure whatever suffering is required to make that happen.

That level of honesty is reserved for the counseling office. Church is too often a place of pretense and therefore a place without hope. When brokenness is disdained, where the real story is never told, the power of God is not felt. Where brokenness is invited and received with grace, the gospel comes alive with hope.

First, the word she used that we translate kindness is the Hebrew hesed. It's a word that refers to a strongly bonded relationship where one party continues to be faithfully involved with another because it is the character of the first party to do so.

we are motivated to meet our needs for significance and security in ways we unconsciously believe will work.

The Bible is a love story that begins with a divorce. Everything from the third chapter of Genesis through the end of Revelation is the story of a betrayed lover wooing us back into His arms so we can enjoy the love of family forever.

If we claim we have no sin, we are only fooling ourselves and not living in the truth" (1 John 1:8). It seems God leads us through failure toward maturity, rather than doing whatever is needed for us to move past ongoing failure.

We try to reach the heart of God without listening to the Word of God.

People experience the life-changing force of healing relationships when something powerful comes out of one and touches something good in another.

A man looks at a "sex goddess" and lusts. A man looks at a feminine woman and worships.

Counseling that attempts to logically teach new truth without concern for the emotional threat involved in changing one's approach to meeting personal needs will plow headlong into resistance.