110+ John Stott Quotes On Mission, Cross And Prayer

John Stott was a British clergyman who was influential in the evangelical movement in the 20th century. He was a prolific author and theologian, writing over 50 books on topics such as Christian living, evangelism, and social justice. He was also known for his leadership in the Lausanne Movement, a global network of Christian leaders. Following is our collection on famous quotes by John Stott on mission, cross, prayer.

Top 10 John Stott Quotes

1. We should not ask, ‘What is wrong with the world?’ for that diagnosis has already been given. Rather we should ask, “What has happened to salt and light?
2. A Christian should resemble a fruit tree with real fruit, not a Christmas tree with decorations tied on
3. Our love grows soft if it is not strengthened by truth, and our truth grows hard if it is not softened by love.
4. We must be global Christians with a global vision because our God is a global God.
5. Before we can begin to see the cross as something done for us, we have to see it as something done by us.
6. What we need is not more learning, not more eloquence, not more persuasion, not more organization, but more power from the Holy Spirit.
7. The Christian's chief occupational hazards are depression and discouragement.
8. Sin and the child of God are incompatible. They may occasionally meet; they cannot live together in harmony
9. Grace is God loving, God stooping, God coming to the rescue, God giving himself generously in and through Jesus Christ.
10. The Spirit of God leads the people of God to submit to the Word of God.

John Stott Short Quotes

• Christians who neglect the Bible simply do not mature.
• In the real world of pain, how could one worship a God who was immune to it?
• No man preaches his sermon well to others if he does not first preach it to his own heart.
• It is no exaggeration to say that without Scripture a Christian life is impossible.
• Our Christian life began not with our decision to follow Christ but with God's call to us to do so.
• Grace is love that cares and stoops and rescues.
• Truth without love is too hard; love without truth is too soft.
• We live and die; Christ died and lived!
• Greatness in the kingdom of God is measured in terms of obedience.
• We should travel light and live simply. Our enemy is not possessions but excess.

John Stott Quotes About Cross

Every time we look at the cross Christ seems to say to us, 'I am here because of you. It is your sin I am bearing, your curse I am suffering, your debt I am paying, your death I am dying.' Nothing in history or in the universe cuts us down to size like the cross. — John Stott

All of us have inflated views of ourselves, especially in self-righteousn ess, until we have visited a place called Calvary. It is there, at the foot of the cross, that we shrink to our true size. — John Stott

The symbol of the religion of Jesus is the cross, not the scales. — John Stott

The Christian community is a community of the cross, for it has been brought into being by the cross, and the focus of its worship is the Lamb once slain, now glorified. — John Stott

The cross is not just a badge to identify us...it is also the compass which gives us our bearings in a disoriented world. — John Stott

At the cross in holy love God through Christ paid the full penalty of our disobedience himself. — John Stott

Why is it that some Christians cross land and sea, continents and cultures, as missionaries? What on earth impels them? It is not in order to commend a civilization, an institution or an ideology, but rather a person, Jesus Christ, whom they believe to be unique. — John Stott

Lord Jesus, I pray that this day I may take up my cross and follow you. — John Stott

The incentive to peacemaking is love, but it degenerates into appeasement whenever justice is ignored. To forgive and to ask for forgiveness are both costly exercises. All authentic Christian peacemaking exhibits the love and justice-and so the pain-of the cross. — John Stott

Moved by the perfection of His holy love, God in Christ substituted Himself for us sinners. That is the heart of the cross of Christ. — John Stott

John Stott Quotes About Prayer

Prayer is not a convenient device for imposing our will upon God, or bending his will to ours, but the prescribed way of subordinating our will to his. — John Stott

Prayer is the very way God Himself has chosen for us to express our conscious need of Him and our humble dependence on Him. — John Stott

It is impossible to pray for someone without loving him, and impossible to go on praying for him without discovering that our love for him grows and matures. — John Stott

God must speak to us before we have any liberty to speak to him. He must disclose to us who he is before we can offer him what we are in acceptable worship. The worship of God is always a response to the Word of God. Scripture wonderfully directs and enriches our worship. — John Stott

The purpose of prayer is emphatically not to bend God's will to ours, but rather to align our will to his. — John Stott

John Stott Quotes About Evangelism

These then are the marks of the ideal Church - love, suffering, holiness, sound doctrine, genuineness, evangelism and humility. They are what Christ desires to find in His churches as He walks among them. — John Stott

... what I believe to be one of the major tragedies in the Church today. Namely, that evangelicals are biblical, but not contemporary, while liberals are contemporary but not biblical, and almost nobody is building bridges and relating the biblical text to the modern context — John Stott

The hallmark of an authentic evangelicalism is not the uncritical repetition of old traditions but the willingness to submit every tradition, however ancient, to fresh biblical scrutiny and, if necessary, reform. — John Stott

We cannot be content with an evangelism which does not lead to the drawing of converts into the church, nor with a church order whose principle of cohesion is a superficial social camaraderie instead of a spiritual fellowship with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. — John Stott

We have the means of evangelizing our country, but they are slumbering in the pews of our churches. — John Stott

John Stott Famous Quotes And Sayings

For the essence of sin is man substituting himself for God [Gen. 3:1-7], while the essence of salvation is God substituting himself for man [2 Cor. 5:21]. Man asserts himself against God and puts himself where only God deserves to be; God sacrifices himself for man and puts himself where only man deserves to be. — John Stott

Probably the greatest tragedy of the church throughout its long and checkered history has been its constant tendency to conform to the prevailing culture instead of developing a Christian counter-culture . — John Stott

An unchurched christian is a grotesque anomaly. The New Testament knows nothing of such a person. For the church lies at the very center of the eternal purpose of God. It is not a divine afterthought. It is not an accident of history. On the contrary, the church is God's new community. — John Stott

The authority by which the Christian leader leads is not power but love, not force but example, not coercion but reasoned persuasion. Leaders have power, but power is safe only in the hands of those who humble themselves to serve. — John Stott

When Jesus is truly our Lord, He directs our lives and we gladly obey Him. Indeed, we bring every part of our lives under His lordship - our home and family, our sexuality and marriage, our job or unemployment, our money and possessions, our ambitions and recreations. — John Stott

Because in no other person but the historic Jesus of Nazareth has God become man and lived a human life on earth, died to bear the penalty of our sins, and been raised from death and exalted to glory, there is no other Savior, for there is no other person who is qualified to save. — John Stott

At the cross in holy love God through Christ paid the full penalty of our disobedience himself. He bore the judgment we deserve in order to bring us the forgiveness we do not deserve. On the cross divine mercy and justice were equally expressed and eternally reconciled. God's holy love was 'satisfied.' — John Stott

The major mark of justified believers is joy, especially joy in God himself. We should be the most positive people in the world. For the new community of Jesus Christ is characterized not by a self-centered triumphalism but by a God-centered worship. — John Stott

The chief reason people do not know God is not because He hides from them but because they hide from Him. — John Stott

We do not need to wait for the Holy Spirit to come: he came on the day of Pentecost. He has never left the church. — John Stott

I have sometimes called this 'double listening'. Listening to the voice of God in Scripture, and listening to the voices of the modern world, with all their cries of anger, pain and despair. — John Stott

Nothing is more important for mature Christian discipleship than a fresh, clear, true vision of the authentic Jesus. — John Stott

The concept of substitution lies at the heart of both sin and salvation. For the essence of sin is man substituting himself for God, while the essence of salvation is God substituting himself for man. — John Stott

At every step of our Christian development and in every sphere of our Christian discipleship, pride is the greatest enemy and humility our greatest friend. — John Stott

All worship is an intelligent and loving response to the revelation of God, because it is the adoration of His name. — John Stott

Many (Christians) have zeal without knowledge, enthusiasm without enlightenment. In more modern jargon, they are keen but clueless. — John Stott

If we truly worship God, acknowledging and adoring his infinite worth, we find ourselves impelled to make him known to others, in order that they may worship him too. Thus worship leads to witness, and witness in its turn to worship, in a perpetual circle. — John Stott

...The first and great evidence of our walking by the Spirit or being filled with the Spirit is not some private mystical experience of our own, but our practical relationships of love with other people. — John Stott

A Christian's freedom from anxiety is not due to some guaranteed freedom from trouble, but to the folly of worry and especially to the confidence that God is our Father, that even permitted suffering is within the orbit of His care. — John Stott

The command to judge not is not a requirement to be blind, but rather a plea to be generous. Jesus does not tell us to cease to be men... but to renounce the presumptuous ambition to be God. — John Stott

Christianity is in its very essence a resurrection religion. The concept of resurrection lies at its heart. If you remove it, Christianity is destroyed. — John Stott

Social responsibility becomes an aspect not of Christian mission only, but also of Christian conversion. It is impossible to be truly converted to God without being thereby converted to our neighbor. — John Stott

Saving faith is resting faith, the trust which relies entirely on the Savior. — John Stott

The chief occupational hazard of leadership is pride. — John Stott

Circumcision stands for a religion of human achievement, of what man can do by his own good works; Christ stands for a religion of divine achievement, of what God has done through the finished work of Christ. — John Stott

Nobody can call himself a Christian who does not worship Jesus. — John Stott

Christians believe that true worship is the highest and noblest activity of which man, by the grace of God, is capable. — John Stott

Baptism with water is the sign and seal of baptism with the Spirit, as much as it is of the forgiveness of sins. Water-baptism is the initiatory Christian rite, because Spirit-baptism is the initiatory Christian experience. — John Stott

Christian giving is to be marked by self-sacrifice and self-forgetfuln ess, not by self-congratula tion. — John Stott

Faith is a reasoning trust, a trust which reckons thoughtfully and confidently upon the trustworthiness of God. — John Stott

The modern world detests authority but worships relevance. Our Christian conviction is that the Bible has both authority and relevance, and that the secret of both is Jesus Christ — John Stott

Persecution is simply the clash between two irreconcilable value-systems. — John Stott

We need to repent of the haughty way in which we sometimes stand in judgment upon Scripture and must learn to sit humbly under its judgment instead. — John Stott

Pride is more than the first of the seven deadly sins; it is itself the essence of all sin. — John Stott

Never use a gallon of words to express a spoonful of thought. Our unadorned word should be enough. — John Stott

There is evidence for the deity of Jesus -- good, strong, historical , cumulative evidence; evidence to which an honest person can subscribe without committing intellectual suicide. — John Stott

There is something inherently inappropriate about cherishing small ambitions for God. — John Stott

It is a great comfort to know that our judge will be none other than our savior. — John Stott

Apathy is the acceptance of the unacceptable. — John Stott

Do not be content with a static Christian life. Determine rather to grow in faith and love, in knowledge and holiness. — John Stott

The church lies at the very center of the eternal purpose of God. It is not a divine afterthought. — John Stott

No man has ever appreciated the gospel until the law has first revealed him to himself. It is only against the inky blackness of the night sky that the stars begin to appear, and it is only against the dark background of sin and judgment that the gospel shines forth. — John Stott

Although we have responsibilities to others, we are primarily accountable to God. It is before him that we stand, and to him that one day we must give an account. We should not therefore rate human opinion too highly. — John Stott

The nations are not gathered in automatically. If God has promised to bless "all the families of the earth," he has promised to do so "through Abraham's seed" (Genesis 12:3, 22:18). Now we are Abraham's seed by faith, and the earth's families will be blessed only if we go to them with the gospel. That is God's plain purpose. — John Stott

Good conduct arises out of good doctrine. — John Stott

When the Christian loses himself, he finds himself, he discovers his true identity. — John Stott

Word and worship belong indissolubly to each other. All worship is an intelligent and loving response to the revelation of God, because it is the adoration of His name. Therefore, acceptable worship is impossible without preaching. For preaching is making known the name of the Lord, and worship is praising the name of the Lord made known. — John Stott

Perhaps the transformation of the disciples of Jesus is the greatest evidence of all for the resurrection. — John Stott

We can all be stimulated to greater generosity by the known generosity of others. — John Stott

Leaders have power, but power is safe only in the hands of those who humble themselves to serve. — John Stott

We are to be strong in faith, and soft in love. — John Stott

Scripture is the royal scepter by which King Jesus rules his church — John Stott

Mission arises from the heart of God Himself and is communicated from His heart to ours. Mission is the global outreach of the global people of a global God. — John Stott

If Christ seldom makes offers without demands, He also seldom makes demands without offers. He offers His strength to enable us to meet His demands. — John Stott

The question is not so much what the hand is doing (passing over some cash or a check) but what the heart is thinking while the hand is doing it. — John Stott

There is no Christianity without the cross. If the cross is not central to our religion, ours is not the religion of Jesus. — John Stott

Instead of inflicting upon us the judgment we deserved, God in Christ endured it in our place. — John Stott

Good works are indispensable to salvation - not as its ground or means, however, but as its consequence and evidence. — John Stott

The law requires works of human achievement; the gospel requires faith in Christ's achievement. The law makes demands and bids us obey; the gospel brings promises and bids us believe. — John Stott

The other gods were strong; but thou wast weak; they rode, but thou didst stumble to a throne; But to our wounds only God's wounds can speak, And not a god has wounds, but thou alone. — John Stott

The chief reason why the Christian believes in the divine origin of the Bible is that Jesus Christ Himself taught it. — John Stott

I believe that to preach or to expound the scripture is to open up the inspired text with such faithfulness and sensitivity that God’s voice is heard and His people obey Him — John Stott

God sacrifices himself for man and puts himself where only man deserves to be. — John Stott

The essence of apostasy is changing sides from that of the crucified to that of the crucifier. — John Stott

The Bible isn’t about people trying to discover God, but about God reaching out to find us. — John Stott

Envy is the reverse side of a coin called vanity - Nobody is ever envious of others who is not first proud of himself. — John Stott

There is no biblical Christianity without the cross at its center. — John Stott

Christian people should surely have been in the vanguard of the movement for environmental responsibility, because of our doctrines of creation and stewardship. Did God make the world? Does he sustain it? Has he committed its resources to our care? His personal concern for his own creation should be sufficient to inspire us to be equally concerned. — John Stott

If we love our neighbor we shall without doubt tell him the good news of Jesus. But equally if we truly love our neighbor we shall not stop there. — John Stott

Without the Holy Spirit, Christian discipleship would be inconceivable, even impossible. There can be no life without the life-giver, no understanding without the Spirit of truth, no fellowship without the unity of the Spirit, no Christlikeness of character apart from His fruit, and no effective witness without His power. As a body without breath is a corpse, so the church without the Spirit is dead. — John Stott

The Cross is the blazing fire at which the flame of our love is kindled, but we have to get near enough for its sparks to fall on us. — John Stott

Every powerful movement has had its philosophy which has gripped the mind, fired the imagination and captured the devotion of its adherents. — John Stott

As a body without breath is a corpse, so the church without the Spirit is dead. — John Stott

Life Lessons by John Stott

1. John Stott's work emphasizes the importance of following Jesus' example of humility and service to others.
2. He encourages Christians to be active in their faith and to share the gospel with others.
3. His work also serves as a reminder to remain faithful to God and to live a life of integrity.