Randy Alcorn

Nancy Guthrie has written many books over the years, including What Grieving People Wish You Knew about What Really Helps (and What Really Hurts), which one of our staff read and recommended to me. I always love Nancy’s writings, but this book is just really good. Here are some quotes from it.

Paul made it clear that it’s possible to give sacrificially without being motivated by love: “If I give away all my possessions, and if I give over my body in order to boast but do not have love, I gain nothing” (1 Corinthians 13:3, CSB). That means it’s not just generosity that’s the good life; it’s generosity that flows out of love.

In 1 Corinthians 1:24, Paul calls Christ “the wisdom of God.” Jesus referred to Himself as “wisdom” when He said, “The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look at him! A glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ Yet wisdom is justified by her deeds” (Matthew 11:19).

Being happy in God and living righteously tastes far better for far longer than sin does. When my hunger and thirst for joy is satisfied by Christ, sin becomes unattractive. I say no to immorality not because I hate pleasure but because I want the enduring pleasure found in Christ.

Some Christians “hear God” when He is not speaking, and many of us fail to hear Him when He is—and sometimes we manage to do both at the same time.

Randy visited California Baptist University in Riverside, California where he shared at their chapel. He spoke about suffering, Heaven, and the goodness of God, and also about his wife Nanci and her faithfulness through cancer. The date he spoke was actually the one-year anniversary of the day the Alcorn family of 11 gathered around her bed, and Nanci spoke powerfully into their lives. A week later, she went to be with Jesus.

Randy joined Pure Desire Ministries on their podcast to discuss the problem of Christian leaders and pastors having moral failings. Randy helps listeners to understand what contributes to the fall of high-profile leaders, how churches can recover and heal, and how to prevent failures from happening.  

My dear friend George Verwer, founder of Operation Mobilization (OM) and advocate for worldwide missions, is with Jesus. I have never known anyone like George; he is—I speak in the present tense because he is fully alive—one of a kind. His love for lost souls, his devotion to Jesus, and his passion for the Gospel marked me and countless others.

In this video clip from an event Randy Alcorn and George Verwer did together in 2013, George shares about needs around the world, and passionately implores God’s people to get a vision for giving to get the gospel to the unreached.