Joel Osteen

Whether a person is straight or gay, Republican, Democrat, good person, not a good person, they're all welcome, because to me, church is a place you're supposed to get healed and whole and loved.

If we're going to bring out the best in people, we, too, need to sow seeds of encouragement.

Don't grow accustomed to living with less, doing less, and being less to the point that you eventually sit back and accept it.

God will always bring the right people into your life, but you have to let the wrong people walk away.

Don't waste your energy trying to convince people to understand you. Your time is too valuable to try to prove yourself to people.

Life is going by. Don't waste a minute being negative, offended, or bitter. Choose to be happy.

Bad habits are easy to develop but difficult to live with. Good habits are difficult to develop, but easy to live with. If you are willing to be uncomfortable for little while, so you can press past the initial pain of change, in the long run, your life will be much better.

When you go through a loss, a disappointment or a bad break up, don't expect to come out the same. Expect to come out better off than you were before.

Just because we're in a STRESSFUL situation doesn't mean that we have to get stressed out. You may be in the storm. The key is, don't let the storm get in YOU.

Some things you can only learn in the struggle. When it's easy, when everything is going your way, that doesn't take any faith.

God didn't create any of us to be average. He didn't make us to barely get by. We were created to excel.

Appreciation - Learn to give flowers while people are still living

Certainly there are times in all of our lives when bad things happen, or things don’t turn out as we had hoped. But that’s when we we must a decision that we’re going to be happy inspite of our circumstances.

When you face adversity, you need to remind yourself that whatever is trying to defeat you could very well be what God will use to promote you.

Certainly, none of us enjoy going through struggles, but you have to understand that your struggle may be an opportunity for advancement and promotion. The very thing you are fighting against so tenaciously may be the springboard that catapults you to a new level of excellence. Your challenges may become your greatest assets.

Maybe you’ve invested a lot of time, effort, money, emotion, and energy in a relationship; you did your best to make it work out. But for some reason, things got off course. And now you feel as though you have been robbed. When we focus on or disappointments, we stop God from ringing fresh new blessing into our lives.