Joel Osteen

When my dad founded our church, he used either a globe or a map of the world behind him. It was symbolic of what Christ said: to go forth and preach hope to the world. We believe in the cross, but we just continued with the globe.

I'm trying to make God more relevant in our society.

Most people already know what they're doing wrong. When I get them to church I want to tell them that you can change.

To me, it's OK to have differences. But we don't have to be mad about it. You know? And I think that's where sometimes we get so passionate that we - you know, it turns into anger.

Prospering just doesn't have to do with money.

Life's a fight. It's a good fight of faith.

I believe God's keeping the records, and I believe you will be rewarded even in this life. Somehow, some way, God will make it up to you. It may be He protected you from an accident you never knew. You can't give God something without God giving you more in return, whether it's peace or joy or satisfaction.

See, when you drive home today, you've got a big windshield on the front of your car. And you've got a little bitty rearview mirror. And the reason the windshield is so large and the rearview mirror is so small is because what's happened in your past is not near as important as what's in your future.

I believe God wants you to have money to pay your bills, send your kids to college and do charity work and build orphanages. There's the teaching that we're supposed to be poor to show that we're humble. I don't buy that. I think we're supposed to be leaders. We're supposed to excel.

If you want to reap financial blessings, you have to sow financially.

Isn't it funny how babies laugh a lot? I read a toddler, a young child laughs 300 times a day. The average adult laughs, like, four times a day. God put it in them. He put the laugh in us, but I think sometimes we let life get us down, you know, have bad breaks, and we lose our breaks.

I'm not for gay marriage, but I'm not for discriminating against people.

I don't think that a same-sex marriage is the way God intended it to be.

Faith is easy I think people complicate it.

You cannot let where you are today cause you to get stuck. I'm going to be my best right now. That's what faith is all about.

It's in the difficult times that we're growing and you can't just rebuke everything hard. We've got to endure it and fight the good fight of faith and pass the test.

God didn't make a mistake when He made you. You need to see yourself as God sees you.

Sometimes you need faith and victory spoken over your life. Words have created power. When you receive them into your spirit, they can ignite seeds of increase on the inside.