Yes, the Bible should be taught in our schools because it is necessary to understand the Bible if we are to truly understand our own culture and how it came to be. The Bible has influenced every part of western culture from our art, music, and history, to our sense of fairness, charity, and business.

Encouragement to others is something everyone can give. Somebody needs what you have to give. It may not be your money; it may be your time. It may be your listening ear. It may be your arms to encourage. It may be your smile to uplift. Who knows?

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.

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

I believe God, Jesus, died that we not just go to Heaven but that we excel in this life. I never think you make money your goal... God wants you to excel. Just keep Him in first place, and God will open up doors you never dreamed of.

I don't believe we are supposed to go through life defeated and not having enough money to pay our bills or send our kids to college.

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.

I'm not a big believer in trying to jam stuff down somebody's throat: 'You're going to do it my way.' I'd rather show by example and live my life and have people say, 'You know what, I want to live like Joel has. He's got peace and joy, and he seems content.'

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.

A lot of psychological principles and even medical principles, you see them coming around to what the Bible said hundreds of years ago: a merry heart is good like a medicine.

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.

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 mean we all need a second chance sometimes.

I do know this... I seem to reach a lot of previously unchurched people. So many people have told me they never went to church until they heard our message of hope that God is a good God who desires to bless those who are faithful and obedient to Him through Jesus Christ.

I don't know what can be so dangerous about giving people hope.

To me, we're marketing hope.

I don't know what can be so dangerous about giving people hope. Causing people to have better relationships. I'm not leading them to some false God or something like that.

I always try to put a seed of hope into people's hearts. I'm not there to teach them doctrine necessarily, but to let them know that God is a good God, and has a plan for their lives. Hopefully, that will restore their faith, or draw them into faith.

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.

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.

The main rule to me is to honor God with your life. To life a life of integrity. Not be selfish. You know, help others. But that's really the essence of the Christian faith.

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

Faith is easy; I think people complicate it.

People define Christianity differently. I think a large portion of our population are Christians, they're not all growing in their faith, they're not all active, but I believe that a lot of people believe in Jesus and believe that he is their Lord and Savior.

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.

I like sports, and I enjoy playing basketball and lifting weights.

When I used to play sports, I'd be the one cheering the team on, 'Come on, we can beat these guys!' That's just in me.

My parents were the same in the pulpit as they were at home. I think that's where a lot of preachers' kids get off base sometimes. Because they don't see the same things at both places.

On Sundays when I speak, I hopefully give somebody something that they can use the next day at work or at home.

You're going to go through tough times - that's life. But I say, 'Nothing happens to you, it happens for you.' See the positive in negative events.

I didn't try to copy my dad or fit into the pressure or the mold that everybody tried to make me fit into.

My dad had a church of 90 people when I was born. It was just, over the years it continued to grow.

I made a decision when my father passed away that I was going to be who God made me to be and not try to preach like my father.

It's none of their business that you have to learn how to write. Let them think you were born that way.

Never mistake motion for action.

You're beautiful, like a May fly.

I learned never to empty the well of my writing, but always to stop when there was still something there in the deep part of the well, and let it refill at night from the springs that fed it.

But man is not made for defeat. A man can be destroyed but not defeated.

Why should anybody be interested in some old man who was a failure?

Man is not made for defeat.

Fear of death increases in exact proportion to increase in wealth.

You see, I am trying in all my stories to get the feeling of the actual life across - not to just depict life - or criticize it - but to actually make it alive. So that when you have read something by me, you actually experience the thing. You can't do this without putting in the bad and the ugly as well as what is beautiful.

Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.

The only thing that could spoil a day was people. People were always the limiters of happiness except for the very few that were as good as spring itself.

I love sleep. My life has the tendency to fall apart when I'm awake, you know?

Never go on trips with anyone you do not love.

There is no lonelier man in death, except the suicide, than that man who has lived many years with a good wife and then outlived her. If two people love each other there can be no happy end to it.

Once writing has become your major vice and greatest pleasure, only death can stop it.