55 TD Jakes Quotes About Destiny, Relationships and Success

TD Jakes is a man who is filled with compassion and a desire to motivate others, and uses his powerful voice to spread the word of god and uplift others.

Don’t let the megachurch fool you, this wonderful man is humble and a true servant for the people he lives to inspire.

Looking for inspirational TD Jakes quotes about living your best life?

Enjoy!

Thomas Dexter Jakes, often referred to as TD Jakes is a famous evangelical pastor.

He preaches at a mega-church called The Potter’s House which has over 30,000 members.

He’s a compassionate person that has influenced millions of people.

He has been awarded multitudes of honorary degrees and awards, been featured on the cover of Time magazine, and even won a Grammy award for his album Live At The Potter’s House.

Since TD Jakes was a young boy he was enthralled with religion.

He briefly attended West Virginia State University before dropping out and focusing on preaching part-time.

Eventually, he got a full-time job preaching at a church, and during this time he married his wife, Sarita Jamison.

While preaching full-time, he decided to go back to a university to get his education.

He received a Masters from Friends University.

TD Jakes also recognizes that men need some individualized help so he created the group “manpower”.

Throughout this time, TD Jakes and his family moved to multiple states and kept growing their congregation wherever they went.

He became so popular and influential that he was given a weekly TV and radio show called Get Ready.

His influence even extended into politics.

He joined Pres. George W. Bush in providing relief to those suffering from Hurricane Katrina.

The president was extremely impressed with the man.

He wrote in his book that he was a perfect example of “putting faith into action.”

TD Jakes also led the early morning prayer service for Pres. Barack Obama.

TD Jakes has published multitudes of great books that have helped thousands of people to find peace and happiness in their life.

It’s unsurprising that many people read and cherish TD Jakes quotes.

They provide wisdom for living a better life and connecting with God.

Enjoy some of our favorite TD Jakes quotes!

Also check out these Rick Warren quotes for living a better life.

Check out our most popular quote article, a list of short inspirational quotes for daily inspiration. 

Check out our inspirational quotes category page for more inspirational life quotes.

TD Jakes Quotes on Life, Faith and Love

1. “A setback is a setup for a comeback!” – TD Jakes

Everyday Application: Setbacks and failures are inevitable. However, they teach us what we need to know so we can make a comeback. That comeback, and the journey toward success, is where we grow.

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2. “Each day is God’s gift to you. What you do with it is your gift to Him.” – TD Jakes

Everyday Application: Start with practicing gratitude. Even if all you have to be grateful for is waking up, recognize that for the gift it is! Live your life in a way that fuels your purpose, helps others, or spreads your light.

3. “If you can’t figure out your purpose, figure out your passion. For your passion will lead you right into your purpose.” – TD Jakes

Everyday Application: We can get so caught up in searching for our purpose that we forget the things that make us who we are. What do you like doing? What acts make you feel like you are contributing to something greater? What lights your fire? Remember your passions, and your purpose will become clear.

4. “Never make a permanent decision about a temporary situation.” – TD Jakes

Everyday Application: Almost all problems are temporary. They may take months or years to resolve, but that still doesn’t make them “permanent.” You can survive more than you think you can, and you are capable of more than you believe.

5. “Blame unto others only as you would first blame yourself.” – TD Jakes

Everyday Application: Stop blaming other people, or your past, for the challenges you are currently facing. When we accept that the power to change is fully within ourselves, and that we are responsible for our choices, we grow exponentially.

6. “We are the people that we have been waiting for and no one else is coming.” – TD Jakes

Everyday Application: Many of us look to someone else to help us solve our problems, create change, or improve our lives. However, there is no white knight! At some point, you will realize that you have everything you need to improve your situation within you!

7. “You cannot be a Big person with a Small heart” – TD Jakes

Everyday Application: Being a “bigger person” usually means you can express empathy, compassion, forgiveness, and other gracious qualities. Having a heart that is not overflowing with those things (i.e. a small heart) makes being that kind of person difficult. Be kind and do the best you can show everyone respect, grace, and love!

8. “The art of avoiding extremes is an art that is drawn on the canvas of maturity and painted with the abstract strokes of many experiences.” – TD Jakes

Everyday Application: Extreme (catastrophic) thinking is a slippery slope. An example of this, is when something goes wrong or falls apart, and your reaction is to think that your whole world has ended. Maturity helps you learn that the world is much bigger than this one thing, regardless of how important it seems at the moment. Chances are you won’t even remember whatever it was in five years!

9. “Others can inspire you, but ultimately the only thing that empowers you is what lies within you and learning how to better utilize what you’ve been given.” – TD Jakes

Everyday Application: Let the journey and words of others show you what is actually possible when you believe in something and work hard. However, at some point, you are going to have to take that sense of inspiration and take action toward your own goals. Resiliency and perseverance are some of the strongest tools we each have!

10. “When you hold on to your history you do it at the expense of your destiny.” – TD Jakes

Everyday Application: The past can not be changed, and clinging to it is not good for your present or your future. Live in the moment and be present in the life you are living now! Your destiny is taking shape and you have to let yourself move from the past into what you are meant to be!

TD Jakes Quotes to inspire and teach

11. “One of the great healing balms of the Holy Spirit is forgiveness. To forgive is to break the link between you and your past.” – TD Jakes

Everyday Application: Holding onto anger and resentment also means holding onto pain. You can forgive people in order to stop carrying it around. It doesn’t mean you have to let toxic people back in your life. It is permission to just let it go, for your own sanity and benefit.

12. “If someone must be hurt, if it ever becomes necessary to bear pains, weather strong winds, or withstand trials or opposition, let it be adults and not children.” – TD Jakes

Everyday Application: Childhood trauma is the root of so many other problems in our society, like crime, addiction, and mental health issues. In a perfect world, nothing bad would happen to children, but their are things beyond our control like childhood illnesses and the death of their parents. However, the things that some adults choose to do to children are within their control. It is within our control as a society to stop what we can with better laws, punishments, and mental health access.

13. “A church that focuses on the external has lost its passion for souls.” – TD Jakes

14. “Think about it this way: if you are too predictable in any area of your life, you may be paving the way to your own extinction!” – TD Jakes

Everyday Application: Routines are beneficial and we should all have them. With that being said, we should also take risks and be bold. You can have a routine without losing the spark that makes you exciting and unique.

15. “Instincts under pressure crush the carbon of conformity and create diamonds. Each new season of life offers to train us for the next season if we pay attention and adapt.” – TD Jakes

Everyday Application: Adaptation is the key to survival. Nothing in life is permanent, and the ability to adapt to a changing environment will help you cope better. Being able to adapt helps you focus on what you can change (yourself) and not waste your resources on trying to change the things you can’t.

16. “Faith is the substance of whatever it is that we hope for. The important thing is that we teach that faith is connected to good works and responsibility.” – TD Jakes

17. “Both success and struggle are different kinds of trauma.” – TD Jakes

Everyday Application: The work, sacrifices, and amount of effort required to be successful can take a toll on a person’s mental health. Also, when a person reaches the pinnacle of their goals, it doesn’t always look how they envisioned it. There is a certain kind of trauma in that, too.

18. “There may come a time when you can’t save the relationship, but you must save yourself.” – TD Jakes

Everyday Application: If you are in a toxic relationship, there really might come a time when you literally have to leave to save yourself. However, not only toxic relationships end. Sometimes, two people who are wonderful by themselves, are just not good together. Whether it is a different set of beliefs, or just wanting different things from life, it is ok to save yourself in the more figurative sense.

19. “Once you have confidence in your instincts, you must never allow other people’s refusal to believe, or their data to refute, what you instinctively know is true.” – TD Jakes

20. “Face the giants in your life, slay them, and move on. Do not be daunted by the mistakes and failures in your life.” – TD Jakes

Everyday Application: Mistakes and failures are inevitable in life. In fact, they are more than inevitable, they are necessary. Those giants give you something to overcome, and that is where the growth happens. Mistakes and failures are an opportunity for you to learn and grow. They are not the end and they do not have to burdens you carry around with you.

TD Jakes quotes that are full of life lessons

21. “How you think about your opportunities determines how you will act on them.” – TD Jakes

Everyday Application: Are you excited and willing to take risky opportunities when they present themselves? Or do you only look for opportunities with little risk? Do you look at failing as crisis or a way to learn and push yourself? How you feel about opportunities and the subsequent outcomes will shape the way you behave.

22. “Success is not success without a successor.” – TD Jakes

23. “Eagles fly where lesser birds cannot fly, so eagles can do what lesser birds cannot do.” – TD Jakes

24. “When you leave the familiar and enter the unknown, your fear becomes refined by experience and hammered into tools of survival on the anvil of anxiety.” – TD Jakes

25. “When there’s no turning back, your instincts will lead you forward.” – TD Jakes

Everyday Application: Instincts are a powerful tool in life, yet many people ignore them! However, when their back is against the wall, and they have nothing left to lose, it is often their instinct and gut reaction that gets them through it. Trust in yourself and what you know to be true.

26. “It’s better to gather in righteousness than fellowship with darkness.” – TD Jakes

27. “You can’t be who you’re going to be and who you used to be at the same time.” – TD Jakes

Everyday Application: In order to be who you are working on becoming, you will have to make some changes. Those changes include small things like changing your routines, but you might actually find yourself making some big changes too. You can simply not grow and stay the same at the same time. The caterpillar can not be both the caterpillar and the butterfly at the same time. In order to become the butterfly, the caterpillar has to undergo painful and substantial change, and leave it’s old self behind.

28. “No woman wants to be in submission to a man who isn’t in submission to God!”― TD Jakes

29. “Its not over, until the Lord says its over.”― T.D. Jakes

30. “God has invested entirely too much in you for you to be comfortable in anything less than you were created to be.”― T.D. Jakes

TD Jakes Quotes that will make your day

31. “To be unforgiving is like to drink poison and wait for someone else to die!!” – T.D. Jakes

32. “You’d be surprised at the things that look great on the outside but are dysfunctional on the inside. Be sure to function as good as you look.”― T.D. Jakes

33. “Destiny is not for comfort seekers. Destiny is for the daring and determined who are willing to endure some discomfort, delay gratification, and go where Destiny leads.”― T.D. Jakes

34. “Could it be that we allow the conditions in our lives to distract us from the meaning of our lives?”― T.D. Jakes

35. “Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.”― T.D. Jakes

36. “It is important to remember that for every person, there will be a problem. Even more importantly, for every problem, our God has a prescription!”― T.D. Jakes

37. “As you assess your current location and motivation for being an entrepreneur, do not be discouraged by the size or number of obstacles in your path. If you can catch a vision for it then God can do it!”― T.D. Jakes

38. “When you’re in trouble, God will reach into the mess and pull you out.”― T.D. Jakes

39. “My greatest fear is not living before I die, to play everything so safe that even though I had no risk I also enjoyed no reward.”― T.D. Jakes

40. “Fear teaches you to be cautious, careful, and conscientious. It also forces you to be creative, compassionate, and calculating.”― T.D. Jakes

TD Jakes Quotes that are full of wisdom

41. “Progress apart from purpose ends in arrogance.” ― T.D. Jakes

42. “Share your dream with people who want you to succeed.”― T.D. Jakes

43. “When you live your own dream, you don’t have time to be a hater.” ― T.D. Jakes

44. “If you stick your head in the sand and ignore things that you have the power to change, you can’t blame anyone when they don’t turn out right!”― T.D. Jakes

45. “But you cannot go through the Door of Destiny without passing through the Hall of Haters.” ― T.D. Jakes

46. “Be strong enough to stand up again, even after haters make you drop to your knees.” ― T.D. Jakes

47. “To fulfill your purpose, you must first know and celebrate your identity!” ― T.D. Jakes

48. “Often after years of deep investment into others we are shocked and disappointed that they simply didn’t get who we really are.” ― T.D. Jakes

49. “Routine is the enemy of instinct……It’s better to change and fail than to settle.” ―T.D. Jakes

50. “Renew your mind get rid of limiting beliefs.” ― T.D. Jakes

51. “If you can dream it, you can achieve it. The secret to recapturing dreams is to enjoy the pursuit of the dream, rather than to focus on the outcome.” – T.D. Jakes

52. “There is no success like the success of a man who had to persevere in order to receive it. People appreciate the victory when they have to walk it out.” – T.D. Jakes

53. “The slower journey allows time for maturity and experience to shape you into the person who comfortably fits into your destiny.” – T.D. Jakes

54. “The time to shift your priorities in the direction of Destiny is never convenient. There will always be a reason to put it off until later.” – T.D. Jakes

55. “You can’t let other people determine how far you are willing to go to reach Destiny because it’s simply not their call. They don’t get it, so don’t worry about them!” – T.D. Jakes

TD Jakes – Leadership (YouTube)

Which quote by TD Jakes was your favorite? What TD Jakes quotes would you add to the list?