15 Helpful Self Improvement Quotes Straight from the Bible

When it comes to inspirational quotes on things like self improvement, character, life choices, anything like that, I think your best source is straight from the Bible.

Think about it. Who do you want your life to please? Yourself? Your sister? Or your judgy neighbor? Your parents? Or your kids?

It cannot be done. We cannot live to please all these people we know. Only we know our own whole story. Only us, and God. All we need to please is God.

Well how do we even do that? In what ways to do we even need to bother with “self improvement”?

I think the only answers to that are found in God’s Word.

Do you want to live a life that reflects less of what you were before, and more of what you want to be? Only God can help you do that. And the best source to know what God wants from you is the Bible.

Notice that these self improvement areas focus less on the things people tend to focus on.

Jesus didn’t say, “Focus on losing weight, only eating vegetables, running a marathon, make more money, can your own jam, or organize all your closets.”

Instead, Jesus talked a lot about our hearts and our thoughts. He taught prayer, forgiveness, love, faith, and so much more. These are all things you cannot actually see or touch, eternal things, not so much physical things.

So without further ado, here are some of the Bible quotes I find to be the MOST inspiring for self improvement.

I hope you will find a lot of rest in these quotes.

#1. The Bible does actually talk about how you can move from how you used to be, to a new self, renewed in God.

To put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.”

Ephesians 4: 22-24

The best part is that when you surrender to God, He does most of the renewing for you. You still operate under your free will and personality traits, and you still have to make a conscious effort to put the past behind you. But you have the force of God, the forgiveness from believing in Jesus, and the comfort and strength of the Holy Spirit to lead and carry you on your journey of life, in all that you do.

We aren’t alone in this. God wants to help us with the lives that we live, and he wants us to be a voice and a help for other people.

#2. Pray more about your problems. Have faith that God will answer your prayers.

“And whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive, if you have faith.” Matthew 21:22

There are actually a thousand more Bible verses on praying more often.

Pray about whatever your problem is. This is an area of my life I have had to work on as an adult.

Don’t just try to DIY- fix it yourself. God can help you fix it better. He might even make the whole thing go away.

I have seen him answer my prayers in some shocking ways. Whole difficult people just suddenly up and move or switch schools. God has surprised me so many times.

Or he might not take the problem away, but help you through it instead. It depends on what is going on. Your prayer has to line up with what He wills. And in that case, draw close to God. He will walk you through the hardship.

#3. Focus on the right things. For example, God said to focus on justice, mercy, and faithfulness.

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others.”

~Jesus in Matthew 23:23-24

Right here God spells out what is important for us to focus on: justice, mercy, and faithfulness.

Our culture likes mercy a lot more than justice. Who doesn’t? But the fact is that justice has its place.

My best example for this is imagine there was a school shooting at your kids’ school. Heaven forbid. Is this not one of our hugest fears as parents? Now imagine the judge decided to let the shooter go free with a warning not to do it again because he practices mercy and not justice.

!!!!! What!!!!!! Nope. That would not be okay. Justice has an important place.

#4. Forgive. Always forgive, just as you want to be forgiven.

“And whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.”

~Jesus in Mark 11: 22-26

Jesus talks about this SO much. It is extremely important.

You want better mental and spiritual health? We must forgive. If we want to improve ourselves, I think forgiveness is step number one. Sometimes it takes a VERY conscious effort to do that. People can be so hard to deal with, some of us more than others.

#5. Only one thing is necessary.

The rest is just extra.

“You are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.”

~Jesus in Luke 10: 41-42

What was the one thing? What did Mary choose? She was sitting at the feet of Jesus, learning from Him. Her focus was in the right place. Martha wanted to serve him, but Mary wanted to learn from him.

Evaluate where your heart is. Do you have a heart for wanting to sit at the feet of Jesus?

#6. Worry less. Trust God.

“Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds!” Luke 12:24

There is so much rest in this verse.

Trust that God will take care of you.

I feel like military families who move all the time, like us, get to practice this regularly. Ha! I also feel like paying for college for four kids quickly approaching is making us put this verse to use too!

#7. Be willing to accept the love of God.

“How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing?” ~Jesus in Luke 13:34

#8. Live in harmony with one another.

“Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight.”

Romans 12:16

#9. “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”

Romans 12: 21

I love this verse. It really is the small, good and right things we do on a daily basis that make such a difference. I wrote a longer post about just this one here.

#10. “Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness.”

1 Timothy 6:11

People pursue money, what we want our body to look like, and maybe health. Ha! These are the things God actually says we should pursue, and they have nothing to do with our bodies or our bank account.

#11. Do not argue over hot topics. Be kind instead.

“Have nothing to do with foolish, ignorant controversies; you know that they breed quarrels. And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness.”

2 Timothy 2: 23-25

#12. “Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men.”

Colossians 3:23

Workaholics love this one. Ha! All of the Bible has to be taken as a whole. You obviously cannot base your whole theology off of one verse. I look at this verse as inspiration to do my best. That does not mean get your priorities out of order.

#13. Suffering is going to make you a better person.

Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, ⁴ and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, ⁵ and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

Romans 5:3-5

We do not cause ourselves suffering, nor should we. Life will bring plenty of hard times of its own, and God uses that suffering to mold us into people of good character, hope, and love.

Our hard times drive us to rely on God and draw closer to him. He gives us his Holy Spirit to comfort us and strengthen us.

God’s self improvement manual sometimes feels like an obstacle training course. Yep, life definitely feels like an Olympic event sometimes. Thankfully the Holy Spirit comes with that.

I honestly do not know how people without faith and assurance and the Holy Spirit get through life. I could not do it without him. Life is hard.

#14. Do not compare yourself to others.

I think this is so important when we make goals for ourselves. We so quickly get discouraged when we see someone else who we feel is doing way better than us. Comparison is such a stumbling block to progress.

“But when they measure themselves by one another and compare themselves with one another, they are without understanding.”

2 Corinthians 10:12

#15. We are not left to ourselves to try to train and improve, self help style, with no helper. God gives us the Holy Spirit.

“And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever;

¹⁷ Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.

¹⁸ I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.”

~Jesus in John 14: 16-18

“So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.“

Isaiah 41:10

So in conclusion, isn’t it wonderful to know that we are never alone when we belong to God?

What a relief! These quotes assure us that we do not have to work so hard to “fix ourselves.”

God can transform us. We just need to be willing to follow him. These are just a few of the many, many examples of what the Bible has to say about self improvement.

I hope this gives you some encouragement today.