Discipleship Quotes - Page 7

There is a rich literature on how to break out of quandary thinking. It suggests that sometimes it helps to turn from the abstract to the concrete.

Get evangelical Christian made them receptive to the possibility of redemption in the here and now.

It takes practice to stand with others facing pain of death, and it helps if you don't have to do it all alone. We should practice on the small stuff so that we will be better able to stand together for what we believe and for what we love, who may someday need our support.

Christian discipleship is a decision to walk in his ways, steadily and firmly, and then finding that the way integrates all our interests, passions, and gifts, our human needs and eternal aspirations. It is the way of life we were created for.

After her initial conversion as a teenager, the author writes, "I was sent back into a world that no longer looked familiar to me. I had to relearn how to do everything.

My prophetic task would be twofold: to stand up to him, and to stand by him. To awaken his conscience, and to salve the pain this would cause him.

Let our liberty be practically exhibited by serving the Lord with gratitude and delight.

He would henceforth worship and defend the very reason for Joy, the Almighty Maker of Joy.

Abiding time is extravagant daily time with Jesus. This extravagant time is the center of abiding. Not legalism, not dry discipline, not manufactured spirituality, but joyous soaking in the presence of Jesus, lavish spending of time with Him who is most precious, Him from whom all life flows. In a world that is over-connected yet lonely, frantically busy yet accomplishing little of eternal value, super-informed but egregiously ignorant on what really matters, abiding gives Jesus the best of our time, in which He leads us to the best of times.

It is an EVIL thing to be an expert in the weaknesses of our brothers and sisters. We need to be experts in the strengths of our brothers and sisters.

I want a faith that's so alive, it can be seen. I want a hope that cannot hide, even when I'm weak.

The author emphasizes the importance of self-forgetfulness when his statistics were marred by a bad outing. He forgot all of that outing to such an extent that he quipped, "What was my name?

When young people are insecure, they find ways to manufacture love tests – personal metrics to reassure themselves.

Jesus enters the garden, in preparation, intending to face his fears by facing his God, his Father, His greatest fear is to offend his Father, to disobey his own calling, its integrity, and the word of God on his life.

He was the perfect soldier: he went where you sent him, and stayed where you put him, and had no idea of his own to keep him from doing exactly what you told him.

The altar must be built in one place so that the fire may come down in another place.

Be fervent in God, and let nothing grieve you, whatever you encounter.

Private worship excites us for public worship.

C.S. Lewis had come to demand of his nightly prayers a "realization," "a certain vividness of the imagination and the affectations" – a sure recipe for sleeplessness and misery.

There is a kind of listening with half an ear that presumes already to know what the other person has to say. It is an impatient, inattentive listening, that despises the brother and is only waiting for a chance to speak and thus get rid of the other person. This is no fulfillment of our obligation, and it is certain that here too our attitude toward our brother only reflects our relationship to God. It is little wonder that we are no longer capable of the greatest service of listening that God has committed to us, that of hearing our brother's confession, if we refuse to give ear to our brother on lesser subjects. Secular education today is aware that often a person can be helped merely by having someone who will listen to him seriously, and upon this insight it has constructed its own soul therapy, which has attracted great numbers of people, including Christians. But Christians have forgotten that the ministry of listening has been committed to them by Him who is Himself the great listener and whose work they should share. We should listen with the ears of God that we may speak the Word of God.

In fact, second lieutenants were primary-school teachers. Sure, teachers with guns, but a platoon commander was, nonetheless, the guy who sorted out the working day for 30 men under his command, taught their lessons, helped them with their homework, sorted out their petty squabbles and put plasters on their knees when they fell over in the playground.

Persecution for Christians is not a possibility, it's a promise, it's not a maybe, it's a surely! Following Jesus can mean finding the trouble you've been looking for!

The cross is laid on every Christian. The first Christ-suffering which every man must experience is the call to abandon the attachments of this world. It is that dying of the old man which is the result of his encounter with Christ. As we embark upon discipleship we surrender ourselves to Christ in union with his death—we give over our lives to death. Thus it begins; the cross is not the terrible end to an otherwise god-fearing and happy life, but it meets us at the beginning of our communion with Christ. When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.

A major element in Lincoln's greatness was the way in which he could hold a strong moral position without the usual accompaniment of self-righteousness.

The idea of waste only comes into our Christianity when we underestimate the worth of our Lord.

It doesn't follow that the riots mean permanent hostility toward him.

The evangelical wing of the Church spends a lot of energy on being "born again" but little time on "growing up" again. There is a failing to encourage newborn believers out of the maternity ward and into a big world where they will spend the rest of their spiritual lives trying to find what they are looking for.

She was too well-trained to panic.

Liberty depends on self-restraint. Freedom is freedom only when controlled and limited.

So often, it's others around us who can see where God wants to grow us even before we see it ourselves.

If spiritual formation is the purpose of the church, then personal transformation should intentionally be the purpose of the small group ministry. Bible study is great. Fellowship is wonderful. Evangelism is essential. But changing and growing to be more like Christ should be the purpose of the small group ministry.

I’m feeling very thin and vulnerable, in a good way.

The Christian life does not just evolve. It also requires specific decisions and public commitments to deepen our faith and obedience.

Frasier (Responding to the suggestion that he undertake the difficult work of closure in a relationship): "What you just said about my success made a lot of sense. I tuned you out after that.

The world commands our desire for purity but bids that we not be too precise about it.

Resilience is rooted in habits we can cultivate and change.

The one single use of things which we call our own is that they might be his who hath need of them.

Once you put yourself on the lookout for teachable moments, you'll find them everywhere!

You can unlock spiritual things only from within.

it’s helpful to focus your child’s attention on the present moment by deciding together on one thing you may particularly look for.

Describing the relationship between the biblical witnesses and the theologians who come after, the author challenges that the theologian is not to correct the notebooks of the biblical writers like some high school teacher. Instead, our theology is always subject to what THEY say, as we willingly submit our notebooks for their approval.

Are you dedicated to your patient or your ego?

Being self-owned is a state of mind.

Lyndon Johnson knew how to make the most of such enthusiasm and how to play on it and intensify it. He wanted his audience to become involved. He wanted their hands up in the air. And having been a schoolteacher he knew how to get their hands up. He began, in his speeches, to ask questions.

The Roman Church has grown and grown, fueled by immigration but also renewed by two pontiffs who have seemed to understand what Tocqueville knew: People want guidance for their souls once they are convinced they have them.

Let me be on my guard when the world puts on a loving face, for it will, if possible, betray me as it did my Master, with a kiss.

‎Those who aren't following Jesus aren't his followers. It's that simple. Followers follow, and those who don't follow aren't followers. To follow Jesus means to follow Jesus into a society where justice rules, where love shapes everything. To follow Jesus means to take up his dream and work for it.

What we are taught to seek or shun in prayer, we should equally pursue or avoid in action. Very earnestly, therefore, should we avoid temptation, seeking to walk so guardedly in the path of obedience, that we may never tempt the devil to tempt us.

Fortunately, God made all varieties of people with a wide variety of interests and abilities. He has called people of every race and color who have been hurt by life in every manner imaginable. Even the scars of past abuse and injury can be the means of bringing healing to another. What wonderful opportunities to make disciples!

Intersections are crash magnets.

Being a “Christian” – a word used only three times in the New Testament – is not Jesus’ goal for his people. But the making of a community of revolutionary followers or “disciples” – a word used nearly three hundred times in the New Testament – seems to be exactly the goal. The church must return to these roots. The church must become a way of life, an alternative lifestyle, a counter-community of Christ-followers. Church must once again become a people who are on “The Way” formed by the words and way of Jesus.

You get a feeling when you look back on life that all God really wants from us is to live inside a body He made, and enjoy the story, and to bond with Him through the experience.

The essence of a mature human being in religious terms is the ability to see, to be aware of others' suffering and to be touched by it.

It's too late to leave the future to the futurists.

At the end of life, each of us must answer the question, Whose story captured my soul?

You can't grasp the wonderful and keep your feet on the ground.

I found myself with a perseverance worthy of a much better cause.

Topanga: Do I need to know the middle of the story?Corey: Do you want to be proud of her?Topanga: Yes.Corey: Then, no.

My understanding from the Word of God is that I am supposed to preach for the maturation of the believer with a view that lost people are there.

Shame and suffering, as St. Bernard says, are the two ladder-uprights which are set up to heaven, and between those two uprights are the rungs of all virtues fixed, by which one climbs to the joy of heaven… In these two things, in which is all penance, rejoice and be glad, for in return for these, twofold blisses are prepared: in return for shame honour; in return for suffering, delight and rest without end.