Discipleship Quotes - Page 8

Jesus' simple poetic words are delivered casually and gently. Jesus prefers to explain a difficult concept over time, never talking down to His followers, patiently letting the words soak in until they understand them fully.

We must evaluate every person, place, product, perspective, position, or pleasure we have looked to in place of the promises of God, and turn away from those things accordingly.

Battles are won, not with weapons, but with God. They are won where the way leads to the cross.

Asked what would be his idea of Heaven, one statesman in 1897 said it would be to "receive a flow of telegrams alternating news of a British victory by sea and a British victory by land.

To a great extent in spiritual things we get what we expect of the Lord. Faith alone can bring us to see Jesus.

When you choose to love someone who is no longer attractive to you, he or she will become attractive.

Paraphrasing Plato's Republic: "Only people who have allowed themselves to be reformed by reality have it in themselves to reform their polis for the better.

The author charted the importance of human examples on his spiritual journey, confessing that when harsh and domineering people based their bullying on Christ's authority, he rebelled. But when his wife represented the gracefulness of Christ's character, he was drawn back to know Christ more fully.

The point at which things happen is a decision. In stead of focusing on yourself, focus on how you can help someone else.

wonderful people are made, not born – that the people I admired had achieved an unfakeable inner virtue, built slowly from specific moral and spiritual accomplishments.

We are partners with our children because we are just like them, dearly loved sinners.

The more God-centered our worship practices, the more mercy-centered our life.

Deal mildly with his youth; for young hot colts, being rag's, do rage the more.

Nothing teaches us about the preciousness of the Creator as much as when we learn the emptiness of everything else.

Jesus does not suffer so as to exclude your suffering. He bears a cross, not that you may escape it, but that you may endure it.

If you know EVERYONE, you don't know ANYONE.

He wasn't an especially charismatic or commanding individual, but what he lacked in personality he emphatically made up for in diligence.

God's word tells us that righteousness is a gift; it cannot be earned. But godliness is not a gift. We must pay a price to touch godliness through a daily decision to die to self and embrace the cross. God calls us to learn godliness in the classroom of life among people as we sit on airplanes and buses, walk among our neighbors and labor at our factories or desks.

When it comes to biblical counseling, friendship is central to the counseling relationship because it is a key aspect of the Gospel. Paul's words display it; Jesus' actions approve it. In Jesus Christ, friendship has its ultimate – that is, it's paradigmatic – display. He sacrificially gave Himself for the good of those he befriended – people who were awkward and troubled types, people who did not offer Him anything particularly desirable in return.

Terror and rapture to Emily Dickinson are alternative words for "transport".

I take account of my life and find that I have lived a lot and learned very little.

One of the consequences of sin is that it makes the sinner pity himself instead of causing him to turn to God. One of the first signs of new life is that the individual takes sides with God against himself.

The heart of a Christian, who believes and feels, cannot pass the hardships and deprivations of the poor without helping them.

Any journalist who holds the office writes in a straitjacket.

We have taken the holistic message preached in the Old Testament and New Testaments and reduced our message to the entry point into the Kingdom.

It is hard to hear God, but it is even harder not to hear God. The pain one brings upon oneself by living outside of evident reality is a greater and longer-lasting pain than the brief pain of facing it head on.

The way to transmute the pain of life is to reveal the wounded side of things, evil, even, and then place the wound inside of sacred space. The Bible is about naming, facing, and then forgiving the wounds of history.

When God does not answer His children according to the letter, He does so according to the spirit. If thou askest for coarse meal, wilt thou be angered because He gives thee the finest flour? If thou seekest bodily health, shouldst thou complain if instead thereof He makes thy sickness turn to the healing of spiritual maladies?

Your footsteps will have more to say about your spiritual life than knowledge attained.

This is not an issue of geography. He IS of two worlds wherever he goes.

I was used to being the smartest guy in the room, and then God dropped me in a place that was well beyond me. It was painfully awesome.

If a church is good at making disciples it will be good at making leaders because in the end, a good spiritual formation plan will lead to an accelerated spiritual multiplication.

Those who are not true leaders will just affirm people at their own immature level.

Almost anything at all can be transmuted into a labyrinth.

The single greatest reason why we are losing a generation is because the home is no longer the place of the transference of the faith. We live in a day of ‘outsourcing’…Today, we have a generation of people that outsource their kids.

There is nothing stereotyped about God's dealings with His children. Therefore, we must not by our prejudices and preconceptions make watertight compartments for the working out His Spirit, either in our own lives or in the lives of others. We must leave God free to work as He wills and to leave what evidence He pleases of the work He does.

I'm the only English thing they can vent their anger on.

It is the heaven-born instinct of a gracious soul to seek shelter from all ills beneath the wings of Jehovah. A hypocrite, when afflicted by God, resents the infliction, and, like a slave, would run from the Master who has scourged him

She had responded to the loss of her husband, to poverty, to disease, and to family cruelty with boldness and ingenuity, by opening herself to others, especially to her children and her Church, pouring into these precious vessels her knowledge, hope, and devotion.

Sometimes Eli believed his mother was embarrassed by him. "I swear, my mom thinks if I do one thing differently than the average person, I'm weird," Eli said later. "It's like she thinks I'm a freak or something. No matter what I do, it's not 'normal' enough for her.

Faith is an action. He (one criminal on the cross) puts himself one step lower than where he was, sharing Jesus' place of poverty, insecurity, and the focus of rage. Remember me. And he will be remembered, because of his association with the Crucified One.

Make use of every friend— and every foe.

When in situations of stress, we wonder if there is any more in us to give, we can be comforted to know that God, who knows our capabilities perfectly, placed us here to succeed. No one was foreordained to fail or to be wicked. When we have been weighed and found wanting, let us remember that we were measured before and were found equal to our tasks; and therefore, let us continue but with a more determined discipleship." (Ensign, Feb. 1979, 73.)

Your job is to abide in my pastureEating sweet grass and drinking pure water,And sharing both with others—That is a lamb’s business.

The test of mountain-top experiences, of mysticism, of visions of God and of solitariness is when you are “in the soup” of actual circumstances.

In the face of Jesus’ dogged steadfastness, how could we but offer him our own loyal allegiance? As we have seen, our decision to serve Jesus should be made not in order to earn Jesus’ grace but as a response to it. He who has given so much for us can rightly call us to lay down our lives for him. Recognizing that we will continue to stumble and fall short of his impeccable standard, we nonetheless strain onward out of gratitude for his mercy and kindness to us. Why do we serve the poor or preach the Gospel? Why do we continue with the otherwise foolish work of peace-making or justice-seeking? Not out of some neurotic fear of losing God’s favor but precisely because we have tasted that favor and would do anything for the one who died to win it for us.

The author tells a story wherein a missionary friend of his was invited by unbelievers on a train ride to play cards. The friend declined, saying that he did not bring his hands with him. He explained to the astonished group that the hands attached to what they saw as his body belonged to the Lord, and he was thereby able to explain the Gospel.

Lee was a born pedagogue, never happier than when his children were learning to do something the right way. It is a testament to Lee's affection and patience that his children did not rebel. In fact, they appear to have thrived.

If we are cut loose from the anchor of God's Word, we will not be free. We will be slaves of personal passions and popular trends.

When you are loved well, you want more of it. The only reason I believe anyone would not desire to be a disciple of Christ is because they fail to realize just how well loved they are by him. How could you not want to be with someone who loves you well?

Human sin is stubborn, but not as stubborn as the grace of God and not half as persistent, not half so ready to suffer to win its way

In his late forties, an age when men settle to comforts and seek a firm base, Paul began his roughest travels.

People HAVE used me. But it don't matter I don't let it change me. – Mohammed Ali

The engine that drives all your activities is hope. What you hope in shapes you.

Jesus said his disciples would be known for their love, not for their placards of protest and angry letters to the editor.

Blessing and obedience do comfortably and mysteriously coexist.

They (Reagan and Kennedy) had some combination of cheerfulness and vulnerability that made them seem like boys on adventure who had become lost in needed a small kindness to get them back on the right path.

Not every story started off big enough to notice.

Jesus did not command us to "develop" leaders. He commanded us to make "disciples". The world "develops" leaders, the Church "disciples" them. The two are not the same.

His eyes touched lightly, and passed on.