Discipleship Quotes - Page 9

There is nothing more common than for people who want to talk about God to lose interest in the people they are talking to.

After a sharp inward struggle, he concluded to stay and see it out. He should despise himself, more than he cared to face, if he gave in now.

When you cannot use your sword you may take to the weapon of all-prayer. Your powder may be damp, your bow-string may be relaxed, but the weapon of all-prayer need never be out of order.

Who teaches young people to be so exquisitely sensitive to perceived slights, so ready to read affronts into routine events in everyday life? Their teachers no doubt.

Some Christians believe the harder that one thinks, the colder faith will grow. Augustine grew more brilliant as he grew more pious, more creative as he became more orthodox. His period of heresy was imitative, but his traditional Christianity took mental risks.

Correction badly undertaken creates distance.

As much as Henry Kissinger wanted to attribute historical movement to impersonal forces, he too conceded to "the difference personalities make".

The person who asks a lot of questions has room for their faith to grow.

We need to shed our unearthly and nonsocial and idealistic and romantic and uber-spiritual visions of kingdom and get back to what Jesus meant. By kingdom, Jesus means: God's Dream Society on earth, spreading out from the land of Israel to encompass the whole world.

Your commitment to Jesus is a beautiful thing, but it will eventually dwindle down, unless you fully understand His commitment to you.

To be in Jesus' easy yoke is an easy way of doing hard things." (p. 202)

I assumed my first undivided responsibility.

Christianity tells a big story. It allows us to see our own story in a new way.

I fall down I get up I fall down And the while I keep dancing.

Middle-aged people can balance between believing in God and breaking all the commandments without difficulty.

A servile spirit you have nothing to do with: you are not a slave, but a child; and now, inasmuch as you are a beloved child, you are bound to obey your Father's faintest wish, the least intimation of His will.

There is no way to peace along the way of safety. For peace must be dared. It is the great venture. It can never be safe. Peace is the opposite of security. To demand guarantees is to mistrust, and this mistrusts in turn brings forth war.

The fundamental human experience is that of compassion.

When religion becomes so involved in a future good "over yonder" that it forgets the present evils over here it is as dry as dust religion and needs to be condemned.

There is nothing quite as destructive to the gospel of Jesus Christ as the use of language that dismisses the way Jesus talks and prays and takes up instead the rhetoric of smiling salesmanship or vicious invective.

It takes courage to seek God, and courage to wait for His reply.

You can't teach a person to love something. But you can get him to feel the heat of your love for something.

In the time of to Augustine, the conversation in the West mostly had been a Christian reaction to outside ideas. After Augustine, the Great Conversation would be about his ideas for centuries.

Jesus Christ spoke frankly to His disciples concerning the future . . .In unmistakable language He told them that discipleship means a life of self-denial, and the bearing of a cross.

There is a wide distinction between confessing sin as a culprit, and confessing sin as a child. The Father's bosom is the place for penitent confessions.

Imagine what it must be like for teenagers who don't feel they have room to breathe in their own homes. If you are a parent reading this book, you care about your child. If she is quirky, unusual, or nonconformist, ask yourself whether you are doing everything you can to nurture her unusual interests, style, or skills, or whether instead you are directly or subtly pushing her to hide them.

The same principles that make up a good story also make up a good life.

In healthy churches, the pastors life, not just his words, sets the tone for the church.

To be a disciple is to be committed to Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord and committed to following Him every day. To be a disciple is also to be disciplined in our bodies, minds, and souls.

There is no shortcut for hard work that leads to effectiveness. You must stay disciplined because most of the work is behind the scenes.

The game isn't big enough unless it scares you a little. Cmdr. William Riker

Morning dawns when the grace overcomes nature.

Spend some personal time with Jesus and he will reveal himself to you on a deeper level.

There are two choices: to be human, made in the image of God, with Jesus; warp to be in human, consumed with greed and on aware of the pain that is inflicted upon others. Put in simple options, it is to be human and forgive, make peace in spite of all hatred, or to be in human and kill, dividing the spoils. To be dead before you die.

It took him (Washington) more than a year to gain control over his own aggressive instincts.

There was (and is) nothing palatable about Jesus Christ of Nazareth to those who love the world and have made their home in it.

When I was 25, I believed I could change the world. At 41, I have come to the realization that I cannot change my wife, my church, or my kids, to say nothing of the world. Try as I might, I have not been able to manufacture outcomes the way I thought I could, either in my own life or other people’s.

The idea of being vulnerable leaves a lot of room for choice. There is always room to be less foldable, more evil.

When justice is more certain and more mild, is at the same time more efficacious.

So many people come to church with a genuine desire to hear what we have to say, yet they are always going back home with the uncomfortable feeling that we are making it too difficult for them to come to Jesus.

All of life comes in seed form – not as monuments.

A philosophy that cannot be lived is no philosophy at all.

Unless a person can give reasons, there is, literally, no reason why anyone else should take that person seriously. But without reasons, all we are left with is emotional blackmail. We sometimes call it 'moral blackmail,' but it has nothing to do with morals, only with the implied juvenile threat of having a tantrum unless everyone else gives in.

There is an inverse relationship between control and trust. Trust is more of a two-way exchange than most people, especially those in power, realize. Leaders in government, news media, universities, and corporations think they can own trust, when, of course, trust is given to them. Trust is earned with difficulty and lost with ease. When those institutions treat constituents like masses of fools, children, miscreants,or prisoners, when they simply don't listen,it's unlikely they will engender warm feelings of mutual respect. Trust is an act of opening up. It's a mutual relationship of transparency and sharing. The more ways you find to reveal yourself and listen to others, the more you will build trust, which is your brand.

The idyll ended, as idylls must.

Whatever God permits to happen in your life is a gift to you. God has two goals...His Glory and Your Good!

God's Fatherly prerogative, " is a kingly attribute so sweetly veiled in love, that the King's crown is forgotten in the King's face, and His sceptre becomes, not a rod of iron, but a silver sceptre of mercy—the sceptre indeed seems to be forgotten in the tender hand of Him who wields it.

The faster the motion, the less time to think. Fuselage journalism, Hugh Sidey of Time later called it.

A healthy Christian life cannot be stitched together from a series of disjointed mountain-top experiences. We need a Christian spirituality that endures the shadowy, low-lying valleys and the rocky slopes in between all those glorious summits.

Why do lazy, minimum effort employees always seem to find places where they feel "underappreciated"?

If any have more of the government of thee than Christ, or if thou hadst rather live after any other laws than his, if it were at thy choice, thou art not his disciple (331).

Someone suddenly had direct, unabashed access to my heart.

Drivers should not drive more than a minute without having a (purposefully-designed) curve.

I've never found time to indulge more than a single ambition.

Of Teddy Roosevelt and his siblings, the author writes they were, "armed with an innate curiosity and discipline fostered by his remarkable father.

The author describes the critic within us as adults as "the selves who live too much in their heads rather than their bodies, who are burdened with too much knowledge about how the world works rather than excited about how it could work or should, who are afraid of being judged and not being loved. Most adults do not live in a world of forgiveness and unconditional love, unless, that is, they have small children.

The main characteristic which is the proof of the indwelling Spirit is an amazing tenderness in personal dealing, and a blazing truthfulness with regard to God’s Word.

So highly revered was commingle, that the Jews called him "the beauty of the Law".

It's not easy being a missionary, even with the key to the cosmos in your hand.

Embrace who you are and your divine purpose. Identify the barriers in your life, and develop discipline, courage and the strength to permanently move beyond them, and keep moving forward.