#disciples

I always have the feeling we are merely fearfully trying to save room for God; I would rather speak of God at the center than at the limits, in strength rather than weakness, and thus in human life and goodness rather than in death and guilt. ↗

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

#worship #death

‎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. ↗

— Scot McKnight

#church #discipleship #faith #jesus #religion

The only humility that is really ours is not that which we try to show before God in prayer, but that which we carry with us, and carry out, in our ordinary conduct; the insignficances of daily life are the importances and the tests of eternity, because they prove what really is the spirit that possesses us. ↗

— Andrew Murray

#humility #relationships #life

Never go into venture capital if you want a peaceful life. ↗

— Georges F. Doriot

#risk #life

We are not built for mountains and dawns and artistic affinities; they are for moments of inspiration, that is all. We are built for the valley, for the ordinary stuff of life, and this is where we have to prove our mettle. A false Christianity takes us up on the mount and we want to stay there. But what about the devil-possessed world? Oh, let it go to hell! We are having a great time up here. ↗

— Oswald Chambers

#hell #inspirational

One by one, these disciples would infect the nations with grace. It wasn't a call to take the sword or the throne and force the world to bow. Rather, they were to live the contagious love of God, to woo the nations into a new future. ↗

— Shane Claiborne

#god #love #love

Jesus never concealed the fact that his religion included a demand as well as an offer. Indeed, the demand was as total as the offer was free. If he offered men his salvation, he also demanded their submission. He gave no encouragement whatever to thoughtless applicants for discipleship. He brought no pressure to bear on any inquirer. He sent irresponsible enthusiasts away empty. Luke tells of three men who either volunteered, or were invited, to follow Jesus; but no one passed the Lord’s test. The rich young ruler, too, moral, earnest and attractive, who wanted eternal life on his own terms, went away sorrowful, with his riches intact but with neither life nor Christ as his possession…The Christian landscape is strewn with the wreckage of derelict, half built towers—the ruins of those who began to build and were unable to finish. For thousands of people still ignore Christ’s warning and undertake to follow him without first pausing to reflect on the cost of doing so. The result is the great scandal of Christendom today, so called “nominal Christianity.” In countries to which Christian civilization has spread, large numbers of people have covered themselves with a decent, but thin, veneer of Christianity. They have allowed themselves to become somewhat involved, enough to be respectable but not enough to be uncomfortable. Their religion is a great, soft cushion. It protects them from the hard unpleasantness of life, while changing its place and shape to suit their convenience. No wonder the cynics speak of hypocrites in the church and dismiss religion as escapism…The message of Jesus was very different. He never lowered his standards or modified his conditions to make his call more readily acceptable. He asked his first disciples, and he has asked every disciple since, to give him their thoughtful and total commitment. Nothing less than this will do ↗

— John R.W. Stott

#christ #cost-of-discipleship #cross #grace #change

Any honours that come our way are only stolen from him to whom alone they really belong, the Lord who sent us. ↗

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

#christianity #discipleship #honor #humility #respect

There are no shortcuts to maturity in discipleship; it was, is, and always will be learned over time and under pressure walking in union with Christ." ~R. Alan Woods [2013] ↗

— R. Alan Woods

#experientially #maturity #r-alan-woods #union-with-christ #r-alan-woods

Any religious person who says he does not really need human friends because God is his Friend is calling God a liar because He's the One Who says we also need human friends. ↗

— Mark Driscoll

#friendship #friendship