#discipleship

For those who feel their lives are a grave disappointment to God, it requires enormous trust and reckless, raging confidence to accept that the love of Jesus Christ knows no shadow of alteration or change. When Jesus said, "Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy burdened," He assumed we would grow weary, discouraged, and disheartened along the way. These words are a touching testimony to the genuine humanness of Jesus. He had no romantic notion of the cost of discipleship. He knew that following Him was as unsentimental as duty, as demanding as love. ↗

— Brennan Manning

#god #jesus #love #trust #change

Waiting is an art that our impatient age has forgotten. It wants to break open the ripe fruit when it has hardly finished planting the shoot. But all too often the greedy eyes are only deceived; the fruit that seemed so precious is still green on the inside, and disrespected hands ungratefully toss aside what has so disappointed them. ↗

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

#patience #waiting #age

Most neuroses and some psychoses can be traced to the unnecessary and unhealthy habit of daily wallowing in the troubles and sins of five billion strangers. ↗

— Robert A. Heinlein

#friendship #internet #news #social-networking #friendship

Jesus, Willard says, “does not call us to do what he did, but to be as he was, permeated with love. Then the doing of what he did and said becomes the natural expression of who we are in him. ↗

— Dallas Willard

#life

If there is no element of asceticism in our lives, if we give free rein to the desires of the flesh (taking care of course to keep within the limits of what seems permissible to the world), we shall find it hard to train for the service of Christ. When the flesh is satisfied it is hard to pray with cheerfulness or to devote oneself to a life of service which calls for much self-renunciation. ↗

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

#christ #christianity #discipleship #discipline #fasting

Jesus-shaped spirituality hears Jesus say "believe and repent," but the call that resonates most closely in the heart of a disciple is "follow me." The command to follow requires that we take a daily journey in the company of other students. It demands that we be lifelong learners and that we commit to constant growth in spiritual maturity. Discipleship is a call to me, but it is a journey of "we. ↗

— Michael Spencer

#internet-monk #jesus #spirituality #spiritual-growth

To love with expectations is, in the end, an oppressive, driven thing, and people know it when they receive it. ↗

— Mark Galli

#love #love

Many pastors have been reduced to secular "mentors" and "coaches" in exchange for authentic disciplers of men. ↗

— John Paul Warren

#john-paul-warren #leadershio #mentors #men

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

— Brian Zahnd

#christianity #discipleship #jesus #love #forgiveness

It is important not only to read God's Word but to interpret God's world in the light of the Word. ↗

— Cindy Jacobs

#truth #change