Discipleship Quotes

Most principles are limp until they are tested.

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!

All great spirituality is about what we do with our pain.

It’s easy to give God a list of excuses for not feeling worthy or as capable as someone else, in our service to him. The problem is that God doesn’t call those who are unprepared or incapable. He calls those who have the talent and ability to serve. He has it all planned out for us. Our challenge is to accept his calling and move out in faith believing in his promises of help and support.

Politics is not leadership. It never has been. It never will be.

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

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).

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?

My son will wear the title well, the Duke thought, and realized with a sudden chill that this was another death thought.

He was so much the humblest one that Wendy was especially gentle with him.

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

When meeting criticism, he would regard it not as something to resent but as a thing to be examined, like an interesting beetle. "That's a curious view, not uninteresting.

Do your best, and your best will be growing better.

Tasks don't have to be high-impact to be worthy of high effort. Most things we do in any given day are relatively low impact. The cumulative impact of thousands of low-impact test is huge. These tasks can be transposed into worship.

We do not become less needy, less dependent when we pray; we become more needy, more dependent, which is to say, more human.

Even though every identity marker I have can be taken from me, the grace and peace of the Trinity overflows into the life of the believer.

I didn't know how faith felt when it grew incrementally.

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

God doesn't want meerly action but hearts driving action.

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

Christianity is a journey not a destination

He was perceived to be intellectually promiscuous, a little too eager to please all groups.

A husband's work as provider will be so difficult that it can only be fulfilled in the power of the Spirit and a transformed life.

Expect progress, not perfection.

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

A family that never embraces life's risks never really lives.

I do not politicize Christianity nor my discipleship as Jesus did not politicize either His divinity nor his humanity.

Church is not meant to be fun. It's meant to be formative.

God in His sovereign goodness often uses the painful and at times debilitating injury of a spear thrower to make us readier for His service. ... One thing you discover about spear throwers is that though it’s not necessary for them to be good, it’s essential for them to appear good.

As the sun rises first on mountain-tops and gilds them with his light, and presents one of the most charming sights to the eye of the traveller; so is it one of the most delightful contemplations in the world to mark the glow of the Spirit's light on the head of some saint, who has risen up in spiritual stature.

You know your Bible too well and life too little.

It takes a long time to grow an old friend, so I figure I better get moving.

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]

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

Push the needle into some middle range of guarded optimism.

Many of your relationship problems are not really relationship problems. They're personal problems that spill over into relationships.

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.

There is no condition of life in which we cannot abide in Jesus. We have to learn to abide in Him wherever we are placed. Our Brilliant Heritage, 946 R

Morning dawns when the grace overcomes nature.

It was well to be Martha and serve, but better to be Lazarus and commune.

The God of the universe--the creator of nitrogen and pine needles, galaxies and E-minor--loves us with a radical, unconditional, self-sacrificing love. And what is our typical response? We go to church, sing songs, and try not to cuss.

Resilience is rooted in habits we can cultivate and change.

There is never a time in the future in which we will work out our salvation. The challenge is in the moment, the time is always now.

The idyll ended, as idylls must.

Are you dedicated to your patient or your ego?

Mentors have a way of seeing more of our faults that we would like. It's the only way we grow.

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.

The Lord teaches us of His grace and the Gospel through difficult children. We learn what it's like to love like He loved. It is there, in our personal upper room, where we learn to wash the feet of those that are betraying us. It is there, kneeling before our rebellious children, that the real power of God is demonstrated.

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

each year, she finds her friendships less volatile and easier, because she increasingly succeeds at looking past their flaws and disappointments and homing in on their pleasures and on what set them in motion to begin with. And she wonders why she didn’t do that sooner, why she gave in to so much fury and sorrow when she could have just let those emotions go.

When we concentrate on preaching what people WANT to hear we will only succeed in exciting their flash and depressing their spirit.

You cannot have a moral holiday and remain moral, nor can you have a spiritual holiday and remain spiritual. God wants you to be entirely his, and this means that you have to watch to keep yourself fit. It takes a tremendous amount of time. Some of us expect to “clear the numberless ascensions”* in about two minutes.

Winnie the Pooh finds comfort in counting his pots of honey, and Rabbit finds comfort in knowing where his relations are – even if he doesn't need them at the moment.

Men need men to keep their edges hot and clean, whereas women keep us warm and soft.

Counseling is ultimately not about the counselee or the counselor, but about the Divine Counselor.

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

She noticed, as an exceptional woman would, that her stepson was exceptional.

Spiritual disciplines answer the shallow world.

Carnal love is the love of table, not of the host.

Contentment is not a power that may be exercised naturally, but a science to be acquired gradually.