“Be willing to suffer, but don’t feel guilty for pleasure. Be strategic, but don’t think our strategies are always God’s strategies. Be willing to do anything, go anywhere, and minister to anyone. It matters more who you are than where you are. City, suburb, or country, if we are growing in godliness we will not be unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ (2 Peter 1:8).”
- Kevin DeYoung
“The devil or the serpent can now build on her distortion. ‘You will not surely die,’ he says. What he’s implying is ‘God is being selfish, threatening your potential. God knows that if you eat of that tree you will be equal with him. Your eyes will be open, you will acquire the knowledge of good and evil, you will become like God.’ He is flatly denying the idea that God would ever judge sin with death. It’s interesting that it’s the doctrine of judgment that is the very first to be denied. It frequently still is.”
- Liam Goligher, The Jesus Gospel
“Power is like saltwater; the more you drink the thirstier you get. The lure of power can separate the most resolute of Christians from the true nature of Christian leadership, which is service to others. It’s difficult to stand on a pedestal and wash the feet of those below.”
- Chuck Colson
“Over the years I have found that an astonishing number of Christians do not possess an assurance of their salvation. They are hopeful, and fairly sure, but still—in times of struggle and doubt, they cannot find that absolute certainty that they belong to God and are safe with Him. This doubt cripples your ability to grow in your love for God, the security that produces radical obedience, and the gratefulness that produces radical generosity.
What if we can’t “remember” the moment when we first made the decision to trust Jesus and “place our hand on His head”? It doesn’t really matter. All that matters is that you’re trusting Him as Lord and Savior right now. Think of it like this: I walk into a classroom and sit down in a chair. About halfway through the class you ask me if I ever made a decision to sit in the chair. I say “yes,” and you ask me how I know that I made that decision. I don’t walk you through the decision making process that led me to sit in the chair, reviving the logic and emotions that caused me to take seat. I simply show you that I am currently seated.”
HT: Vitamin Z
“Do you really live on a ball spinning in circles through the stars? Does the heat from the closest star really make trees and grass and moss out of the carbon dioxide in the air? Have our wizards really pulled black ooze up from beneath the earth’s skin, mixed it in their lairs into something that explodes, and made us magical metal boxes than can race around on roads, riding on those explosions? Are you bored with that, yawning in your seat belt? Is lightning real? Tornados? Does the big spinning ball beneath us always suck us down, and are we really talented enough to constantly balance on our feet? What kind of creatures are we?
Sit Moses and Beowulf down, and listen to their stories. Sit Bilbo down and listen to his. Do you disbelieve their tales? Are they made up? Are they fantasy? Now tell them your stories. Have you flown through the sky in a giant metal tube? Do we have boats that can sail to the very bottom of the sea? Have we thrown men all the way to the moon?
A hobbit would laugh at you. To him, your world could not be real. Your stories would be fun to read, beneath a blanket on a rainy day. He might look out of his window and sigh, wishing for a more magical world of his own.
In my stories, this world is a magical place, and not because I wish it was. Because it is.”
- N.D. Wilson
“The question that arises is whether people do what they are, or if they are what they do. The answer to this is imperative, because if we are what we do, then all we need to do is train people to act differently, and they will change themselves. But if we do what we are, then we do bad because we are bad, and we cannot do good until we become good, the very thing which bad people cannot do, no matter how many dollars are spent and organizations are founded to help them.”
- Mark Driscoll, The Radical Reformission
“As to myself, if I were not a Calvinist, I think I should have no more hope of success in preaching to men, than to horses or cows.”
- John Newton
And yes, I apologize for the title.
HT: Kevin DeYoung
“One of the underlying keys to reformission is knowing that neither the freedom of Christ nor our freedom in Christ is intended to permit us to dance as close to sin as possible without crossing the line. But both are intended to permit us to dance as close to sinners as possible by crossing the lines that unneccesarily separate the people that God has found from those he is still seeking.”
- Mark Driscoll, The Radical Reformission
“This relationship affects all others. It forms our identity, our contentment to allow him to work in another’s life, our response to circumstances that occur, our confidence in his ability to resolve any challenge. It is this connection that gives us a love for his church, which provides a patience for the long haul and a pattern for how we are to be and act among people. Any unresolved issue, hurt or mistreatment, confusion over what to do, gratitude for growth shown, joy over accomplishment recognized – all are marked or reframed by this relationship. Like a person in love sees everything differently, so this increasing grasp of who he is affects our response to everything else.”
- Julie Gorman, Community That is Christian
“We have somehow got hold of the idea that error is only that which is outrageously wrong; and we do not seem to understand that the most dangerous person of all is the one who does not emphasize the right things.”
- D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones
D.J. Williams
Louisville, KY
