Discipling our children is not about teaching them to behave in a way that won’t embarrass us. We’re working toward something much more important than that. We’re actually raising our children with a view toward leading them to trust and to follow Christ.
you don’t have to live in community long to realize that lives which are blessed and instructive are still flawed. The grace of the gospel isn’t only that the Word was made flesh in Jesus, but also that the eternal Word is made present in weak and wonderful people.
It takes practice to stand with others facing pain of death, and it helps if you don't have to do it all alone. We should practice on the small stuff so that we will be better able to stand together for what we believe and for what we love, who may someday need our support.
The cross where Jesus died became also the cross where His apostle died. The loss, the rejection, the shame, belong both to Christ and to all who in very truth are His. the cross that saves them also slays them, and anything short of this is a pseudo-faith and not true faith at all.
Spiritual maturity is not reached by the passing of the years, but by obedience to the will of God. Some people mature into an understanding of God’s will more quickly than others because they obey more readily; they more readily sacrifice the life of nature to the will of God.
Our religious institutions are not giving very many men access to credible encounters with the holy or even with their own wholeness. We largely give men mandates, signposts, scaffolding and appealing images that tend to create religious identity and boundaries, but from the outside.
Part of the genius of (Nick) Sabin's system was that he understood that no matter the skill set, he was inheriting vulnerable kids from various backgrounds. For those times when they made poor decisions, as they invariably did, the safety net must be strong as far and wide as possible.
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.
Sometimes Eli believed his mother was embarrassed by him. "I swear, my mom thinks if I do one thing differently than the average person, I'm weird," Eli said later. "It's like she thinks I'm a freak or something. No matter what I do, it's not 'normal' enough for her.
Being that 'reason is not antithetical to faith' (Woods) and that Pentecost established the Reality of super-nature (Lewis) and that 'theology matters' (Wimber), then 'empowered evangelicalism' (Nathan) is the natural expression of discipleship."~R. Alan Woods [2013]
There is only One on record who has practiced Christianity in every respect at every moment of his life – Christ himself. In that sense, there are no practicing Christians, but only Christians who, in varying degrees, try to practice it and fail in varying degrees and then start again.
Just as at sea those who are carried away from the direction of the harbor bring themselves back on course by a clear sign, on seeing a tall beacon light or some mountain peak coming into view, so Scripture may guide those adrift on the sea of the life back into the harbor of the divine will.
This message God was communicating to mankind, this Gospel of Jesus, was a message to the heart as much as to the head, that the methodology was as important as the message itself, that the message could not be presented accurately outside of the emotions within which these truths were embedded.
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.
There is nothing I like better than conversing with aged men. For I regard them as travelers who have gone a journey which I too may have to go, and of whom I ought to inquire whether the way is smooth and easy or rugged and difficult. Is life harder toward the end, or what report do you give it?
