Christian Discipleship Quotes

You are my Beloved, on you my favor rests.' It certainly is not easy to hear that voice in a world filled with voices that shout: 'You are no good, you are ugly; you are worthless; you are despicable, you are nobody- unless you can demonstrate the opposite.' These negative voices are so loud and so persistent that it is easy to believe them. That's the great trap. It is the trap of self-rejection. ~ Henri J.M. Nouwen

If we are cut loose from the anchor of God's Word, we will not be free. We will be slaves of personal passions and popular trends. ~ John Piper

But there is a more catholic understanding of the term apostolic: it means missional. The apostles were those called together to learn (as disciples) so they could be sent out on a mission (which is what both the Greek root for apostle and the Latin root for mission mean). From this vantage point, disciples are apostles-in-training; Christian discipleship (or spiritual formation ) is training for apostleship, training for mission. From this understanding we place less emphasis on whose lineage, rites, doctrines, structures, and terminology are right and more emphasis on whose actions, service, outreach, kindness, and effectiveness are good. ~ Brian D. McLaren

Sometimes we are looked upon as people who speak only of prohibitions. Nothing could be further from the truth! Authentic Christian discipleship is marked by a sense of wonder. We stand before the God we know and love as a friend, the vastness of his creation, and the beauty of our Christian faith. ~ Pope Benedict XVI

Exercise and proper eating habits are very important, since the Bible says that the body is God's holy temple, but I don't think that superbodies equate with committed Christian discipleship. Some of the greatest saints I've known have been those with physical infirmities. ~ Billy Graham

Finally, Lutheran and Reformed traditions distinguish (without separating) three uses of the law: the first (pedagogical), to expose our guilt and corruption, driving us to Christ; the second, a civil use to restrain public vice; and the third, to guide Christian obedience. Believers are not "under the law" in the first sense. They are justified. However, they are still obligated to the law, both as it is stipulated and enforced by the state (second use) and as it frames Christian discipleship (third use). We never ground our status before God in our obedience to imperatives, but in Christ's righteousness; yet we are also bound to Christ, who continues to lead and direct us by his holy will. ~ Michael S. Horton

Evolution works through this principle: the survival of the fittest. One of the essential elements of Christian discipleship demands that we work for this principle: the survival of the weakest and the gentlest. ~ Ronald Rolheiser

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

And so we have the result noted: the resources of God's kingdom remain detached from human life. There is no gospel for human life and Christian discipleship, just one for death or one for social action. The souls of human beings are left to shrivel and die on the plains of life because they are not introduced into the environment for which they were made, the living kingdom of eternal life. To counteract this we must develop a straightforward presentation, in word and life, of the reality of life now under God's rule, through reliance upon the word and person of Jesus. In this way we can naturally become his students or apprentices. We can learn from him how to live our lives as he would live them if he were we. We can enter his eternal kind of life now. ~ Dallas Willard

Without the Holy Spirit, Christian discipleship would be inconceivable, even impossible. There can be no life without the life-giver, no understanding without the Spirit of truth, no fellowship without the unity of the Spirit, no Christlikeness of character apart from His fruit, and no effective witness without His power. As a body without breath is a corpse, so the church without the Spirit is dead. ~ John Stott

Let us simplify our lives a little, let us make the changes necessary to focus on the simple, humble path of Christian
discipleship. ~ Dieter F. Uchtdorf

The one badge of Christian discipleship is not orthodoxy but love. ~ Billy Graham

Joy is not a requirement of Christian discipleship, it is a consequence. It is not what we have to acquire in order to experience life in Christ; it is what comes to us when we are walking in the way of faith and obedience. ~ Eugene H. Peterson

Christian discipleship does not involve the abandonment of any innocent enjoyment. Any diversion or amusement which we can use so as to receive pleasure and enjoyment to ourselves, and do no harm to others, we are perfectly free to use ... ~ Washington Gladden

Christian discipleship is a decision to walk in his ways, steadily and firmly, and then finding that the way integrates all our interests, passions, and gifts, our human needs and eternal aspirations. It is the way of life we were created for. ~ Eugene H. Peterson

Followers of Jesus do well to spend more time engaging him than explaining him. ~ Ron Brackin

Sing these songs, and they will renew you from head to toe, from heart to mind. Pray these poems, and they will sustain you on the long, hard but exhilarating road of Christian discipleship. ~ N. T. Wright

You cannot impart what you do not possess. ~ Howard G. Hendricks

Millions of Christians can and do go through life attending church, listening to sermons, reciting the creeds and never confront the seeming contradictions, redaction and myths passed off as verifiable history. ~ A. N. Wilson

I am a Christian. I know I am a Christian, knowing that Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior. ~ Ronnie Milsap

Heavenly Father, I thank you for your favour. ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

Because we cannot repair the loss of years away, homecomings are almost always conflicted. We are not longer at "home" in our former familiar place. And we do not live between two or more cultures, but rather in both. We are neither fully away, nor fully home.

In the pain of this tension, there is a strange blessing, a nudge that helps us to realise the fundamental sojourner status of our human existence. Life moves towards death. And for the Christian, there is the sense that this world as it is now is not our final home. Having made the return, our pilgrim status in the journey of faith becomes even more evident. This reminds us that in some strange way we are too early for heaven and too late for this world. ~ Charles Ringma

God speaks silently, God speaks in your heart; if your heart is noisy, chattering, you will not hear. ~ Caryll Houselander

If you think about life simply as one big waiting room for eternity, who cares if it's not fully air conditioned? ~ Joyce Rachelle

You cannot acquire the gift of peace if by your anger you destroy the peace of the Lord. ~ Pope Gregory I

We fear men so much, because we fear God so little. ~ William Gurnall

I'm not ashamed of the things I believe and why I believe them. ~ Mike Huckabee

When you ask God for a gift,
Be thankful if he sends,
Not diamonds, pearls or riches,
but the love of real true friends. ~ Helen Steiner Rice

My shoes are perfect for the very sexy woman who wants to be elegant. ~ Christian Louboutin

The Nation doesn't simple need what we have, It needs what we are. ~ Bharath Mamidoju

the Christian Science Monitor and the AP. I wrote to the photo desk of the New York Times several times, offering myself up as a stringer, and each time my e-mail went unanswered. I wrote directly to the New York Times correspondents based in India and asked if I could shoot anything for them. They told me they took their own pictures while on assignment. I would keep trying. I felt that if I could only shoot for the New York Times - to me, the newspaper that most influenced American foreign policy and that employed the world's best journalists - I would reach the pinnacle of my career. ~ Lynsey Addario

With Truth, Reason, and Morality off the board, we then capture their last Rook - that prissy little virtue, Temperance - for she depends on those other three for her beauty and was thus left wholly undefended. ~ Geoffrey Wood

There are certain times in a concert when I'll call an audible because I feel like God is calling me to play a different song. But truthfully, I feel called to play for the church whether it's song being played on Christian radio or it's concerts I'm doing primarily in churches. ~ Jonny Diaz

Worship changes the worshiper into the image of One worshiped ~ Jack W. Hayford

The main reason why serious historical studies of the Rosicrucian manifestos and their influence have hitherto been on the whole lacking is no doubt because the whole subject has been bedevilled by enthusiasts for secret societies. There is a vast literature on Rosicrucianism which assumes the existence of a secret society, founded by Christian Rosencreutz, and having a continuous existence up to modern times. In the vague and inaccurate world of so-called 'occultist' writing this assumption has produced a kind of literature which deservedly sinks below the notice of the serious historian. And when, as if often the case, the misty discussion of 'Rosicrucians' and their history becomes involved with the masonic myths, the enquirer feels that he is sinking helplessly into a bottomless bog. ~ Frances A. Yates

Proclaiming the death of the Lord "until he comes" (1 Cor 11:26) entails that all who take part in the Eucharist be committed to changing their lives and making them in a certain way completely "Eucharistic". It is this fruit of a transfigured existence and a commitment to transforming the world in accordance with the Gospel which splendidly illustrates the eschatological tension inherent in the celebration of the Eucharist and in the Christian life as a whole: "Come, Lord Jesus!" (Rev 22:20) ~ Pope John Paul II

The aesthetic and the agonistic are one, according to the ancient Greeks. ~ Harold Bloom

Why half the schools in your country are not allowed to teach evolution. Ask yourself why the U.S. Christian Coalition is the most influential lobby against scientific progress in the world. The battle between science and religion is still raging, Mr. Langdon. It has moved from the battlefields to the boardrooms, but it is still raging. ~ Dan Brown

North Korea was the evangelical Christian Holy Grail, the hardest place to crack in the whole world, and converting its people would guarantee the missionaries a spot in heaven. ~ Suki Kim

I want to see Christian fiction speak to the hard and real issues that tear people's lives apart. ~ Francine Rivers

I'm a Christian," I said, "because Christianity names and addresses sin. It acknowledges the reality that the evil we observe in the world is also present within ourselves. It tells the truth about the human condition - that we're not okay." "Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed," instructed James, the brother of Jesus (James 5:16). At its best, the church functions much like a recovery group, a safe place where a bunch of struggling, imperfect people come together to speak difficult truths to one another. Sometimes the truth is we have sinned as individuals. Sometimes the truth is we have sinned corporately, as a people. Sometimes the truth is we're hurting because of another person's sin or as a result of forces beyond our control. Sometimes the truth is we're just hurting, and we're not even sure why. ~ Rachel Held Evans

I believe that any Christian who is qualified to write a good popular book on any
science may do much more by that than by any direct apologetic work…. We can
make people often attend to the Christian point of view for half an hour or so; but
the moment they have gone away from our lecture or laid down our article, they
are plunged back into a world where the opposite position is taken for granted….
What we want is not more little books about Christianity, but more little books by
Christians on other subjects - with their Christianity latent. You can see this most
easily if you look at it the other way around. Our faith is not very likely to be
shaken by any book on Hinduism. But if whenever we read an elementary book
on Geology, Botany, Politics, or Astronomy, we found that its implications were
Hindu, that would shake us. It is not the books written in direct defense of
Materialism that make the modern man a materialist; it is the materialistic
assumptions in all the other books. In the same way, it is not books on
Christianity that will really trouble him. But he would be troubled if, whenever he
wanted a cheap popular introduction to some science, the best work on the
market was always by a Christian. ~ C.S. Lewis

The wise Christian will learn from the spiritual blunders of others. ~ Max Anders

When God hears us worshipping Him, that alone makes Him feel worthwhile to be God! ~ Raphael Ben Levi

Let us be today's Christians. Let us not take fright at the boldness of today's church. With Christ's light let us illuminate even the most hideous caverns of the human person: torture, jail, plunder, want, chronic illness. The oppressed must be saved, not with a revolutionary salvation, in mere human fashion, but with the holy revolution of the Son of Man, who dies on the cross to cleanse God's image, which is soiled in today's humanity, a humanity so enslaved, so selfish, so sinful. ~ Oscar A. Romero

The reason I am a Christian is not that it is nice, but that it is true. ~ John Stott

Christianity is entitled to the tribute of respect. I do not of course mean that all individuals, nominally Christian, deserve trust, confidence, or even respect, for the contrary is too often the case. Too often, men hold religion as they do property - in their wives' names. ~ David Josiah Brewer

The one surefire key to victory as a Christian in this fallen world is to be filled with the Holy Spirit - that is, to be completely submitted to and empowered by him. ~ Pedro Okoro

In Bright Shadow: C.S. Lewis on the Imagination for Theology and Discipleship ~ N.D. Wilson

As the family is restored, the ministry of the household becomes stronger and stronger. Strong families mean effective evangelism. A powerful context for evangelism that is readily accessible to every family is the ministry of hospitality. Hospitality provides an opportunity to show that faith produces more than just talk. It produces works- expressions of love from the very place where love is learned- the Christian home. ~ Tom Eldredge

My feelings are important for many things. They are essential and valuable. They keep me aware of much that is true and real. But they tell me next to nothing about God or my relation to God. My security comes from who God is, not from how I feel. Discipleship is a decision to live by what I know about God, not by what I feel about Him or my neighbors. ~ Eugene H. Peterson

23 Q. What is a civil marriage? A. It is nothing but a mere formality prescribed by the [civil] law to give and insure the civil effects of the marriage to the spouses and their children. 24 Q. Is it sufficient for a Christian to get only the civil marriage or contract? A. For a Christian, it is not sufficient to get only the civil contract, because it is not a sacrament, and therefore not a true marriage. ~ Pope Pius X

I love this about Christian spirituality. It cannot be explained, and yet it is beautiful and true. It is something you feel, and it comes from the soul. ~ Donald Miller

When you cultivate a godly thought life your soul will shine and you will exhibit the presence of the Lord in you. ~ Elizabeth George

Looking back to [Christendom's] youth, we recall the emotional stirrings, the deep sense of Christian purpose, when a temple, say, challenged the existing social order... Where is our Christian duty, our Christian aim? We do not know, we cannot say. Yet our ignorance and silence are certainly not due to the fact that the welfare state has made Christian thinking out of date and irrelevant.

The reason we have nothing to say to the contemporary situation is that we have not been thinking about the contemporary situation. We stopped thinking about these things long ago. We stopped thinking Christianly outside the scope of personal morals and personal spirituality. We got into the habit of stepping out of our Christian garments whenever we stepped mentally into the field of social and political life. Becuase the subject was social or political, we left all of our well-tried and well-grounded Christian concepts behind us, and adopted the vocabulary of secularism. We put aside all talk of vocation, or God's providence, or man's spiritual destiny, and instead chattered with the rest about productivity, assembly line psychology, and deployment of personnel. ~ Harry Blamires

The Rosary is a treasure of graces ~ Pope Paul V

Our task is not multiplying the number of our church members but making people happy ~ Sunday Adelaja

God wants to produce the character of Christ in our lives because he knows that the more we become like him, the more fulfilled we will be. ~ Rick Warren