Cost Of Discipleship Quotes

To follow Jesus is to pay the cost of discipleship, and then to die to ourselves, to our own interests, our own agendas and reputations. It is to pick up our crosses and count the cost of losing all that contradicts his will and his way - including our reputations before the world, and our standing with the people and in the communities that we once held dear. It is to live before one audience, the audience of One, and therefore to die to all other conflicting opinions and assessments. There is no room here for such contemporary ideas as the looking-glass self, and no consideration here for trivial contemporary obsessions such as one's legacy. ~ Os Guinness

This is the picture of Jesus in the gospel. He is something - someone - worth losing everything for. And if we walk away from the Jesus of the gospel, we walk away from eternal riches. The cost of nondiscipleship is profoundly greater for us than the cost of discipleship. For when we abandon the trinkets of this world and respond to the radical invitation of Jesus, we discover the infinite treasure of knowing and experiencing him. ~ David Platt

It is now time for us to ask the personal question put to Jesus Christ by Saul of Tarsus on the Damascus road, 'What shall I do Lord?' or the similar question asked by the Philippian jailer, 'What must I do to be saved?' Clearly we must do something. Christianity is no mere passive acquiescence in a series of propositions, however true. We may believe in the deity and the salvation of Christ, and acknowledge ourselves to be sinners in need of his salvation, but this does not make us Christians. We have to make a personal response to Jesus Christ, committing ourselves unreservedly to him as our Savior and Lord … At its simplest Christ's call was "Follow me." He asked men and women for their personal allegiance. He invited them to learn from him, to obey his words and to identify themselves with his cause … Now there can be no following without a previous forsaking. To follow Christ is to renounce all lesser loyalties … let me be more explicit about the forsaking which cannot be separated from the following of Jesus Christ. First, there must be a renunciation of sin. This, in a word, is repentance. It is the first part of Christian conversion. It can in no circumstances be bypassed. Repentance and faith belong together. We cannot follow Christ without forsaking sin … Repentance is a definite turn from every thought, word, deed, and habit which is known to be wrong … There can be no compromise here. There may be sins in our lives which we do not think we could ever renounce, but ~ John R.W. Stott

Many Christians want the benefits of their belief, but they hesitate at the cost of discipleship. ~ Billy Graham

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

We would like a church that again asserts that God, not nations, rules the world, that the boundaries of God's kingdom transcend those of Caesar, and that the main political task of the church is the formation of people who see clearly the cost of discipleship and are willing to pay the price. ~ Stanley Hauerwas

I long for people to fall in love with God and each other, and so I'm a big fan of being radically inclusive, whether that means not turning off transsexuals or folks who drive SUVs. But I also became aware of how delicate that venture can prove to be. The temptation we face is to compromise the cost of discipleship, and in the process, the Christian identity can get lost. We don't want folks to walk away. We're driven by a sincere longing for others to know God's love and grace and to experience Christian community. And yet we can end up merely cheapening the very thing we want folks to experience. This is the "cheap grace"4 that spiritual writer and fellow revolutionary Dietrich Bonhoeffer called "the most deadly enemy of the church." And he knew all too well the cost of discipleship; after all, it led to his execution in 1945 for his participation in the Protestant resistance against Hitler. ~ Shane Claiborne

The cost of discipleship is to live the life God has given us, serving in mundane ways the people he's put in our path. ~ Mark Galli

The kingdom of heaven is worth infinitely more than the cost of discipleship, and those who know where the treasure lies joyfully abandon everything else to secure it. ~ D. A. Carson

I am convinced that what drives most people away from Christianity is not the cost of discipleship but rather the cost of false fundamentals. ~ Rachel Held Evans

The question that has perhaps divided students of vouchers more than any other is their likely effect on the social and economic class structure. Some have argued that the great value of the public school has been as a melting pot, in which rich and poor, native- and foreign-born, black and white have learned to live together. That image was and is largely true for small communities, but almost entirely false for large cities. There, the public school has fostered residential stratification, by tying the kind and cost of schooling to residential location. It is no accident that most of the country's outstanding public schools are in high-income enclaves. ~ Milton Friedman

The essence of a successful business is really quite simple. It is your ability to offer a product or service that people will pay for at a price sufficiently above your costs, ideally three or four or five times your cost, thereby giving you a profit that enables you to buy and to offer more products and services. ~ Brian Tracy

I would like especially to mention you, the women, wives and mothers of Paraguay, who at great cost and sacrifice were able to lift up a country defeated, devastated and laid low by an abominable war ... You lived through many difficult situations which, in the eyes of the world, would seem to discredit all faith. Yet, inspired and sustained by the Blessed Virgin, you continued to believe ... God bless your perseverance, God bless and encourage your faith, God bless the women of Paraguay, the most glorious women of America. ~ Pope Francis

All of them, all except Phineas, constructed at infinite cost to themselves these Maginot Lines against this enemy they thought they saw across the frontier, this enemy who never attacked that way-if he ever attacked at all; if he was indeed the enemy. ~ John Knowles

To Hate or Be Great

To Hate or Be Great~
Which one is your fate?
You're mad and I'm glad,
My life won't be sad.

Raging with jealousy~
Blind, yet won't see.
The time you wasted,
Victory never tasted.

Fighting against the freed,
A heart, as black as coal.
Seeking to destroy the soul,
That's purposed with goals.


Without a "Vision" people perish,
Create things that you cherish.
Begin to turn your world around,
Come out of the lost... Be found!

Surrendering all... without cost,
Knowledge, Wisdom is boss.
A Life that's wonderful... No Doubt!
"Be Great"... It's what, I'm about! ~ Singleton Tate

High birth is a gift of fortune which should never challenge esteem towards those who receive it, since it costs them neither study nor labor. ~ Jean De La Bruyere

It is so easy to be wrong-and to persist in being wrong-when the costs of being wrong are paid by others. ~ Thomas Sowell

The Xbox 360 is the best game console ever designed. It's fast and powerful - games look as good on the 360 as on high-end PCs that cost six times as much. It's easy to navigate and has lots of useful secondary features - the ability to play digital video, stream MP3s, and so on. ~ James Surowiecki

Cell division allows us as organisms to grow, to adapt, to recover, to repair - to live. And distorted and unleashed, it allows cancer cells to grow, to flourish, to adapt, to recover, and to repair - to live at the cost of our living. Cancer cells grow faster, adapt better. They are more perfect versions of ourselves. ~ Anonymous

Forty years ago, Richard Branson, who ultimately founded Virgin Air, found himself in a similar situation in an airport in the Caribbean. They had just canceled his flight, the only flight that day. Instead of freaking out about how essential the flight was, how badly his day was ruined, how his entire career was now in jeopardy, the young Branson walked across the airport to the charter desk and inquired about the cost of chartering a flight out of Puerto Rico. Then he borrowed a portable blackboard and wrote, "Seats to Virgin Islands, $39." He went back to his gate, sold enough seats to his fellow passengers to completely cover his costs, and made it home on time. Not to mention planting the seeds for the airline he'd start decades later. Sounds like the kind of person you'd like to hire ~ Seth Godin

The much greater crimes of the Soviet Gulags occurred over decades and cost millions of lives. ~ Jean-Marie Le Pen

If the cost of naming the enemy is diplomatically or politically unacceptable, then the war is not likely to go well. ~ George Friedman

The Risen Christ proclaimed not that we 'have to forgive,' but rather, that at last we CAN forgive-and thereby free ourselves from consuming bitterness and the offender from our binding condemnation. This process requires genuine human anger and grief, plus-and here is the awful cost of such freedom-a humble willingness to see the offender as God sees that person, in all his or her terrible brokenness and need for God's saving power. I would never tell another, 'You have to forgive.' ~ Gordon Dalbey

What you just witnessed is what being a physical is all about. Nobody is going to teach you that you should let yourself feel like this. You'll probably hear the opposite -- that you should keep a 'clinical distance' and find ways to protect yourself from feeling. That it will cloud your judgment or make you seem weak or less professional. That's bullshit. If you don't let yourself feel this, you're missing out on what really matters. You want to be a healer? This is the cost. This is the essence of what we do. ~ Michael Saag

Insurance and funding traditionally drive capital investment. But in a world based on access, not ownership, the duration, value, cost and extent of financial services is distinctly different. ~ Lisa Gansky

Rage - Goddess, sing the rage of Peleus' son Achilles, murderous, doomed, that cost the Achaeans countless losses, hurling down to the House of Death so many sturdy souls, great fighters' souls, but made their bodies carrion, feasts for the dogs and birds, and the will of Zeus was moving toward its end. Begin, Muse, when the two first broke and clashed, Agamemnon lord of men and brilliant Achilles. ~ Homer

One's own free unfettered choice, one's own caprice, however wild it may be, one's own fancy worked up at times to frenzy
is that very "most advantageous advantage" which we have overlooked, which comes under no classification and against which all systems and theories are continually being shattered to atoms. And how do these wiseacres know that man wants a normal, a virtuous choice? What has made them conceive that man must want a rationally advantageous choice? What man wants is simply independent choice, whatever that independence may cost and wherever it may lead. And choice, of course, the devil only knows what choice. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

But even if, as Johnson argues, power and dominance serve no meaningful purpose, they always incur costs. In biology, the cost can be painfully visible. During courtship, the argus cock pheasant spreads his large secondary wing feathers, which are decorated with beautiful eye spots; the bigger they are, the more they stimulate the female. And the longer the feathers, the more progeny the cock will produce. So the more beautiful cocks produce more descendants. That should be a competitive advantage. But the evolution of the argus pheasant has run itself into a blind alley because the most gorgeous cock has feathers so huge and unwieldy that they may cause him to be eaten by a predator, because he can't fly away fast enough. Oskar Heinroth, the teacher of Konrad Lorenz, commented: 'Next to the wings of the argus pheasant, the hectic life of western civilized man is the most stupid product of intra-specific selection! ~ Margaret Heffernan

Because of how much movies cost, it's dangerous to be experimental on one film after the other. But we can experiment with television. We can do things that are fringe and bring ideas to the table that are offbeat and original. ~ Steven Spielberg

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

Snowbound up here with you. Without books or business to occupy my time, I wonder what I'll do," he added with a leer.
She blushed gorgeously, but her voice was serious as she studied his face. "If things hadn't gone so well for you-if you hadn't accumulated so much wealth-you could have been happy up here, couldn't you?"
"With you?"
"Of course."
His smile was as somber as hers. "Absolutely."
"Although," he added, linking her hands behind her back and drawing her a little closer, "you may not want to remain up here when you learn your emeralds are back in their cases at Montmayne."
Her head snapped up, and her eyes shone with love and relief. "I'm so glad. When I realized Robert's story had been fabrication, it hurt beyond belief to realize I'd sold them."
"It's going to hurt more," he teased outrageously, "when you realize your bank draft to cover their cost was a little bit short. It cost me $45,000 to buy back the pieces that had already been sold, and $5,000 to buy the rest back from the jeweler you sold them to."
"That-that unconscionable thief!" she burst out. "He only gave me $5,000 for all of them!" She shook her head in despair at Ian's lack of bargaining prowess. "He took dreadful advantage of you."
"I wasn't concerned, however," Ian continued teasing, enjoying himself hugely, "because I knew I'd get it all back out of your allowance. With interest, of course. According to my figures," he said, pausing to calculate in his ~ Judith McNaught

Other than a light beading of sweat on his forehead there was little evidence that his labors had cost him anything at all. ~ Cormac McCarthy

If I had learned anything in my life about love, it was that they were tenous things that could end at any moment. Caution was essential-but not at the cost of risking your life ~ Richelle Mead

Both the law and business have long recognized the propriety of quantity discounts. But since 1914 the Clayton Act has banned price discrimination "when the effect may be to substantially lessen competition or tend to create a monopoly." And since 1936 the Robinson-Patman Act has recognized such quantity discounts as legal only if they represent a saving in cost, and the law places the burden of proof on the seller. ~ George W. Stocking

LEGO gives its designers cost parameters: they can design anything they want as long as it falls within budget. These cost limitations resulted in a spike of creativity. 4. ~ Ramon Vullings

The worst illiterate is the political illiterate, he doesn't hear, doesn't speak, nor participates in the political events. He doesn't know the cost of life, the price of the bean, of the fish, of the flour, of the rent, of the shoes and of the medicine, all depends on political decisions. The political illiterate is so stupid that he is proud and swells his chest saying that he hates politics. The imbecile doesn't know that, from his political ignorance is born the prostitute, the abandoned child, and the worst thieves of all, the bad politician, corrupted and flunky of the national and multinational companies. ~ Bertolt Brecht

I am a man without a furnace. My windows are insulated by 19 sheets of glass which cost less than installing a heating system. ~ Amory Lovins

Why does an iPhone cost only a couple hundred dollars? Because, as the stage performer Mike Daisey depicted in an arresting one-man show called 'The Agony and Ecstasy of Steve Jobs,' Apple's shiniest products are made by a shadowy company in China called Foxconn. ~ Eric Liu

Such is the cost of immortality. No person is whole. No person is free. Over time, some have determined that the only way to live is to die. In death, a man or a woman is free of the weight of the past [and the future]. ~ Alan Lightman

My gift, if I would describe, is a double-edged sword. The good thing? I see through people and pierce their souls all the time. I can't count how many times I listen to lies when I know the truth and intentions. I detect inauthenticity easy no matter how perfect a façade is. Genuine people love me because I protect them, fake people hate me because I crush them. The bad thing? Because it is my belief that everyone can grow into something beautiful, when I was young my sincerity and willingness to understand were taken the cost of neglecting people that genuinely love me and that breaks my heart more than anything. Now that I am older best I can do is to let go and leave people to where they are. At least I can tell myself that I tried. ~ Dan Johnston

Two thoughts walked into my place. The first thought said that we hadn't slept together because sex would have closed an entrance behind us and opened an exit ahead of us. The second thought told me quite clearly what to do. Maybe Takeshi's wife was right - maybe it is unsafe to base an important decision on your feelings for a person. Takeshi says the same thing often enough. Every bonk, he says, quadruples in price by the morning after. But who are Takeshi or his wife to lecture anybody? If not love, then what? I looked at the time. Three o'clock. She was how many thousand kilometers and one time zone away. I could leave some money to cover the cost of the call. "Good timing," Tomoyo answered, like I was calling from the cigarette machine around the corner. "I'm unpacking." "Missing me?" "A tiny little bit, maybe." "Liar! You don't sound surprised to hear me." I could hear the smile in her voice. "I'm not. When are you coming? ~ David Mitchell

Of course, a lot of businesses want to reach students, so I funded the magazine by selling advertising. I sold something like $8,000 worth of advertising for the first edition, and that was in 1966. I printed up 50,000 copies, and I didn't even have to charge for them on the newsstand because my costs were already covered. ~ Richard Branson

Similarly, though the United States is one of the world's richest economies by per capita income, it ranks only around seventeenth in reported life satisfaction. It is superseded not only by the likely candidates of Finland, Norway, and Sweden, which all rank above the United States but also by less likely candidates such as Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic. Indeed, one might surmise that it is health and longevity rather than income that give the biggest boost to reported life satisfaction. Since good health and longevity can be achieved at per capita income levels well below those of the United States, so too can life satisfaction. One marketing expert put it this way, with only slight exaggeration: Basic Survival goods are cheap, whereas narcissistic self-stimulation and social-display products are expensive. Living doesn't cost much, but showing off does. ~ Jeffrey D. Sachs

Here we may mount from this dull Earth, and viewing it from on high, consider whether Nature has laid out all her Cost and Finery upon this small Speck of Dirt. ~ Christiaan Huygens

What is the cost of replacing and bringing up to speed one of your managers, supervisors, or front-line employees who left because they were frustrated with your organization's leadership? ~ Liz Weber

Nobody ever stops drinking until the cost of drinking becomes higher than the cost of not drinking. ~ Isabelle Holland

The costs of poor quality are tangible; they will cost you customers and money, and ultimately affect the success of your business. ~ Subir Chowdhury

The highest beings of all are the ones who are willing to pay any personal cost for the good of those who need them. ~ Orson Scott Card

The dollar is the final term in almost every equation which arises in the practice of engineering in any or all of its branches, except qualifiedly as to military and naval engineering, where in some cases cost may be ignored. ~ Henry R. Towne

Marlowe grinned. That so? I couldn't disagree more. Is that Nietzsche talking? Ah, the Germans. We have a factory in Germany, you know. Actually, Germany is a fine example, so let's take Germany: They were crushed in the Great War. Their debt was staggering. A pound of bread cost nearly three billion Marks! The Reichsmark was practically worthless - you'd have better luck papering your house with it than trying to buy goods or pay your bills. But Marlowe Industries is going to help them get on their feet. We're going to change the world. ~ Libba Bray

Over the course of a season, a miscue will cost you more than a good play. ~ Jerry Coleman

Discipleship isn't a program or an event; it's a way of life. It's not for a limited time, but for our whole life. Discipleship isn't for beginners alone; it's for all believers for every day of their life. Discipleship isn't just one of the things the church does; it is what the church does. ~ Bill Hull

The government - the ultimate short-term-oriented player - cannot withstand much pain in the economy or the financial markets. Bailouts and rescues are likely to occur, though not with sufficient predictability for investors to comfortably take advantage. The government will take enormous risks in such interventions, especially if the expenses can be conveniently deferred to the future. Some of the price-tag is in the form of back- stops and guarantees, whose cost is almost impossible to determine. ~ Seth Klarman

At the back of it there lies the central citadel of obstinacy: I will not give up my right to myself
the thing God intends you to give up if ever you are going to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. ~ Oswald Chambers

As policymakers, we need to foster an environment that allows U.S.-based innovators and entrepreneurs to compete and to flourish. Excessive regulations and bureaucratic red tape dramatically increase the cost of doing business and create uncertainty for companies. ~ Ralph Hall

Naive enough to set off in pursuit of Truth, I had explored - to no avail - any number of disciplines. I was beginning to be confirmed in my skepticism when the notion occurred to me of consulting, as a last result, Poetry: who knows? perhaps it would be profitable, perhaps it conceals beneath its arbitrary appearances some definitive revelation ... Illusory recourse! Poetry had outstripped be in negation and cost me even my uncertainties ... ~ Emil Cioran

The best way in my view is to just buy a low-cost index fund and keep buying it regularly over time, because you'll be buying into a wonderful industry, which in effect is all of American industry ... People ought to sit back and relax and keep accumulating over time. ~ Warren Buffett

I have a pretty large experience of boys, and you're a bad set of fellows. Now mind! ~ Charles Dickens