He said people who followed Him should think of themselves more like ushers rather than the bouncers, and it would be God who decides who gets in. We’re the ones who simply show people to their seats that someone else paid for.
It’s easy to agree with what Jesus said. What’s hard is actually doing what Jesus did. For me, agreeing is cheap and obeying is costly. Obeying is costly because it’s uncomfortable. It makes me grow one decision and one discussion at a time. It makes me put away my pride. These are the kinds of decisions that aren’t made once for a lifetime; they’re made thirty seconds at a time.
We need to replace what we’ve settled for with what we’ve been longing for.
When we keep track of the good we’ve done or love people with an agenda, it’s no longer love; it’s just a bunch of tickets. We can either keep track of all the good we’ve done or all the good God’s done. Only one will really matter to us. In the end, none of us wants to find out we traded the big life Jesus talked about for a box full of worthless acknowledgment.
I enter each day assuming there’s a thirty-eighth miracle waiting for me if I’ll fully engage life and the people around me with love, honesty, and an unreasonable, almost annoying heap of expectation. What would happen in your life if you started doing the same?
I trust God because He’s the best author. I think God doesn’t spell out everything for us in life, but He does tell us how we can write our lives better; and trusting Him implicitly is always the right place to start.
We don’t need to call everything we do “ministry” anymore either. Just call it Tuesday. That’s what people who are becoming love do.
It’s hard to believe Jesus loves the van thieves and all the difficult people we’ve met just the same as you and me.
Could God speak to me audibly if He wanted to? You bet, and I hope He does sometime; I’ll let you know. Probably in a book called ‘God Talked to Me’. Until then, it seems that what God does most the time when He has something to say is this... He doesn’t pass us messages, instead He passes us each other.
God searches for us, no matter what dark place we’re in or what door we’re behind. He hears our impossible, audacious prayers for ourselves and others. And He delights in forgiving us and then answering those prayers by letting us return home to Him.
Don’t wait to join a movement. A movement is just a bunch of people making moves. Be a movement. Figure out what your next move is going to be, then make it. No one is remembered for what they only planned to do.
There are two kinds of people in this world. Those who walk into a room and say, ‘Here I am’ and those who walk into a room and say, ‘There you are.
Selfless love has the power to transform even the darkest places into meadows.
The clarity of purpose, undistracted energy, selfless love, and unselfish pursuits you bring to the world will be your legacy. Everything else will look like a distraction by comparison.
When we get our security from Christ, we no longer have to look for it in the world, and that’s a pretty good trade.
Loving people means caring without an agenda. As soon as we have an agenda, it’s not love anymore. It’s acting like you care to get someone to do what you want or what you think God wants them to do. Do less of that, and people will see a lot less of you and more of Jesus.
You become like the people you hang around, and to a great degree, you end up going wherever they’re headed.
If you want to make a big impact in the world, stop throwing pine on the fire in your life and burn the oak instead. Play the long game.
If you are a sincere friend, folks around you will quickly understand that there’s no hidden agenda and nothing on the other side of the equals sign – just you.
They don’t take the bait and collect what has no value to God. They shun all the attention because they don’t need it anymore. They realize bright lights don’t need spotlights. Instead, they see every act of selfless love as a declaration of their faith. They’ve come to see love as its own reward simply because it pleases God.