Projects of personal transformation rarely if ever succeed by accident, drift or imposition.
God does not ‘love’ us without liking us...
Kingdom obedience is kingdom abundance.
No one need worry about our getting the best of God in some bargain with him, or that we might somehow succeed in using him for our purposes. Anyone who thinks this is a problem has seriously underestimated the intelligence and agility of our Father in the heavens. He will not be tricked or cheated.
The humility that cringes in order that reproof may be escaped or favor obtained is as unchristian as it is profoundly immoral.
The cautious faith that never saws off a limb on which it is sitting, never learns that unattached limbs may find strange unaccountable ways of not falling.
The idea of having faith in Jesus has come to be totally isolated from being his apprentice and learning how to do what he said.
And God has set up prayer in such a way that, if you want to explain it away, you can. That’s the human mind. God set it up like that for a reason, which is this: God ordained that people should be governed in the end by what they want.
My hope is to gain a fresh hearing for Jesus, especially among those who believe they already understand him. In his case, quite frankly, presumed familiarity has led to unfamiliarity, unfamiliarity has led to contempt, and contempt has led to profound ignorance.
The greatest danger to the Christian church today is that of pitching its message too low.
If our gospel does not free the individual up for a unique life of spiritual adventure in living with God daily, we simply have not entered fully into the good news that Jesus brought.
The true saint burns grace like a 747 burns fuel on takeoff.
If you don’t have a teacher you can’t have a disciple.
I believe that every human being is sufficiently depraved that when we get to heaven, no one will be able to say, I merited this.
In accord with his original intent, the heavenly Father has in fact prepared an individualized kingdom for every person, from the outset of creation.
Other kingdoms are still present on earth along with the kingdom of the heavens. That is the human condition.
The basic question ‘will I obey Christ ‘s teaching?’ is rarely taken as a serious issue. For example, to take one of Jesus’ commands, that is relevant to contemporary life, I don’t know of any church that actually teaches a church how to bless people who curse them, yet this is a clear command.
The union Christ had with the Father was the greatest that we can conceive of in this life-if indeed we can conceive of it.
Those who have been touched by forgiveness and new life and have thus entered into God’s rule become, like Jesus, bearers of that rule.
When we receive God’s gift of life by relying on Christ, we find that God comes to act with us as we rely on him in our actions.