REFLECTIONS

Quotations to Stir Heart and Mind

T H E F O R M that discipleship takes is conditioned by the historic times in which one lives, as well as by the con text of an individual's life, but the underlying principle remains the same: each of us is called by love to love; called out of our narrow indivi dualism and our small private world, to allow ourselves t o be "turned around" by the allurement of God, and t o live for him, as Jesus did.
THELMA HALL, TOO Deep for Words

B E C O M E A D I S C I P L E means a

decisive and irrevocable turning t o both God and neighbor. What fol lows from there is a journey w h i c h . . . never ends in this life, a journey o f continually discovering n e w dimen sions of loving God and neighbor.
DAVID J. BOSCH, Transforming Mission

T H E FIMST AMD L A S T w o r d f o r a disciple o f Jesus is "Obey!" I mean to say that today the word "believe" is not as important as, "You w h o believe, obey him w h o m you believe!" Of what use is believing if you cannot obey?
J O H A N N C H R I S T O P H B L U M H A R D T in

W H A T D O E S I T P R O F I T YOU t o

E V A N G E L I S M is not selling Jesus, but showing Jesus; evangelism is not mere telling about Christ, but about being Christ. LEE C. CAMP, Mere Discipleship

give God one thing if he asks of you another? Consider what it is God wants, and then do it. You will as a result better satisfy your heart than with that toward which you your self are inclined.
ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS, The Collected

H A s E c E popular t o preach a painless Christianity and automat ic saintliness. It has become part o f our "instant" culture. "Just pour a little water on it, stir mildly, pick up a gospel tract, and you are on your Christian way." A. W. TOZER, Jesus, Author of Our Faith

Thy Kingdom Come: A Blumhardt Reader, Vernard Eller, ed.

Works of St. John of the Cross I T i s MOT our responsibility "to

ALL T R U E knowledge of God is born out o f obedience.

J O H N CALVIN, Institutes of the

make people 'Christians'" and get them baptized into a particular denomination, but rather t o help people decide t o follow Jesus and his radical message. Maybe this is w h y the N e w Testament writers only use "Christian" three times but "disciple" on 269 occasions! TOM GETMAN, World Vision Interna tional, personal correspondence

Christian

Religion

I T ' S H A R D t o remember that Jesus did not come t o make us safe, but rather t o make us disciples, citizens of God's n e w age, a kingdom o f surprise.
STANLEY HAUERWAS, quoted at

SuFFERI G is the true badge o f dis cipleship. The disciple is not above his master.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER, The Cost of

Discipleship
Compiled by Richard A. Kauffman

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