Discipleship Quotes

“Nothing teaches us about the preciousness of the Creator as much as when we learn the emptiness of everything else.”
― Charles Spurgeon, Morning and Evening, Based on the English Standard Version

“Jesus calls us to his rest, and meekness is His method. The meek man cares not at all who is greater than he, for he has long ago decided that the esteem of the world is not worth the effort.”
― A. W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God

“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, The Ragamuffin Gospel

“Most neuroses and some psychoses can be traced to the unnecessary and unhealthy habit of daily wallowing in the troubles and sins of five billion strangers.”
― Robert A. Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land

“There is a kind of listening with half an ear that presumes already to know what the other person has to say. It is an impatient, inattentive listening, that despises the brother and is only waiting for a chance to speak and thus get rid of the other person. This is no fulfillment of our obligation, and it is certain that here too our attitude toward our brother only reflects our relationship to God. It is little wonder that we are no longer capable of the greatest service of listening that God has committed to us, that of hearing our brother's confession, if we refuse to give ear to our brother on lesser subjects. Secular education today is aware that often a person can be helped merely by having someone who will listen to him seriously, and upon this insight it has constructed its own soul therapy, which has attracted great numbers of people, including Christians. But Christians have forgotten that the ministry of listening has been committed to them by Him who is Himself the great listener and whose work they should share. We should listen with the ears of God that we may speak the Word of God.”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together: The Classic Exploration of Christian Community

“We are not meant to die merely in order to be dead. God could not want that for the creatures to whom He has given the breath of life. We die in order to live.”
― Elisabeth Elliot, Passion and Purity: Learning to Bring Your Love Life Under Christ's Control

“The "show business," which is so incorporated into our view of Christian work today, has caused us to drift far from Our Lord's conception of discipleship. It is instilled in us to think that we have to do exceptional things for God; we have not. We have to be exceptional in ordinary things, to be holy in mean streets, among mean people, surrounded by sordid sinners. That is not learned in five minutes.”
― Oswald Chambersd Chambers

“You will know as much of God, and only as much of God, as you are willing to put into practice.”
― Eric Liddell, Disciplines of Christian Life

“The soul is "torn apart in a painful condition as long as it prefers the eternal because of its Truth but does not discard the temporal because of familiarity.”
― St. Augustine of Hippo, Confessions

“When a person is evoked for who she is, not who she is not, the most often result will be the inner healing of her heart through the touch of affirmation.

Jesus said you are to love one another as I have loved you, a love that will possibly lead to the bloody, anguish gift of yourself, a love that forgives seven times seven, that keeps no record of wrong. This is the criterion, sole norm, the standard of discipleship in the New Israel of God.”
― Brennan Manning, The Furious Longing of God

“What makes authentic disciples is not visions, ecstasies, biblical mastery of chapter and verse, or spectacular success in the ministry, but a capacity for faithfulness. Buffeted by the fickle winds of failure, battered by their own unruly emotions, and bruised by rejection and ridicule, authentic disciples may have stumbled and frequently fallen, endured lapses and relapses, gotten handcuffed to the fleshpots and wandered into a far county. Yet, they kept coming back to Jesus.”
― Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel

“One does not surrender a life in an instant. That which is lifelong can only be surrendered in a lifetime. Nor is surrender to the will of God (per se) adequate to fullness of power in Christ. Maturity is the accomplishment of years, and I can only surrender to the will of God as I know what that will is.”
― Elisabeth Elliot, Shadow of the Almighty: The Life and Testament of Jim Elliot

“Fortunately, God made all varieties of people with a wide variety of interests and abilities. He has called people of every race and color who have been hurt by life in every manner imaginable. Even the scars of past abuse and injury can be the means of bringing healing to another. What wonderful opportunities to make disciples!”
― Swindoll Charles R.

“Judgement is the forbidden objectivization of the other person which destroys single-minded love. I am not forbidden to have my own thoughts about the other person, to realize his shortcomings, but only to the extent that it offers to me an occasion for forgiveness and unconditional love, as Jesus proves to me.”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer

“The one indispensable requirement for producing godly, mature Christians is godly, mature Christians.”
― Kevin DeYoung

“He who has conquered his own coward spirit has conquered the whole outward world;”
― Thomas Hughes, Tom Brown's Schooldays

“If there is no element of asceticism in our lives, if we give free rein to the desires of the flesh (taking care of course to keep within the limits of what seems permissible to the world), we shall find it hard to train for the service of Christ. When the flesh is satisfied it is hard to pray with cheerfulness or to devote oneself to a life of service which calls for much self-renunciation.”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship

“There are only three ways to teach a child. The first is by example, the second is by example, the third is by example.”
― Albert Schweitzer

“Mentors have a way of seeing more of our faults that we would like. It's the only way we grow.”
― George Lucas, Star Wars: Episode 2 Attack of the Clones

“The choice we face is not, as many imagine, between heaven and hell. Rather, the choice is between heaven and this world. Even a fool would exchange hell for heaven; but only the wise will exchange this world for heaven.”
― Dave Hunt, An Urgent Call to a Serious Faith

“Jesus-shaped spirituality hears Jesus say "believe and repent," but the call that resonates most closely in the heart of a disciple is "follow me." The command to follow requires that we take a daily journey in the company of other students. It demands that we be lifelong learners and that we commit to constant growth in spiritual maturity. Discipleship is a call to me, but it is a journey of "we.”
― Michael Spencer, Mere Churchianity: Finding Your Way Back to Jesus-Shaped Spirituality

“Do they desire to join me in thanksgiving when they hear how, by your gift, I have come close to you, and do they pray for me when they hear how I am held back by my own weight? ...A brotherly mind will love in me what you teach to be lovable, and will regret in me what you teach to be regrettable. This is a mark of a Christian brother's mind, not an outsider's--not that of 'the sons of aliens whose mouth speaks vanity, and their right hand is a right hand of iniquity' (Ps. 143:7 f.). A brotherly person rejoices on my account when he approves me, but when he disapproves, he is loving me. To such people I will reveal myself. They will take heart from my good traits, and sigh with sadness at my bad ones. My good points are instilled by you and are your gifts. My bad points are my faults and your judgements on them. Let them take heart from the one and regret the other. Let both praise and tears ascend in your sight from brotherly hearts, your censers. ...But you Lord...Make perfect my imperfections”
― St. Augustine of Hippo, Confessions

“If you are looking for the way by which you should go, take Christ, because he himself is the way.”
― Thomas Aquinas

“Jesus of Nazareth always comes asking disciples to follow him--not merely "accept him," not merely "believe in him," not merely "worship him," but to follow him: one either follows Christ, or one does not. There is no compartmentalization of the faith, no realm, no sphere, no business, no politic in which the lordship of Christ will be excluded. We either make him Lord of all lords, or we deny him as Lord of any.”
― Lee Camp, Mere Discipleship: Radical Christianity in a Rebellious World

“The trouble with deep belief is that it costs something And there is something inside me, some selfish beast of a subtle thing that doesn't like the truth at all because it carries responsibility, and if I actually believe these things I have to do something about them. It is so, so cumbersome to believe anything. And it isn't cool.”
― Donald Miller, Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality

“Focusing on effective leadership without focusing on a willingness to follow is like studying clapping by studying only the left hand.”
― Jonathan Haidt, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion

“I rather mistrust young men who slip into life gracefully.”
― E.M. Forster, A Room with a View

“The real liberation dwells in the discipline.”
― Neeraj Agnihotri, Procrasdemon - The Artist's Guide to Liberation from Procrastination

“We advise disciples not to follow anyone. Let them follow themselves. Each one should follow his resplendent and luminous inner Being.”
― Samael Aun Weor, MAJOR MYSTERIES

“Action without prayer thins out into something very exterior. A prayerless life can result in effective action and accomplish magnificent things, but if there is no developed interiority, the action never enters into the depth and intimacy of relationships.”
― Eugene H. Peterson, Tell It Slant: A Conversation on the Language of Jesus in His Stories and Prayers