God’s intention is not to become the feel-good Father of a myriad of isolated individuals who appropriate the Christian faith as yet another avenue toward personal enlightenment.–Joseph Hellerman

For Paul, the church is a family

God, In Jesus’ great work of redemption, was not establishing a series of isolated personal relationships with His individual followers. He was creating a family of sons and daughters – siblings – who are now “all one in Christ Jesus.” (Gal. 3:28). The saving work of Christ therefore has a corporate, as well as an individual, dimension. For Paul, the church is a family. – Joseph Hellerman

He did not come to bring peace, but a revolution…

Jesus Christ has irreparably changed the world.

When preached purely, His Word exalts, frightens, shocks, and forces us to reassess our whole life. The gospel breaks our train of thought, shatters our comfortable piety, and cracks open our capsule truths. The flashing spirit of Jesus Christ breaks new paths everywhere. His sentences stand like quivering swords of flame because He did not come to bring peace, but a revolution. The gospel is not a children’s fairy tale, but rather a cutting-edge, rolling-thunder, convulsive earthquake in the world of the human spirit.

God himself in his especially personal and self-giving aspect

The Spirit is not some magical, mysteriously supernatural aura of a dynamistic kind, nor a magical being of an animistic kind, but God himself in his especially personal and self-giving aspect: as a power which creates life. The Spirit is God himself, a merciful power establishing his reign over man’s heart, over the whole of man, inwardly present to man and apparent in his workings to man’s human spirit. Hans Kung, The Church

The Parched Ground of Our Souls

Because we approach the gospel with preconceived notions of what it should say rather than what it does say, the Word no longer falls like rain on the parched ground of our souls. - Brennan Manning, The Furious Longing of God

Authentic Living

“When the imitation of Christ does not mean to live like Christ, but to live your life as authentically as Christ lived his, then there are many ways and forms in which a man can be a Christian.”  - Henri Nouwen, The Wounded Healer

Let them thank the LORD for his steadfast love...

23      Some went down to the sea in ships,
    doing business on the mighty waters;
24      they saw the deeds of the LORD,
    his wondrous works in the deep.
25      For he commanded and raised the stormy wind,
    which lifted up the waves of the sea.
26      They mounted up to heaven, they went down to the depths;
    their courage melted away in their calamity;
27      they reeled and staggered like drunkards,
    and were at their wits’ end.
28      Then they cried to the LORD in their trouble,
    and he brought them out from their distress;
29      he made the storm be still,
    and the waves of the sea were hushed.
30      Then they were glad because they had quiet,
    and he brought them to their desired haven.
31      Let them thank the LORD for his steadfast love,
    for his wonderful works to humankind.
32      Let them extol him in the congregation of the people,
    and praise him in the assembly of the elders. (Ps. 107:23-32 NRSV).

Disturb Us…

Disturb us, Lord, when
We are too pleased with ourselves,
When our dreams have come true
Because we dreamed too little,
When we arrived safely
Because we sailed too close to the shore.

Disturb us, Lord, when
With the abundance of things we possess
We have lost our thirst
For the waters of life;
Having fallen in love with life,
We have ceased to dream of eternity
And in our efforts to build a new earth,
We have allowed our vision
Of the new Heaven to dim.
Disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly,
To venture on wilder seas
Where storms will show Your mastery;
Where losing sight of land,
We shall find the stars.
We ask you to push back
The horizons of our hopes;
And to push back the future
In strength, courage, hope, and love.
This we ask in the name of our Captain,
Who is Jesus Christ.

It's not possible to be "too radical" for Jesus...

“Our lives have become absurd.”

"From all that I said about our worried, overfilled lives, it is clear that we are usually surrounded by so much outer noise that it is hard to truly hear our God when his is speaking to us. We have often become deaf, unable to know when God calls us and unable to understand in which direction he calls us. Thus our lives have become absurd. In the word absurd, we find the Latin word surdus, which means 'deaf.' A spiritual life requires discipline because we need to learn to listen to God, who constantly speaks but whom we seldom hear. When, however, we learn to listen, our lives become obedient lives. The word obedient comes from the Latin word audire, which means 'listening.' A spiritual discipline is necessary in order to move from an absurd to an obedient life, from a life filled with noisy worries to a life in which there is some free inner space where we can listen to our God and follow his guidance. Jesus' life was a life of obedience. He was always listening to the Father, always attentive to his voice, always alert for his directions. Jesus was 'all ear.' That is true prayer: being all ear for God. The core of all prayer is indeed listening, obediently standing in the presence of God." – Henri Nouwen, Making All Things New

“…we are able to put on a good front when we know others are watching…”

Frankly the battle is won or lost precisely in the trifling areas of life…. It is the small fidelities that are the most helpful in training the heart toward God. These thousands upon thousands of little actions of righteousness and peace and joy in  the Holy Spirit slowly but surely change our heart. More than any other thing the small corners of life reveal who we truly are. The large virtues most often occur in a public forum and usually we are able to put on a good front when we know others are watching. It is in the unguarded moments, however, when no one is watching that what is really in our heart comes to the surface. And may the revelation of our heart be a cause for rejoicing in the goodness of God.” Richard Foster, Spiritual Classics.

There must be an environment created within the Family of God in which the stranger is welcomed and received rather than treated as a threat, annoyance, or intruder.–Dr. Lillis

The church as an irrelevant social club…

The church must be reminded that it is not the master or the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state. It must
be the guide and the critic of the state, and never its tool. If the church does not recapture its prophetic zeal, it will become an
irrelevant social club without moral or spiritual authority. - Martin Luther King, Jr., Strength to Love, 1963.

These very clearly are not the weapons of Christian warfare…

When the Church is taken merely as a means to transform society, very little is accomplished. For in that case the uniqueness of the Church is denied and we enter the battle on the same terms as secular and godless forces. We assume the battle for right and justice can be won by force, by technique, by doing. It can’t. These very clearly are not the weapons of Christian warfare (Eph. 6:10-20). Truly Christian transformation of culture comes through Christlike (and hence sacrificial) love.

But this fact by no means cancels out the responsibility to do, to act, to walk in the words of God. Rather, the being and the doing go together. The being is fundamental, but the doing is the natural result. – Howard A. Snyder, The Community of the King

Nothing that has not died will be resurrected.

It was not for societies or states that Christ died, but for men. In that sense Christianity must seem to secular collectivists to involve an almost frantic assertion of individuality. But then it is not the individual as such who will share Christ’s victory over death. We shall share the victory by being the Victor. A rejection, or in the scripture’s strong language, a crucifixion of the natural self is the passport to everlasting life. Nothing that has not died will be resurrected. – C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory

Small acts of kindness and love

Saruman believes it is only great power that can hold evil in check, but that is not what I have found. I found it is the small everyday deeds of ordinary folk that keep the darkness at bay. Small acts of kindness and love. - Gandalf

“We need to love our neighbors as ourselves…”

"We need to love our neighbors as ourselves, do to them as we would be done to. Receiving the good news of the kingdom will enable us to do that, for it obliterates scarcity and win-lose relationships. Then, in deed as well as in prayer we will seek their good as well as our own. A life of prayer shows us the way to what we need and harmonizes the desires of everyone in the group. Because we are living in the kingdom of the heavens, we are released from absorbing desires that would deflect us from what is really good. In may ways it is the life of prayer that discovers a space in which all can live." -Dallas Willard, The Divine Conspiracy

Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that…

The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral,
begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy.
Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it.
Through violence you may murder the liar,
but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth.
Through violence you may murder the hater,
but you do not murder hate.
In fact, violence merely increases hate.
So it goes.
Returning violence for violence multiplies violence,
adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars.
Darkness cannot drive out darkness:
only light can do that.
Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.

Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.

If you could find a better way…

"If you could find a better way, Jesus would be the first one to tell you to take it. And if you don't believe that about him, you don't have faith in him, because what you're really saying is that he would encourage you to believe something that is false." – Dallas Willard

O you blasphemers and betrayers of Christ!

Jesus Christ lived in the midst of his enemies. At the end all his disciples deserted him. On the Cross he was utterly alone, surrounded by evildoers and mockers. For this cause he had come, to bring peace to the enemies of God. So the Christian, too, belongs not in the seclusion of a cloistered life but in the thick of foes. There is his commission, his work. 'The kingdom is to be in the midst of your enemies. And he who will not suffer this does not want to be of the Kingdom of Christ; he wants to be among friends, to sit among roses and lilies, not with the bad people but the devout people. O you blasphemers and betrayers of Christ! If Christ had done what you are doing who would ever have been spared' (Luther).” ― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together

Extremists for Love

[T]hough I was initially disappointed at being categorized as an extremist, as I continued to think about the matter I gradually gained a measure of satisfaction from the label. Was not Jesus an extremist for love: "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you." Was not Amos an extremist for justice: "Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever flowing stream." Was not Paul an extremist for the Christian gospel: "I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus." Was not Martin Luther an extremist: "Here I stand; I cannot do otherwise, so help me God." And John Bunyan: "I will stay in jail to the end of my days before I make a butchery of my conscience." And Abraham Lincoln: "This nation cannot survive half slave and half free." And Thomas Jefferson: "We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal . . ." So the question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be. Will we be extremists for hate or for love? Will we be extremists for the preservation of injustice or for the extension of justice? In that dramatic scene on Calvary's hill three men were crucified. We must never forget that all three were crucified for the same crime--the crime of extremism. Two were extremists for immorality, and thus fell below their environment. The other, Jesus Christ, was an extremist for love, truth and goodness, and thereby rose above his environment. Perhaps the South, the nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists. – MLK, Letter From A Birmingham Jail

They’ll know we are Christians by our love. Or not.

Why do we judge Jesus’ criterion for authentic discipleship irrelevant? Jesus said the world is going to recognize you as he is by only one sign: the way you are with one another on the street every day. You are going to leave people feeling a little better or a little worse. You’re going to affirm them or deprive them, but there’ll be no neutral exchange. If we as a Christian community took seriously that the sign of our love for Jesus is our love for one another, I am convinced it would change the world. We’re denying to the world the one witness Jesus asked for: Love one another as I’ve loved you. (John 15:12) – Brennan Manning, The Furious Longing of God