Quotes from Mike Erre

Trust always reveals itself in behavior. Trust in Jesus is no exception; it involves much more than just mentally agreeing with information about him. Trusting Jesus, like trusting other things, should show up in how we actually live.

The followers of Jesus weren't immediately known as 'Christians.' Instead they were known as followers of the Way--a way of life instituted by Jesus. Following Jesus was understood not as an act of believing but primarily as a way of living.

So much of our teaching on what it means to follow Jesus depends on getting people to do 'spiritual' disciplines: Bible reading, solitude, fasting, service, prayer--these are all necessary and vitally important disciplines. But they are not the only ways we express spirituality, nor are they the only disciplines that are spiritual in nature.

Jesus never called us to be believers--he calls us to be followers who believe. It was so easy for me to be a Christian early on because I thought the whole thing was an exercise in believing. But following Jesus is an exercise in living--because we believe.

Scripture teaches and assumes that all issues are spiritual issues and all disciplines are spiritual disciplines. This is the key to spiritual growth: the recognition that all aspects of my everyday life can be done for the glory of God and used by him to shape me more and more into the image of God.

Walking with Jesus (otherwise known as discipleship) becomes not a matter of learning to do a bunch of new religious things; rather, it means doing the things I have always done but doing them differently.

The more we grow, the longer we walk with Him, the bigger Jesus should get.

This has always been the temptation of the people of God--to tame him. He increases mystery; we desire to remove it. He introduces paradox; we seek to solve it. We, like the Israelites before us, want a God who is understandable and predictable and safe.

Many of us are religious precisely to keep us from trusting God. We go to church, we give money, and we do all the right things--in the hope that God will never puts us in a position where we actually have to trust him.

How does God grow people? Often by reminding them how big he is and how small we are. By introducing mystery and tension and difficulty into life so that we might be forced to move beyond trusting our faith and religious systems to actually trusting him.

Jesus calls his churches to overcome--to engage and redeem and be victorious over the culture around them--and then shows them what this looks like. This is one of the paradoxes of our faith--that Jesus conquered and overcame through suffering and sacrificial love.

Every time you are obedient to Jesus in faith, you war against the dragon and demonstrate the power and love of God. Loving your enemies, blessing people who insult you--this is not a passive, wishy-washy kind of love; it is violent resistance to the powers that govern this world.

Christ followers need not be threatened by truth outside the Bible, for all truth is a reflection of the Holy Creator God.

This is what it means to engage culture: take it on its own terms. Claim truth wherever you find it and use it to lead others to Jesus--the source of all that is good, true, and beautiful.