Quotes About Jesus

JESUS CREATED A HIGHLY SUPPORTIVE BUT HIGHLY CHALLENGING CULTURE.

A Missional Community is a group of approximately 20 to 40 people who are seeking to reach a particular neighborhood or network of relationships with the good news of Jesus. The group functions as a flexible, local expression of the church and has the expressed intention of seeing those they are in relationship with become followers of Jesus with them. They exist to see God's Kingdom come to their friends and neighbors.

Scripture really seems to be getting at something here, something about orienting our lives around becoming lifelong learners of Jesus. It is liberating to think that, with God's Spirit, over time, we can learn the ways of Jesus, doing the things that he did while becoming the same type of person. It doesn't happen overnight, and the expectation of Scripture isn't that it happens overnight

Most of us have become quite good at the church thing. And yet, disciples are the only thing that Jesus cares about, and it's the only number that Jesus is counting.

we should focus on people who don't know Jesus yet, but Jesus himself gave us the model for doing that: Disciple people.

one creates a discipling culture, modeled on the life and ministry of Jesus, by accident. No one accidentally creates disciples. Discipleship is an intentional pursuit.

It is liberating to think that, with God's Spirit, over time, we can learn the ways of Jesus, doing the things that he did while becoming the same type of person. It doesn't happen overnight, and the expectation of Scripture isn't that it happens overnight.

As we make disciples and mobilize God's people for mission, the methodology we use must be congruent with the way of Jesus. We need to learn how to do family on mission.

the purpose of a family on mission is to multiply the life of Jesus by reproducing ourselves into the lives of others, so they become disciples of Jesus who can then reproduce themselves into the lives of others.

What we see from Jesus is that success isn't thousands of people and an ever-expanding church. Success is obedience to what the Father asks.

Jesus told his disciples that if they leveraged everything to seek the kingdom by following him, everything else would be thrown in as well! In other words, the secret to living the good life, to having it all, is seeking God's kingdom above everything else and becoming an apprentice of Jesus.

The model for prayer taught us by Jesus is shallow enough for a baby to bathe in and deep enough for elephants to swim through.

Throughout the Scriptures, the people of God continually succumb to the temptation to draw the boundary lines of faith more narrowly than what God has commanded. God's boundaries are simply broader and wider and higher and deeper than ours, so he calls his followers to be marked by the center--their faith in Jesus Christ--rather than by their boundaries.

How do we redeem culture? We observe it and engage it on its terms and then demonstrate the message of Jesus through service and love.

Jesus is not vitally committed to our comfort and safety; he is committed to the advancing of his kingdom revolution in the hearts of people everywhere.

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.

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

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.

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.

I know too many people who muck around in the haze of being near God but never really embracing the new, wonderful, incredible, blessed life that God has for them. We have all lived in the haze from time to time. I know I have. This is the essence of our mess. And the challenge is to invite Jesus into the midst of your mess. Jesus died for your salvation in the afterlife, and you have a place in heaven for all of eternity. But Jesus also died for your freedom now.

love God, love people, serve the world, care for creation, live in the truth, and share the Good News of God's love revealed in Jesus.