More than once Jesus deliberately addressed certain issues that quickly diminished the number of onlookers. It was commitment that thinned the ranks.

Give us an intense distaste for things that displease You and a renewed pleasure in things that bring You honor and magnify Your truth.

You and I are, by birth, by nature, and by choice, inwardly depraved, which is to say that we are entirely corrupt. That's not to say that we have no good in us; we do. However, anything good in us has been tainted with evil. It touches everything. Without the redeeming power of Christ we cannot halt our own moral slide.

Each day of our lives we make deposits in the memory banks of our children.

Jesus' plan called for action, and how He expressed it predicted its success. He didn't say "you 'might' be my witnesses," or "you 'could' be my witnesses," or even "you 'should' be my witnesses." He said "you 'WILL' be my witnesses.

We want the safety of yesterday even though we know it's not where God would have us.

God has somehow placed into Christian's insides a special something, that extra inner reservoir of power that is more than a match for the stuff life throws at us.