What is thinking? It is the activity of searching out what must be true, or cannot be true, in the light of the given facts or assumptions.

Imagine that you had discovered gold or oil on a certain property, and no one else knew about it. Can you see yourself being sad and feeling deprived for having to gather all your resources and sacrifice them in order to buy that property? Hardly. Now you know what it is like to deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow Jesus.

What you present as the gospel will determine what you present as discipleship. If you present as the gospel what is essentially a theory of the atonement, and you say, If you accept this theory of the atonement, your sins are forgiven, and when you die you will be received into heaven, there is no basis for discipleship.

Spiritual formation in Christ moves us toward a total interchange of our ideas and images for his.

As we mature in Christ, it is actually possible to outgrow fear.

A disciple is a person who has decided that the most important thing in their life is to learn how to do what Jesus said to do.

A carefully cultivated heart will, assisted by the grace of God, foresee, forestall, or transform most of the painful situations before which others stand like helpless children saying “Why?