The disciple of Jesus is not the deluxe or heavy-duty model of the Christian-especially padded, textured, streamlined, and empowered for the fast lane on the straight and narrow way. He stands on the pages of the New Testament as the first level of basic transportation in the kingdom of God.

We know we can't be spiritually transformed by just focusing on the will.

You really can't justify anything else but giving your whole attention to spiritual formation in Christ.

All of the spiritualities that are now clamoring for attention, from explicit Satanism to what we hear on Oprah, are concerned with the two issues of identity and empowerment. Who am I? How can I have the power to live? Those are the questions everyone has to deal with. If we don't come to terms with these, we lapse into some form of human decadence and failure.

There is no avoiding the fact that we live at the mercy of our ideas This is never more true than with our ideas about God.

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

Disciples are those who have been so ravished with Christ that others want to be like them.