Grace is not opposed to effort; it's opposed to earning.

God may not guide us in an obvious way because he wants us to make decisions based on faith and character.

Few people arise in the morning as hungry for God as they are for cornflakes or toast and eggs.

My central claim is that we can become like Christ by doing one thing -- by following him in the overall style of life he chose for himself.

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.

If you have a group of people come together around a vision for real discipleship, people who are committed to grow, committed to change, committed to learn, then a spiritual assessment tool can work.

Contemporary American churches in particular do not require following Christ in his example, spirit, and teachings as a condition of membership-either of entering into or continuing in fellowship of a denomination or a local church.... Most problems in contemporary churches can be explained by the fact that members have not yet decided to follow Christ.